Roundup: Where I've been Eating

I know, foodies--I've been a bad, bad blogger. I've been spending all my time writing for We Love DC, it's half-way through February and I have three measly posts to show for it. I swear I'll get this schedule down of working, writing for two blogs, attending media events, searching for other paid gigs and having a life.

Truth is I've actually been eating at a few different places. But with these next three venues, I haven't felt like I got a good enough grasp of the food to write a full-fledged review. These are more like initial impressions, "first looks," as we call them at We Love DC. So here's a roundup of three places I've been chowing down at recently.

1) Meathead Mobile Eatery

Let me start out by saying that I love Sauca. I love 'em so much I could slather most of my food in their sauces (mmmm dill yogurt sauce). So I was kind of disappointed when I tried their new food truck creation, Meathead. I figured I'd go all out and get the meathead sandwich: steak, pork, chicken with cole slaw, caramelized onions, triple cheese sauce and a touch of their other three sauces. The cole slaw was really tasty (this coming from someone who usually hates cole slaw), and the flavors of the sandwich all went together for the most part. But the meat itself was kind of chewy...you know, like the shaved meat you get on gyros that's probably been cooked to the point of no return? Not a fan of chewy meat on my sandwiches. Feel free to leave some feedback about them, especially if you had a different experience.

2) The Italian Store
Yes, I'm talking about the famed Italian Store in Arlington. Before I start, I think I went into this store expecting a revolutionary experience that would change my life (man I do that too often with hyped up restaurants!). I will refrain from going all Jersey on you and barking about how the sandwiches here don't live up to the ones at home. They don't. I am like Marshall in that episode of How I Met Your Mother, where he tries to find that perfect burger he once ate. I'm like Captain Ahab searching for Moby Dick. For me, the perfect sandwich just.doesn't.exist.in.DC. And I've come to terms with this. It exists in two delis in New Jersey, and anything else for me is a cheap imitation at perfection.

So with all my personal sandwich baggage out of the way, I will say that Italian Store does make good subs. I'll ignore the fact that they use shredded lettuce. I think my hangup really is that they make Philly-style hoagies, which I'm not too keen on. There is a difference between Italian delis of Philadelphia origins and those of New Jersey origins. They lack chicken cutlet sandwiches and grilled zucchini (though maybe you could feasibly craft such a sandwich there?).

I also tried their cheese ravioli...somehow I ended up with the "lowfat cheese ravioli," because I didn't see any "regular fat" raviolis. The pasta dough itself had a good consistency and flavor, but the filling was just another average ricotta ravioli filling. Shout in the comments section if there's a different frozen pasta from the Italian Store that I should try.

3) Uptown Deli in Bethesda

There she goes again with the delis and the sandwiches and the delis! I know I'm a broken record. But the food I had at Uptown was quite delicious. It's new, which I think explains why it doesn't quite have the...character that is usually present in those hometown delis. You know, all the chachkies, the signs and stuff. Two items on the menu stood out for me. Firstly, the breakfast sandwich which you can fortunately get on a Sunday afternoon at 2 pm. It's on a real bagel, it isn't greasy. The egg is cooked just right with the melted cheese on top and the sausage is well-browned. I could certainly see myself getting up early on the weekends, before all of DC and Bethesda are hustling about, grab a paper and one of those sandwiches, do the crossword puzzle and I'd be in a very happy place.

The other sandwich I tried and enjoyed was the foghorn leghorn. Ah, a deli that uses whole pieces of lettuce. The chicken was well seasoned and the melted provolone went well with the chipotle sauce they used. Good bread, too.

So there's a little peak of where I've been eating lately. I've got plenty of places on my list to get to and hopefully I'll make my way to some of them this weekend. Also, check back this weekend for a list of my WLDC roundup posts that might be of interest to you foodies!

Take a bite: www.bonappetitfoodie.com.

Free Coffee in February

The other week I finally got to go to a TBD happy hour hosted along with SeamlessWeb, an online food ordering website. In honor of SeamlessWeb's DC launch, they've gotten eateries around town to give away free coffee from now until February 27th (you may also have seen the SeamlessWeb truck handing out free coffee last week). Considering I start every morning with a cup of Joe and sometimes pay upwards for $3 for my cup 'o jet fuel, this is a definite win.

Here's a little video/jingle from them about Free Coffee Days. Doesn't seeing all that snow make you feel even better about this week's strangely warm weather?



If you really want to go the extra mile, you can tweet a picture of yourself with your free cup of coffee and get a shot at winning a $100 SeamlessWeb gift card. Cheers to free coffee, my fellow caffiends.

Take a bite: www.bonappetitfoodie.com.

Restaurant Review: Hook

After the lackluster experience I had at Tacklebox a few months back, I was looking forward to trying the sister restaurant, Hook, which I had heard better things about and was named one of DC's 100 Very Best Restaurants by the Washingtonian in 2010. Overall, the meal had some high notes and a few low ones as well. Still, if you're looking for a convenient option at an upscale restaurant for seafood in Georgetown, Hook is a good bet.


Mahi Mahi at Hook

With my Groupon in hand and my friend Phil in town, we headed over to Georgetown for a nice seafood dinner. To start, we both had the curried cauliflower and crab bisque which was creamy and had a bit of a spicy kick afterwards. While there were several lumps of fresh crab meat in the soup, I frankly would have liked to see a bit more crab (this is a seafood restaurant after all, right?). But on a frigid winter night, the hot bisque with the slightly spicy curry was just right.

