Capital Nourishment – Dining Around D.C.

Image(Perhaps you’ve heard of him?)

The District of Columbia has neither the history of Boston, the sexiness of New York, nor the cache of Charleston. It is a manufactured city, born of compromise, and possessed (as JFK once remarked) of Northern charm and Southern efficiency. It is an industry town where politics and media converge both to dominate the culture and take themselves way too seriously.

When it comes to restaurants, it may not be in New York’s league (or even Los Angeles’s), but I like to think of it as a large, provincial city with an inferiority complex, always trying to compete gastronomically with the big boys. Sort of like Chicago with better seafood.

My own relationship with Washington D.C. goes way back and is a fraught one. Despite despising politics, I have been strangely drawn here for decades. So much so that I’m just as comfortable noshing around Georgetown, the Penn Quarter, or Dupont Circle as I am navigating the Las Vegas Strip. The obligatory family museum visits when I was growing up led to interning for a Senator on Capitol Hill in 1971, where a big dose of Vietnam War debates inoculated me forever from the disease of partisan politics.

Thankfully it didn’t blunt my appetite for the town, which I think deserves to be more famous for its restaurants than it is.

When I’m in the District (every year for the past ten), I lean towards the tried and true. There’s a whole contemporary food scene with gastro-pubs aplenty, but when I’m there, I enjoy sliding into restaurants that fit like a well-worn blazer, run by decorated veterans who have honed their craft, like José Andrés and Fabio Trabocchi.

Oyamel Cocina Mexicana - Eater DC(Let’s taco about how great Oyamel is)

If you hang around the Penn Quarter, you can eat very well and never leave the Andrés orbit. Our last trip found us popping into Oyamel for some exemplary tacos (above) and mouth-searing aquachile before we hit the National Gallery. Across the street is the amazing Asian-Peruvian mashup of China Chilcano  (the $70 Peruvian tasting menu is a steal) and down the same block you’ll find the original Jaleo, which, despite its age (circa 1993), remains one of the best Spanish restaurants in America.

Having eaten in all three multiple times, I can confidently state you can close your eyes and point on the menu and still be seduced by whatever shows up on your plate  – whether it’s a soothing huitlacoche quesadilla, a bracing Peruvian ceviche, or the liquified olives “Ferran Adrià.” A remarkable triple threat of authentic, in-your-face-flavors mixed with enough panache to keep us coming back for decades now.

The most popular of all is  Zaytinya — Andrés’ take on Greek, Turkish and Lebanese food, just a couple of blocks north from where it all started. All of his restaurants are busy, but despite Zaytinya’s size, age (circa 2002), outdoor seating, and multi-levels, it has become one of the toughest tables in town. One bite of the hommus ma lahm (with ground lamb and pine nuts), soujouk pide (spicy sausage flat bread), kebab platter or smoked lamb shoulder will tell you why. When they open a branch in Vegas later this year, you can expect it to be mobbed as well.

OUR TEAM — Fabio Trabocchi Restaurants(Fabio-lous chef)

I’ve never had a bad meal in a Fabio Trabocchi restaurant; indeed, I’ve never had a bad bite. He’s one of the best working chefs in America, and you could plan your D C. visit around each of his eateries and be assured of dining on cooking as polished as any in the country.

Fiola – DC is his flagship, and takes a back seat to no Italian, and        features menus  both traditional “La Tradizione” ($225) and more inventive Il Viaggio (“The Journey” $285). During the week (Tuesdays-Wednesday-Thursday), you can order a la carte and be assured that whatever appears (from the Pappa al Pomodoro to the mixed seafood pasta to the langoustine with stracciatella and limone) will compete with the best version you have ever had, both visually and in the mouth. The wine list is a dream (and full of trophy bottles, natch), and the waiters all look as good as the food. It’s sad that it isn’t open for lunch anymore, but snare a seat at the bar and you’ll see a parade of D.C.’s finest flock in for the unforgettable food.

RESTAURANTS — Fabio Trabocchi Restaurants

Moving to less formal waters, Trabocchi’s Fiola Mare (Italian seafood) sits right on the Potomac in Georgetown and wheels the catch of the day by every table for the discriminating to choose, while Del Mar (above) is located directly south of the The Mall at the District Wharf) is an eyeball-popping ode to jamon, tapas, sobrassada, and Spanish seafood. (Historical footnote: this completely gentrified, now-bustling multi-use riverfront was where we learned to gorge on Eastern Shore seafood back in the early 1970s, at the long-defunct Hogate’s.)

