WTN: Two Burgs and a Pomerol in DC

Weekend trip to DC with my girlfriend. Food and wine was terrific.

Friday Night, dinner outside at Blue Duck Tavern. Food was surprisingly excellent- a spring lamb entree that was dynamite, great grits and young (not "baby") carrots side dish, really tasty braised beef...and dynamite homemade icecream for dessert. I'm a sucker for Craft-esque "simple" farmhouse food, and this was much better than I expected and its reviews. With the dinner we BYOed a 2002 Marquis d'Angerville Volnay Champans, which was still kind of closed but opened as we sat out in the beautiful evening. Full of waxy red cherry fruit- my girlfriend noted that it was a dead ringer for Twizzlers, and she was right. Dense, tannic, rich, probably a few years away from peak, but very enjoyable as is. Volnay and Chambolle are pretty much the only places on earth that can make a red-fruited wine with such intensity.

Saturday night, at Central Michel Richard. Got a great table right in front of the open kitchen where the head chef and sous chef were working. Along side terrific fries, steak, and steak tartare (my favorite dish, and a bitch to wine-match) we BYOed a 2005 P & T Matrot Monthelie. This is supposedly 10-20% pinot gris and it was lovely- red fruit, raspberry and tart cherry, deliciously snappy and acidic. Perhaps not as rich as the first night's wine, but more fragrant---really, the similarities b/w the two were uncanny. Frankly, if I'd tasted this blind I would have presumed it was an 2006 Angerville Volnay. Interesting to contrast this wine with other 2005 Volnays I've had w/o the dollop of white- this, unlike those, wasn't shut down at all.

Tonight, after I got back home, I popped a bottle of 1988 Clos du Vieux Plateau Certan (Pomerol). This was really cheap at May's Acker online auction ($75 for 4 bottle before premium, I think) so I took a flyer even though I couldn't find much on this wine behind a really dismissive quote in Clive Coates book and a favorable Decanter review. Anyways, this is great- nice and open, mostly resolved but not dried up, plummy, chocolatey, the tiniest vegetal hint to remind you you're in Bordeaux. Screams for roast lamb---couldn't help but wish I had been drinking it with the spring lamb on Friday night.

Great eating in DC (a notoriously bad food city), very good wines, and an all-around great weekend (great company, too!)

... DC (a notoriously bad food city)...

Huh?

... DC (a notoriously bad food city)...

Huh?

I mean, so famously so that anyone who argues otherwise is either (a) from DC-area and speaking out of misguided but well-meaning native pride or (b) had the tastebuds burnt off their tongue in a tragic accident.

I'm with you, Frank. Without sounding too defensive, I think of DC as closing in on cities like San Francisco, New Orleans and NYC food-wise. I eat lunch out 5 days a week and dinner not so often. I have seen the Penn Quarter section of the city go from a single sandwich shop in the bottom of the old Hecht's Department Store 30 years ago to dozens and dozens of world class restaurants with A+ foods of every style. World famous chefs are tripping over themselves to open a spot. Add to that the people you see from government and the entertainment industry and it's a fantastic show!

I grew up in DC but live in NYC and I think DC has some great food. Where does that leave me?

Just the fact that Michel Richard calls it home means quite a bit.

It IS a nice town. If the weather is right, it is a fantastic place to visit. Especially in the spring.

I had dinner about a year ago at Blue Duck Tavern and was greatly impressed. (It also credits the source of the food such as "from such-and-such farm in Pennsylvania" "cheese from such-and-such Vermont" etc." On my most recent visit to DC I did have dinner at Nora's (largely organically raised produce) but didn't get back to Blue Duck Tavern so I hope maybe on my next DC journey to revisit it.

... DC (a notoriously bad food city)...

Huh?

I mean, so famously so that anyone who argues otherwise is either (a) from DC-area and speaking out of misguided but well-meaning native pride or (b) had the tastebuds burnt off their tongue in a tragic accident.

And this from a guy who compares Angerville's Volnay Champans to Twizzlers... yeah, I trust your palate.

Or else you don't know what you think because you'd just finished praising the meals you had there. Which is it?

What are you, some kind of idiot? Because Angerville made it, it can't taste like Twizzlers? Is that too gauche for your refined word-palette? Would the note have satisfied you if I had written "waxy red fruit, verging on the candied, perhaps a hint of maraschino"? I think people who write flowery tasting notes are moronic. Lest we forget, this is fermented grape juice. Terrifically complex and delicious grape juice, but grape juice nonetheless. And if Angerville makes a Volnay that, for whatever twisted reason, tastes like a f---ing Twizzlers, then thats what it tastes like.