For dinner itself, I ordered the mahi mahi with forbidden rice, spiced mango coulis and watercress. My fish was cooked perfectly, with the crunchy grill marks on top, but a tender, moist flaky inside. And the flavors of the mahi mahi with the particular rice and mango coulis all went well together. I tried a piece of the tuna, perfectly seared and ruby red on the inside (I was tempted to switch plates with my friend when he wasn't looking; I am a sucker for good tuna).

Before I move on to dessert, there are two brief remarks I have to make about Hook. Firstly, the menu online is not up to date, although Hook is hardly the first (and definitely won't be the last) restaurant to be guilty of this. It's annoying to see several dishes listed in online menus, only to arrive at the restaurant and find out they're not serving any of the dishes that had your mouth watering a few hours or days earlier. Hook's menu online had more options than the menu we actually saw at the restaurant. I understand seafood might be trickier when it comes to updating the menu, simply because there's more variability in the market, it depends on what's fresh, what's in season, what was caught. But really, how hard is it to throw an updated PDF online when the menu changes?

Secondly, the service we had at Hook was not great, but it wasn't bad. Our waiter was very friendly, he paid enough attention to us, he asked us how our food was. But there were a few areas in which he fell short, and at a "nice restaurant" in Georgetown, well, I guess I just expect better. He didn't ask us if we wanted drinks before we ordered, and I heard him give a shpiel about different items on the menu to a nearby table with a larger party. My friend Phil and I got no such shpiel. Maybe it's cause we look pretty baby-faced, which often translates to "look out, young people who probably don't know how to tip" in many people's minds, but would it have been so hard to just tell me a little more about the mahi mahi? Or suggest a particular fish on the menu that stood above the rest?



Caution: objects on blog may be smaller than they appear

With room for dessert, I ordered the housemade s'mores, expecting a gooey, carmelized marshmallow and melted chocolate tower of goodness. I was a girl scout growing up; s'mores are near and dear to my heart and there are times where you'll find me making them over the gas stove in my kitchen at 2 am. Instead, dessert can be best summed up with Phil's remark, "Where's the rest of it?"

The four miniature s'mores immediately clashed with the dessert I had envisioned. The chocolate portion was thick, decently sweet, but the graham cracker underneath was brittle and plain. What made dessert even more disappointing was the fact that Hook's pastry chef is Heather Chittum, former contestant on Top Chef Desserts. And when I went to a Top Chef Desserts viewing party at the restaurant some months ago, I had some really great desserts! Dessert definitely missed the mark.

Overall, Hook had fantastic seafood entrees and I applaud the restaurant's commitment to serving sustainable seafood. Was I wowed? Not necessarily, but I did enjoy a solid meal and I love any and all seafood. The restaurant has a lovely, subdued atmosphere, with soft, warm lighting and you don't have to shout across the dinner table to be heard. I would certainly eat at Hook again since the appetizers and entrees were superb, and the restaurant stands above others crowding M street with touristy food traps.

Take a bite: www.bonappetitfoodie.com.

Food Bloggers Brunch at Dino

I'd like to think I'm not the only person on the planet who wakes up some morning and says, "Gee, I could really eat some meatballs and a hunk of mozzarella before noon." And this past Sunday, that's exactly what I did at the DC food bloggers brunch at Dino.

The food blogger community in DC is a pretty cool one, and even though I have yet to officially meet all the bloggers in person, I feel like I already know half of them through the great internet and Twitter. Thanks to Thrifty DC Cook for setting up the brunch and thanks to Dean from Dino for graciously hosting all of us and allowing us to completely take over the second floor for a few hours.

I apologize in advance for the shoddy photos. In attempting to sleep off the remainder of my cold this past Sunday, I ran out of the house and forgot my nice camera. If only my iPhone had a flash.

Anyway, there were a bunch of highlights from the meal, and if you're looking for brunch in the city with an Italian edge, Dino is the right place.

My favorite picks from brunch:

1) Burrata - Oh what I wouldn't give to have a ball of salted mozzarella from the Italian deli in my hometown. But this comes pretty damn close. The unassuming milky white ball of cheese is so silky smooth, with that slightly "squeaky" exterior that mozzarella's known for. The middle has creamy curds that slowly ooze out when you cut into it. I could eat this cheese every day, even if that meant I would grow to resemble it's blob-like structure. Eating this made me want to return to Rome.

2) Baci Italiana - Scallops with duck liver wrapped in pancetta in a glaze. I repeat, all of that in a thick, syrupy glaze. It was kind of hard to taste each individual part, but the crunchy, salty pancetta stood out with the sweet glaze.

3) Saltimbocca - As I said before, there are occasions where I wake up craving Italian food. I've been caught before eating cold pizza, straight out of the fridge at 7 am when I was in high school. I've also been caught stuffing my face with cold tomato sauce and meatballs from my fridge at 7 am, thinking no one was watching. Picture that for a second. Laugh. Don't judge. I would say that hot meatballs from Dino are probably better on a Sunday morning than cold leftover pizza.

If and when I go to brunch at Dino again, I would probably order something other than the eggs benedict, only because the hollandaise didn't do it for me and it was oddly sort of sweet. Everything else from the meatballs to the mozzarella, I would definitely eat again. And maybe I'd try a nice bellini instead of a peppery bloody mary. All in all, brunch at Dino was delicious, service was attentive and on point for our big group and the company was great. Until next time, food bloggers of DC!

Take a bite: www.bonappetitfoodie.com.