ABOUT OUR MENUS — Del Mar Restaurant

Del Mar practically assaults your senses with its primary colors, seafood motif, and endless array of fish and shellfish, both cooked and raw, and its jamon and paella presentations are José worthy. Both chefs now cast a wide net over the D.C. restaurant scene, and over two decades have done as much anyone to bring our nation’s capital into the big leagues of destination restaurants.

But man does not live by celebrity chefs alone, and D.C. remains the American capital of French bistros, even if their numbers have diminished over the years. One needn’t look hard in the NW quadrant to find Gallic gastronomy faithful to the haute bourgeois cooking of Paris. Here it is at its imported best, with more venues ready to provide satiety when cravings strike for ris de veau, steak au poivre, and moules marinière. Three old favorites are Bistrot Du Coin a few blocks from Dupont Circle (where the champagne list is legendary for selection and modest prices), Le Diplomate (a perfect facsimile of a Parisian brasserie, legendary for being packed at brunch), and the jewel box which is  Bistrot Lepic in upper Georgetown. Their menus are about as trendy  as boeuf bourguignon, but when you step through the doors, the warm embrace of wine-infused cooking permeates the room, the food, and your soul.

Image(Where the love affair began)

The oldest of the bunch — La Chaumière —  features a menu straight from 1976 and is none the worse for it. It had been forty-six years since we first ducked into the white, timbered dining room, and tucked into a Quenelle de Brochet Sauce Homard:

Image(Gefilte fish with a French education)

….and with one bite we were transported to that imaginary French farmhouse of our youth. When you cut your teeth on a certain type of cuisine you never forget it, and dishes like those dumplings, torchon de foie gras, Dover sole and crême caramel are what made me fall in love with food in the first place.

Image

As comforting as all of these are, even a nostalgic old soul occasionally looks for something new. Which is how, at the urging of a Filipino foodie friend we happened upon the Purple Patch in a not-exactly-tourist-friendly part of town.

To say we were skeptical at first is an understatement. Filipino has always been the Rodney Dangerfield of Asian cuisines. Fried, heavy and greasy, and dominated by flavors neither complex nor refined. To be fair, it is not a single culture, but more like a melange of regional foods (from over 7,000 separate islands) which are usually about as subtle as a  Manny Paquiao  right cross.

None of which applies to what Filipino-American chef Patrice Cleary is whipping up these days in the rapidly gentrifying Mt. Pleasant neighborhood — invoking  precise levels of seasoning and technique not normally associated with this cuisine.

Image

One taste of her vegetable slaw, papaya salad with cured pork (below), crisp, addictive lumpia, or hauntingly savory mushroom pancit announces that you have left the land of steam tables and greasy fried fish, and entered a new realm of sticky-rich lechon, lightly-fried tofu, and ginger-infused sweet-sour snapper, which command attention for their careful cooking, vivid flavors and balanced textures.

The restaurant itself is a confusing hoot: a tri-level maze of warrens, pockets, and hallways carved out of a Mt. Pleasant townhouse. I wasn’t sure we were in the same building when I took my seat in a subterranean skinny cavern of a space. None of which mattered once the platters of the shockingly fresh food start appearing.

Image(Atchara Papaya and Tocino Salad)

These recipes can hold their own with any Asian cuisine (again something not normally said of the Philippines), and were much brighter and lighter than anything I’ve ever tasted with this moniker attached to it.

It is something of a shame that a Las Vegan must travel 2000 miles east to find such a culinary celebration of this culture. Especially since Vegas is crawling with Filipinos: If all the them  exited tomorrow, there wouldn’t be a nurse left in Clark County.

But travel here we have, twice now, to what might be the best Filipino restaurant in America. An opinion our old friend, Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema (@tomsietsema) probably agrees with, since he named Purple Patch his Restaurant of the Year 2023.

Mabuhay!

