Welcome to Restaurant Week

a.k.a. Why I should listen to Boss Dave about food recommendations in DC.

Around mid-August, tons of friends and acquaintances began blathering endlessly about something called "restaurant week." Apparently a fixture of cities around the Northeast (I've also heard news of the same concept in Baltimore, Philly, and NYC), restaurant week offers three course meals for $30 at restaurants around the city. While the restaurants may range from the inexpensive (and thus clearly not worth it) to the supremely expensive (but also not worth it because the food isn't good) to supremely expensive and completely and totally worth it, I got one piece of advice from fellow foodie Dave, who argued that while the food may be more reasonably priced during restaurant week, it ends up more mass produced. And since everyone and their mom (in the case of Friend Terri, literally her mom) decides to go, every decent restaurant is packed, and you get what you might expect from overcrowded restaurants: kitchens crash, food is ill-prepared, servers are in bad moods, and the overall experience is generally not as good.

So I missed the entirety of restaurant week in August, thinking I was dodging a bullet. But when it came around this winter, I decided I shouldn't knock it until I tried, it, so I went all in. An invite from friend Terri took us out to Willow in Arlington. I just knew I had to eat with Alyse, so we tried the Oceanaire Seafood Room in Penn Quarter. And Scott and I had agreed to find a spot, so I managed to pick up a super late table during Corduroy's extended version of restaurant week.

Dave was right.

The first effort was with Alyse, Elisabeth, and Intern Monica at Oceanaire Seafood Room. I ordered a clam chowder that was good, but no better than the $3 chowder I can get at the Maine Avenue Seafood Market. My main coarse was a grilled Alaskan Salmon in a beurre blanc. While I was impressed with the grilling technique--it was well caramelized without being overdone--it was drowning in a beurre blanc was so heavy and poorly made that I couldn't even finish the dish. Finally, a chocolate cake that was. Eh. My dining companions may have had slightly better experiences, but Intern Monica claimed she preferred my wasabi-soy vinaigrette to the cajun sauce she was received with her mahi mahi. And anyone who dines with me knows that my ultimate opinion of a restaurant comes down to its ability to serve me something superior to what I can make at home. Grade: C+

But to be fair, Oceanaire is a chain that isn't regarded as one of the better restaurants in DC, so I approached my next destination, Willow, with an open mind. It's got a good reputation, and good buddies Tommy, Andrea, Terri, and Jessi seemed excited enough about it. My first course was a chestnut gnocchi with duck confit. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't gnocchi. It was drowning in a sauce (soup?) alongside some mushy vegetables and a couple of scraps of duck confit that might as well have been chicken. It didn't taste awful, and I did finish it, but I was expecting a much more impressive and well-conceived dish. I ordered horseradish crusted skate, as I was fresh off my experience of crusting prime rib with the deliciously salty biting flavor.

No. Horseradish. Flavor. It could have been crusted in baking powder, for all I knew. Really? Don't put horseradish in the name of the dish if it's completely undetectable. I did enjoy the taste of the skate, which I had never tried before, but it ended up being just a few steps up from a well-fried piece of catfish. Yikes. I did, however, enjoy the peachy Sauvignon Blanc I ordered along with it.

Finally, the obvious high point of the meal: a white chocolate cheesecake. Though poorly named (it had the texture of pudding more than a cheescake) it was an absolutely delicious rose of another name. Overall grade: B-

Which brings us to Corduroy and a restaurant week-jaded version of T. Granted, Corduroy is supposed to be one of the better restaurants in the city and has gotten rave reviews from everyone I know who loves food. But still, my restaurant week experience thus far has been pretty disappointing, and I wasn't expecting much.

Boy was I wrong. As I walked into the tucked-away restaurant on the second floor of the Four Points Sheraton, I immediately noticed something different about the place. Certainly, the decor was understated and classy--much to my liking--but the smell. Oh lord, the smell was just divine. And as I was enjoying my first whiffs of the combination of delicious aromas, I caught my first glance of a plate--a cornish game hen, perhaps? The plating was clean while creative, and I could tell I was in for a good night.

Six of us, this time: Coworkers Morgan and Julie, My Boy Scott and his friend Sarah, and Friend Lisa. We sat down to a relatively extensive menu for restaurant week which lots of intriguing options. A parsnip soup, a mozarella "porcupine", a lobster salad with basil oil. Mmmmm.....I decide to run with the parsnip soup, which ended up the choice of a majority of the table. Morgan and Julie ran with the mozarella porcupines--chunks of warm, fresh mozarella with buffalo sauce and what looked like fried cellophane noodles. My parsnip soup was warm, delicate, and addictive. I just couldn't stop eating it. New Years Resolution: Cook more with parsnips.

The food menu wasn't the only extensive one. We enjoyed an extensive wine list, complete with a myriad of tempting options. Fellow foodie Sarah and I were dispatched to choose a bottle for a few of us, and we settled on a Kunin Syrah from '03 that I was pretty impressed with. Subtly complex, little bit of cherry, little bit of oak. But not too pretentious. Tastyyyyy.

The main courses weren't any easier to choose from. A flat iron steak, striped bass, a melange of vegetables....but like so many other times, there was really only one choice for me. The lamb, a top sirloin from New Zealand, cooked medium rare and served with creamed spinach.

And the lamb is what knocks this meal into top 5 meals of all time. It simply could not have been cooked to a more perfect level of doneness. The creamed spinach was a perfect compliment, as were the duo of sauces. One au jus, another I just couldn't identify and couldn't even begin to prepare. The lamb alone is probably my single favorite dish of all time, just edging out Perilla's braised pork belly and Bobby Flay's 16 spice chicken.

Finally, the dessert. I order an apple tart. A couple of others order the creme brulee, and one set of ice creams. The ice cream that came along with my dessert was a deliciously fresh and creamy homemade vanilla, and the pastry a honeycomb of cinnamon goodness. But the apples. The apples were bitter. And thus, the only note that prevented Corduroy from serving me the best meal I've ever eaten, an honor that still goes to NYC's Perilla. Of course, all would be different if I had ordered the creme brulee, which was sinfully good. So good I finished the plates of not one, not two, but three others who had ordered it and run out of room. Grade: A+ 96 out of a possible 100.

So sure, I'll probably do restaurant week once every cycle, more so for the time I got to share with friends than anything else, but the only one that impressed me enough to warrant a return for a meal that doesn't just cost $30 was clearly Corduroy. Now I'm just looking for an excuse to go back. Anyone hungry?