And as my post made very clear, in my fairly extensive experience in DC I've found it to have miserable food for a metro area of it's size. I was pleasantly surprised to eat two good meals in a weekend, especially since Blue Duck seems to get middling reviews and I disliked Citronelle when I ate there a couple of years back (making me suspicious of Central). Look, Palena, Minibar and Komi do not a food-scene make, no matter how hard people might wish it to be so. DC has too many transplants from non-food-oriented parts of the country to ever compete with American cities where food is part of the DNA, let alone nearly any other Western capital. (Perhaps Ottawa is worse. I defer to our Canadian posters' judgment on that one).

And this from a guy who compares Angerville's Volnay Champans to Twizzlers... yeah, I trust your palate.

Or else you don't know what you think because you'd just finished praising the meals you had there. Which is it?

[David M. Bueker]

And folks think I'm opinionated.

I didn't grow up in or live in DC, and I don't think my tastebuds have been burnt off, but I find lots of good restaurants there. Palena, Komi, Citronelle, Laboratorio at Galileo, Blacksalt, Marcel's, Equinox, Kinkead's without thinking twice, Lavandou and Tabard Inn for BYO offlines, plus a number of good steakhouses (assume you're not counting those) and a pretty rich selection of "ethnic" cuisine. Calling DC a wasteland for good dining seems a bit out of touch, but I guess we could chalkit up to divergent preferences.

And folks think I'm opinionated.

There's opinionated, and then there's OPINIONATED!!

I didn't grow up in or live in DC, and I don't think my tastebuds have been burnt off, but I find lots of good restaurants there. Palena, Komi, Citronelle, Laboratorio at Galileo, Blacksalt, Marcel's, Equinox, Kinkead's without thinking twice, Lavandou and Tabard Inn for BYO offlines, plus a number of good steakhouses (assume you're not counting those) and a pretty rich selection of "ethnic" cuisine. Calling DC a wasteland for good dining seems a bit out of touch, but I guess we could chalkit up to divergent preferences.

...and don't forget Zola, Zaytinya, Zengo, Oyamel, Cafe Atlantico, The Source...I could go on and on.

I didn't grow up in or live in DC, and I don't think my tastebuds have been burnt off, but I find lots of good restaurants there. Palena, Komi, Citronelle, Laboratorio at Galileo, Blacksalt, Marcel's, Equinox, Kinkead's without thinking twice, Lavandou and Tabard Inn for BYO offlines, plus a number of good steakhouses (assume you're not counting those) and a pretty rich selection of "ethnic" cuisine. Calling DC a wasteland for good dining seems a bit out of touch, but I guess we could chalkit up to divergent preferences.

...and don't forget Zola, Zaytinya, Zengo, Oyamel, Cafe Atlantico, The Source...I could go on and on.

What about CityZen? Its been a while since was last there but thought it was on par with many of the best restaurants in the country. Definetly prefered it to Gary Danko's or NobHill at the MGM although I have only dined at each of those places once.

Agree with most of the above - at least the ones I've been to. Didn't mean to leave them off - my list was just a quick shoot-from-the-hip list of the first few that came to mind.

What are you, some kind of idiot?

These are the kind of folks that turn people away from forum boards. To think that you're called an idiot as you disagree to the quality of restaurants in DC. I'd probably be called a total sh**head if I admitted to enjoying a lot of the '98 vintage California Cabernet. I'm very much a newbie here and very much enjoy this board. Others, I'll never post on due to their abusive nature.....I sure hope this board doesn't adopt that nature.

Drew

Didn't mean to leave them off...

I sure didn't mean to suggest that you'd left them off for any reason, my intent was simply to supplement your post.

What are you, some kind of idiot?

These are the kind of folks that turn people away from forum boards. To think that you're called an idiot as you disagree to the quality of restaurants in DC. I'd probably be called a total sh**head if I admitted to enjoying a lot of the '98 vintage California Cabernet. I'm very much a newbie here and very much enjoy this board. Others, I'll never post on due to their abusive nature.....I sure hope this board doesn't adopt that nature. Drew

Very good point, Drew. One's opinion of a city's restaurant scene, in my view, is nothing to be called an idiot over. If we all agreed on everything, what a boring board this would be.

I'd probably be called a total sh**head if I admitted to enjoying a lot of the '98 vintage California Cabernet.

Naw. I also enjoyed the few 98's I had and the prices were much more reasonable.

To be fair to David, his "idiot" comment had nothing to do with the DC restaurant issue, but Frank's slightly snide remark about his palate (Volnay/Twizzlers). Frank added some emoticon/gremlins/smilies, but obviously it stung. If everyone could take a deep breath, it would probably help.

I'd probably be called a total sh**head if I admitted to enjoying a lot of the '98 vintage California Cabernet.

Naw. I also enjoyed the few 98's I had and the prices were much more reasonable.

Actually, '98 is one of the few recent years of CalCabs that I bought much of. In general, I much preferred '98s to the ballyhooed vintages flanking it on either side.

Mark Lipton