Image(We love to Tagalog with Patrice Cleary)

>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<

Washington D.C. has come a long way since my days of dining at Kinkead’s (closed 2012), Citronelle (2012), Galileo (2006), Jean-Louis (1996), Duke Zeibert’s (1994),, and Sans Souci (1983). The power lunch crowd probably eats at their desks these days, and of-the-moment restaurants  (like Rose’s Luxury or The Dabney) are informal, chef-driven and aimed more at the Instagram crowd than the movers and shakers who once defined the dining scene.

While I have nothing against locavore-obsessed chefs and open-hearth cooking, much of the D.C. restaurant landscape now feels like any other big city  — where you can get everything from top-grade sushi to fabulous pizza to various world cuisines.  (West African or Laotian anyone?).

In 2024, you can dine as well in Washington as anywhere in America, but in the newer joints, you will feel like you’re eating anywhere in America.

Which is why I gravitate to time-worn bistros and old-school chefs. Give me classic Spanish, Italian seafood, or a French bistro any day (or an occasional envelope-pushing Filipino), and I am one happy Boomer, who still remembers the way we were, strolling the mean streets of Georgetown, in 1978.

Spanish Inquisition – Part One

Image

As a first-time tourist in any country, I’m usually an easy lay. Buy me a drink of good, indigenous hooch and I’ll lift my skirt. Seduce me with the tastiest local vittles and I’m yours for the asking. Show me your historical sites and I’ll show you my…er…uh…you get the idea.

With Spain though, I left my roll in the jamon not so much begging for more, but rather, wondering if what we ate was all it had to give. It did not sweep me off my feet as much as leave me feeling that our first date might be our last.

Which is another way of saying I liked Spain but didn’t love it. Not the way I’ve fallen numerous times for countries as diverse as Germany is from Mexico.

With Japan it was love at first sensory-overloaded sight. China captivated me with its gritty, cacophony, as did London with its starchy-sexy stiff upper lip. Hell, occasionally I even catch myself lusting for Canada, in all its bland, whitewashed politeness. And Jamaica still inspires bamboo levels of turgidity, even though I haven’t seen her coconuts since 1975.

But Spain was different, and maybe my expectations were to blame.

You see, I’ve been trying to get to España for thirty years and through three wives, but something has always derailed me: lack of funds (the 80s) or lack of time (the 90s), divorces (also the 90s), terrorist attacks, Great Recessions and Covid shutdowns have all conspired to thwart my plans. So when the stars finally aligned late last year, we were off on a trip I hoped would have me swooning more than a flamenco dancer in full vuelta quebrada.

Alas, twas not to be, and therein lies a tale as to why I wasn’t hoping for a return the moment I left — the way I always feel when boarding a flight home from Paris or Rome. Was it the cities themselves? Hardly, as they are fascinating and immaculate. The people? You can’t blame them, as Spaniards may not be Mexican- or Italian-friendly, but they’re darn close.

The wine? Well, it doesn’t come close to the polish of French or the varietals of Italy, but it’s a perfect fit with the food. And cheap! More on this below.

Nope, when all my ruminations were done, it came down to the food, which, for all its savor, failed to stir my soul.

Let’s take our Spanish gastronomic capitals one by one, and try to figure out why…

BARCELONA

Image(El Palatial)

We started in Barcelona, a city I’ve been enchanted by (from a distance) since 1994, after seeing the Whit Stillman movie of the same name.

(Actually, we landed in Madrid, grabbed and excellent eclair and coffee at LHardy, and then bombed around Mercado San Miguel for an hour or so before catching the very fast train to Barcelona the same day, arriving just in time to check into our palatial digs at Hotel El Palace (above) and freshen up for dinner on-premises at the Michelin-starred Amar.

The hotel was everything its name suggested: expansive, old and grandiose, with an eye-popping lobby and solicitous staff, we couldn’t have been happier with our choice. It is also a bit off the beaten track (a half-mile or so from La Rambla), but in a nice neighborhood full of sights and sounds of the city, but also quiet, with a couple of hipster coffee bars on the block, and good shopping just minutes away. With this kind of overture provided by the hotel, Barcelona’s opening act would have to be a showstopper, and unfortunately, Amar, for all of its performative appeal, was not.

Amar checks a lot of boxes: the room is as comfortable and modern as its surrounding hotel is classic. Service was exemplary and there was no faulting the provenance of the seafood.

Image(Amar you ready for some Spanish shade?)

What it seemed to lack was sense of place or warmth, or anything evoking the city it claims to represent. As sparkling as our oysters, and as flawless the fish, it was a meal that could’ve been served in a thousand restaurants around the world. Indeed, we’ve eaten such a meal, a thousands times. The only things that change are the accents of the waiters.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: Michelin stars are more reliable in Europe than anywhere else, but still need to be taken with a bit of brine. A Michelin one-star in a European capital will have a certain standard of accoutrements and service, and often a menu more predictable than a Waffle House.

Carpaccio to crudo, caviar service, innovative (?) oysters; a little crab here and a free-range there — the progression of courses (straight up the food chain) is so similar they might as well be AI generated. This is not to say the food wasn’t top-shelf, only predictable. And we didn’t travel 5,000 miles to feast on the familiar.

Image(Don’t go to the truffle)

To be fair, certain dishes did command respect: Peas with cod tripe and Catalan black pudding (above, adorned with truffles which brought nothing to the party); white beans with tuna and pancetta; and red prawns tasting like they had leapt straight from the boat onto our plates:

Image(Shrimply irresistible)

Most of it felt like gussied-up peasant fare, and when the formula progressed into high-toned gastronomia, it wasn’t for the better.

Our classic sole meunière —  was draped with the weirdest, whitest beurre blanc we’ve ever seen; spider crab cannelloni proved, once again, that pasta should be left to the Italians; and the most impressive thing about the cheese course was the expandable trolley it came in.

Perhaps is was the jet lag, but we wanted to be blown away by our first bites in Barth-a-lona and weren’t. We left thinking of it as just another exercise in generic dining, brought to you by the Michelin Guide.

Image(Searching…for…selfie wall)

Things got better when they turned less formal the next day.  The better parts of two mornings were spent at La Boqueria, with its sensory assaults tempting us at every step and testing our resolve not to spoil lunch by chowing down on everything in sight.

Be forewarned: in the age of Instagram, half of the hoi polloi is there not  for the food, but rather to photograph themselves filling their little buckets of narcissism. It becomes a madhouse after noon, so get there at 8 am, so you can cruise around (and chow down on your own, personalized Spanish food crawl) for a few hours before the selfie crowd shows up.

The good news is: this being Spain, no one will bat an eye if you want a cerveza at 10:00 am:

Image(Beer o’clock)

On day one, we stuffed ourselves silly with jamon:

Image(Hamming it up)

By day three, we strapped on the blinders and made a beeline to El Quim before a hundred other vendors could tempt us with their wares.

Think of the world’s most hectic lunch counter, located in the middle of one of the world’s most famous urban markets, and you’ll get the sense of Quim’s cacophony. Only in this case, they’re serving patas bravas and croquetas instead of pancakes and hash.

Quim has been called the best Catalan tapas in Barcelona, high praise indeed from no less an expert than Gerry Dawes. What seems intimidating at first (you hang around the counter waiting for a seat(s) to open up) becomes less so as soon as you catch one of the waiters’ eyes and are directed to a stool, then are handed a one-page menu which will fight for your attention with all of the prepared foods and signboard specials tempting you.

We settled on a pork loin sandwich with asparagus, toothsome deep-fried artichokes, eggs with foie gras, and patas bravas for breakfast, forgoing other egg and potato dishes which looked heavenly, but also would have filled us up for the day. Each bite packed a wallop – seriously succulent pork on incredible bread, seared duck liver atop eggs (a belt-and-suspenders approach to richness which will ruin you for bacon and eggs forever), while the fluffy-crisp potatoes were lashed with two competing mayos — one, creamy white, the other possessing serious kick.

Image

Quim is the sort of place you need to go with a group and order a dozen things. Two people and four items don’t make a dent in its delectation. But it is the first place I would recommend to go to any first time visitor, and the one locale I wish we could’ve returned to.

Which is probably something we should have done instead of cruising through the Gothic Quarter  to our next venue.

Image(Can they be less welcoming?)

Dinner at Can Culleretes (the second oldest restaurant in Spain) was punctuated by a surly teenage waitress and a hostess with all the poise of a hemorrhoid. But the historic rooms were a sight to see and the tariff soft – especially wine, where bottles cost what a glass does in Las Vegas. (This held true in both Barcelona and Madrid, in restaurants both humble and hi-falutin’.)

The food, however (a decent mixed seafood grill, lots of stewed proteins), was one b-flat sensation after the next. Anchovies and olives are everywhere (by day three we decided there must be some kind of law against not serving anchovies with every meal); they put a fried egg on everything; and seasonings are remarkably mild. Anyone who tells you there are similarities between Mexican and Spanish food needs to have their head examined. Mexican food is to Spanish what a habanero is to a bell pepper.

The charms of Culleretes’ famed brandade-stuffed cannelloni also escaped us, and with every bite we kept thinking how traditional Catalan must be the three-chord rock of Spanish food.

But I digress.

Can Solé 1903 redeemed Old Barcelona in our eyes with sparkling paella served by friendly folks who seemed genuinely happy to have us. We arrived a few minutes early for lunch and there was already a crowd outside, pretty much split 50-50 between hungry natives and tourists:

Image(Olé Solé!)

We booked on-line about a month earlier, and, as soon as the doors opened, were shown to the best seat in the house, right under the curtains in the picture above. From there we could watch the steady stream of patrons and various dishes flying forth from the kitchen — all of it washed down with pitchers of white sangria:

Image(Sangria – the official drink of “just one more glass”)

Can Solé is only a block away from the marina so the scents of the shore permeates the food the way it does in all seaside seafood restaurants. (Whether this is an objective fact or simple sensory suggestion is debatable, but briny creatures always seems to taste sweeter when consumed within eyesight of an ocean.)

Our seafood paella was so infused with the sea it was like breathing a spray of salt air with every bite. A steal at 43 euros:

Image(I’m on an all-seafood diet: when I see food, I eat it)

What you’ll find in these old school Barcelona establishments is sticker shock in reverse. The most expensive Spanish wine on the Can Solé list was 34 euros. At Can Culleretes it was 29.50 for a very good Priorat red. Even in fancy joints, the pricier offerings were often well under 100 euros. It didn’t take long to figure out what a bargain wine is in Spain, so our group made no apologies for overspending like a bunch of drunken sailors, since even at their highest, the prices were a welcome respite from Las Vegas’s eye-watering tariffs.

Keep in mind, Barcelona, like Vegas is definitely a tourist town too, but we saw little evidence of price-gouging anywhere, and once you get a few blocks off the tourists paths, you can eat like a local and feel like one too.

Image(Gresca at lunch)

Such was our experience at Gresca — a gastro-pubby hallway of a space so narrow even the vegetables have to enter in single-file. A few blocks west of the tony Passeig de Gràcia, Barcelona’s Fifth Avenue, this shoe box houses a row of four-tops along one cramped wall, and an open kitchen which straddles a second parallel space. The few waitstaff scramble between tables, while in the kitchen, a half-dozen cooks toil away, churning out small plates (not really tapas, despite what the interwebs say) that were the most compelling dishes we had in Spain. Of course, all of the usual suspects were there on the menu, but with a little guidance we crafted a menu of dishes that showed both ingenuity and restraint. A rarity in “modern” restaurants these days.

Rabbit kidneys, sweetbreads, bacon-thin bikini cheese toast, cod “gilda” pintxos, grilled quail, all of it so toothsome we were fighting over the last bites:

Image(Itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikinis)

Image(Thymus be in heaven)

Everything washed down with excellent wines from regions we barely know made by producers we’ve never heard of — which is why god invented sommeliers.

WINE GEEK ALERT: These wines were some of the best of the trip, and we quickly learned Corpinnat is the new Cava. Much as Valdobbiadene has replaced Prosecco, these premium Corazón de Penedès sparklers were tired of being lumped with mass-produced plonk, and have re-made and re-marketed themselves into world-class bubbly.

Image(Life is too short to drink bad wine)

 If Gresca made us feel like an in-the-know local, Lomo Alto brought out our inner carnivorous connoisseur.

What resembles a slightly antiseptic butcher shop upon entering, leads up a stairway to a second floor of capacious booths designed for one thing: to showcase the best beef in Spain. Before you get to your dictionary-thick steaks, you’ll first plow through some beautiful bread, three kinds of olive oil, “old cow” carpaccio with smoked Castilian cheese,  and some of the softest artichokes known to man.

Then the carving starts and you are transported to a higher level of beef eating:

 

The Spanish way to cook beef is basically to yell “fire!” at the meat as it is leaving the kitchen. Need proof? This is what they call medium-rare:

Image

Make no mistake, though, it was an aged steak for the ages. We did a side-by-side of two steaks (a vaca vieja chuleta – beef aged both on the hoof and in the fridge), the other a very lean, 60-80 day aged strip of Simmental beef from Germany. Neither was cheap. (145 euros and 118 euros) together amounting to about $300 of European, grass-fed beef split between four people. As compared to an American steakhouse (remember, we practically invented the genre), I’d give it and A- for food (the Simmental was as chewy as overcooked octopus and not worth the tariff) and high marks for service, despite the room exuding all the hospitality of a hospital. But I’ll remember that steak and those starters for a long, long time.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Was Barcelona worth it after thirty years of anticipation? I wish I could say yes, but nothing we ate was memorable enough to draw me back there.

Not to end on a sour note, but much of the traditional Catalan cuisine left us cold. Bread, stews, olives and anchovies are nothing to scoff at, but when you see them at every restaurant for days on end, the template gets tiresome. Anyone expecting vibrant seasonings, or a little spice with their ultra-fresh ingredients will quickly discover they’ve landed on the wrong shore.

In spite of the gorgeous Gothic quarter, the shimmering seafood, and those steaks, and the tapas of Quim and the precision of Gresca, we left Barcelona feeling there wasn’t much left for us to try.

Before you take me to task, I know all cities are full of surprises, and a single visit barely scratches the surface. Perhaps next time someone like this big guy will show us a range of flavors we didn’t experience.

Image

After all, some of the world’s greatest romances started with a whimper instead of a bang.

This is the Part One of a two-part article.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Eating is like sex: sometimes you do it as a form of art, and sometimes you do it to satisfy an urge. – Me

It’s time I shared a little secret with you — one I usually keep to myself: As open-minded as I try to remain when eating out, I do play favorites. Sometimes I go out with a purpose in mind, other times it is simply to obtain tried and true pleasure from an old, comfortable companion — a place that consistently brings me to a satisfying finish, once in a while, without too much thought.

You know, kinda like marriage.

Pin on Words

Put another way: when it’s time to unwind and dine on my own dime, rather than opine or repine about where I’ve reclined…. sometimes I’m supine about places most fine, which you and I know have already shined.

Sure, I trumpet the merits of everything from sushi bars to pasta joints all over town, and, at the drop of a hangar I’ll rattle off my top ten steakhouses, or five favorite Frenchies…but truth be told, when the time comes for the Food Gal and I to grab a quick bite, there’s usually only a few (okay, more like a few dozen) places on our agenda.

And by “on our agenda” I mean places we rely upon, but still manage to argue about.

Image

Take any random week night or Sunday afternoon. If you’re hanging around our kitchen counter, at the palatial Curtas manse, you might overhear a conversation that goes something like this:

The Food Gal®: “I’m hungry.”

The World’s Greatest Restaurant Critic®, i.e., me: “What are you in the mood for? Uh….(I then proceed to call a grammar foul on myself) I meant: for what are you in the mood, my sweet?”

Her: “I dunno, what do you want”?

Me: “I thought you said you were hungry. What would you like?”

Her: “Anything. I’m starving.”

Me: (realizing we’re getting nowhere) “Okay, how about brisket and  ribs?”

Her: “No, they’re too smoky.”

“Korean?”

“Too garlicky.”

“Mexican?”

“Too much cilantro.”

“Pasta?”

“Too filling.”

“Sushi?”

“Not filling enough”

“Indian?”

“It’s too hot for Indian.”

“How about we hit up that Bahamian-Nigerian-Sicilian pirogi truck that just opened? I hear its breadfruit-jackfruit-eggfruit empanadas are the bomb!”

“Nah, it’s not cold enough yet.”

And so it goes.

Are we the only couple who goes through this? Doubtful. At this point in my life I’m convinced EVERY couple on earth goes through this (or some version of this) at least once a week.

At the grandiose Curtas digs:

….it’s a daily conversation. I kid you not.

But we have our favorites — old reliables we default to whenever we can’t find inspiration in the new, or are desperate for a tried and true definitive chew.

So, without further ado, here are a few of my favorite things, restaurant-wise:

BREAKFAST

Image(Off-menu “Bodega” at Vesta)

We’re not big on breakfast at our opulent marital abode.…..even though The Food Gal®, like most women, seems to have this odd predilection for wanting to eat something in the morning.

Like every morning.

In fact, she takes this unreasonable position to extremes, often insisting that something go into her stomach on a regular basis, morning, noon and night. Yours truly, being (like most men), less emotional and more level-headed, encourages her to resist mightily these spasms of silliness. “Breakfast is good for only one thing: thinking about lunch,” we tell her, and once in a while, she listens. Why waste calories on carbo-bombs and caffeine when delectable full meals beckon, only a few hours hence?

Being of sound mind, she usually bows to this impeccable reasoning and concedes to a morning ritual of coffee at either Bungalow Coffee Co. or Vesta, followed by a discussion of where to have lunch. When she wins the argument, here’s where we end up:

Cafe Breizh (for the best French pastries…)

Burgundy Cafe & Bakery  (for the best French pastries + great sandwiches + feeling like you’re sitting in Paris – the city, not our ersatz version)

Life’s A Bagel (for the best Bagel in Vegas)

Saginaw’s Deli (for Vegas’s best deli only tourists ever go to….)

La Vecindad (for chilaquiles – belowwhich have been scientifically proven to be the best Mexican breakfast on earth):

Image

7th & Carson (for the Full Irish – one Irish breakfast usually being more than enough for two)

PublicUs (a culinary/coffee gem on East Fremont – an incredible success in an unlikely location)

Vesta Coffee (exclusively for its “Bodega Sandwich” – see above – which is all you need to start your day, along with one of their high-octane brews)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

LUNCH

Image

She works out by the airport; he works downtown at City Hall. Somehow, they make it work — rendezvous-ing for a midday meal several times a week. He will tell you that, after four decades of intense research, three failed marriages, two nervous breakdowns and thousands of $$$ in alimony, the secret to a happy marriage is having lunch with your spouse at least every other day. Historical records have shown that Mesopotamian sociologists discovered this around the year 3652 B.C..

Related factoid: Einstein’s fourteenth theory of infidelity relativity has firmly established that regularly having lunch with someone else’s spouse leads to the opposite effect.

True Dat GIF - True Dat October - Discover & Share GIFs

I’m a downtown guy so downtown is where we mainly stay….when we’re not heading to Chinatown…which we do at least twice a week. We don’t think about going to the Strip much anymore, because, with a few exceptions, it’s become one giant tourist trap. F**k the Strip (most of it, anyway) with a margarita guitar.

Hit The Woah GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

Enough negativity. Here’s where you’ll find us most middays partaking of a palate-pleasing repast:

Esther’s Kitchen:

Image(You knead to know, Esther’s spreads don’t loaf around.)

Nevada Brew Works (strictly for the boffo burgers)

Soulbelly BBQ (Best. BBQ. In. Vegas.)

Letty’s on Main  (Get the chicharrones and quesotacos and thank me later.)

Cipriani:

Image(4 words: carb-o-nar-a)

DE Thai Kitchen  (for incendiary delights in a teeny tiny space)

ShangHai Taste (worth the wait for superior xiao long bao)

Xiao Long Dumplings (right across the street from ShangHai, bigger, more varied menu)

Pho So 1 (our Vietnamese mainstay)

Matteo’s  (Italian that’s too good for tourists):

Image(Seppia – baby calamari a la plancha at Matteo’s)

Estiatorio Milos (still the best lunch value on the Strip)

New Asian BBQ (Super busy translates into super-fresh dim sum)

Ramen Hashi (for the shoyu ramen lover in you):

Image

Rincon Buenos Aires (beef glorious beef, Argentine-style)

Rainbow Kitchen (Every Chinese’s favorite it seems, especially on weekends):

Image

Let us finish lunch with some faithful Chinatown friends who never fail us:

District One

Yummy Rice

Big Wong

Curry Zen

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

DINNER

Image(Beef, it’s what’s for dinner)

Here’s where things get tricky. The Las Vegas of 2022 has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to dining out. There are dozens of restaurants we like/love as much (or more) as these, but those below represent our default settings when we can’t agree on the time of day. Some may surprise you Some we only get to once in a blue moon. None of them have ever bored us, even a little, even after dozens of visits. Like a good spouse, they keep us intrigued, even if we’re sampling the goods for the umpteenth time:

Bouchon (A bitch to get to, but worth it.)

Noodlehead (when you can’t get into China Mama)

China Mama (when you want the best Chinese food in town)

Jamon Jamon  (If this isn’t the best gazpacho you’ve ever tasted, I’ll eat a pound of rancid octopus):

Image

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>

SUSHI INTERLUDE

Sushi is a “dinner only” thing in America, which is odd since modern sushi began as a quick lunch/street food snack in Japan in the 19th Century. What it’s gained in cache it has lost in accessibility. Even our better izakaya are only open after 5:00 pm. If you’re craving Japanese at noon, your best bet is:

Chanko Shabu & Izakaya

After work, you’ll find us haunting one of these four joints, mostly, because a fifth favorite (Sushi Hiro ) is too farking far from our ‘hood to hit with any regularity.

Hiroyoshi

Yu-Or-Mi Sushi

Yui Edomae Sushi

Izakaya Go (Need we say more?):

Image

<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Speaking of “in my ‘hood”, this collection of kebabs and curries is as convenient as it comes:

Mt. Everest Indian Cuisine

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

STEAK BREAK

The wife loves steak. Perhaps a little too much.

Image(Tibia honest with you, The Food Gal® often strays from the straight and marrow, which I find fibulous. She says I bone this way out of proportion, which is more than a little humerus.)

Whenever the subject of a big, juicy steak dinner comes up, here’s a typical conversation at Chez Curtas :

Me: “I’m in the mood for a big, juicy steak dinner…”

Her: “Me too, but you can have the meat; I’m in it for the bone (see above) …you know how I get with a big hard one: licking, sucking, gnawing it clean until my face is slick with…”

Me: “Let’s stay in tonight. I have a better idea. “

Assuming our carnivorousness triumphs over the carnal, here’s where we usually end up:

Brezza (Go for the Italian food, stay for the steak.)

Carversteak

CUT

Bazaar Meat

8 Oz. Korean Steakhouse

Oscar’s Steakhouse

Vic & Anthony’s

Capital Grille (Bonus: It’s open for lunch!)

<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The last lap — all consistently terrific:

Elia Authentic Greek Taverna

Sparrow + Wolf  (not-a-steakhouse but features one of the best steaks in Vegas – see steak pic above under “Dinner” – along with some incredible veggies.):

Image(Beware: too much of this great hummus can make you falafal.)

Lamaii (Thai + wine heaven)

Khoury’s Mediterranean  (Tastier than many a Greek…there, I said it.)

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>

This is not to damn many other fine places all over town. We crave Kevin Chong’s food at Japaneiro even though it always feels like driving to Bakersfield to get there. Spring Mountain Road has places popping up every week it seems, but rarely do they seem to have the talent behind them that our old favorites do. There are too many good Italians in town to count (Aromi, Milano, Ferraro’s, Al Solito Posto, D’Agostino’s…) and maybe it’s their ubiquity that keeps them off our regular rotation.

You’ve no doubt noticed the many favorite and “essential” restaurants are also not listed. As much as we love Kaiseki Yuzu, Raku and Golden Steer, popping into them for a nightly bite is almost impossible in these post-Covid times. Ditto big deal meals like Joël Robuchon, Guy Savoy and ‘e’ by José Andrês.

And as long as I’m letting you in on secrets, here’s another one: It takes a whole lot of chef or restaurant to get me interested in trying something new these days. Call it age, jadedness, or whatever, but hauling my carcass out to try someone’s idea of a culinary/business experiment is no longer my idea of fun. It sounds like the height of arrogance to say so, but at this point in my career, I can smell failure from the parking lot. My heart goes out to small business people trying to make a success in this cruel, cruel world, but trying to enlist me in your cause is a waste of time. If you’re any good, I’ll find you. If you’re really good, I will help spread the word to my small audience. They, like me, are not interested in popularity or mediocrity. Our tastes are simple: we simply want the best of everything.

Take us home, Julie:

Image