The weekend before Restaurant Hell Week is such a great time to go out; everyone is staying home in anticipation of next week's budget offerings. Not me and Holmes, though; we refuse to be part of the crowd that is laying low before amateur week begins. So when we made plans to rendezvous tonight, it was for the express purpose of introducing Holmes to a place new to him, namely Bouchon.
We began at my place with a bottle of the Cardinal Point Cabernet Franc Reserve 2006, the gold medal winner at this year's Virginia Governor's Cup and a worthy start to our evening. The music was chosen to please Holmes and his distinctive old-school taste, namely Graham Parker's "The Mona Lisa's Sister" and Shawn Colvin's "Cover Girl, " and they succeeded beautifully.
We proceeded to Bouchon to introduce Holmes to the new French spot in the Slip. We were greeted warmly by the owner upon arrival and settled into the best banquette in the place, with a view of everyone in the restaurant and, especially, the parade of street theater.When Holmes deferred to me, I chose the Cahors Clos de la Coutale 2007, a a malbec/merlot blend that continued the robust wine theme for the evening.
The meal began with the arugula, goat cheese rostido and extra virgin olive oil vinaigrette and was followed by the speck, creme fraiche and onion tart. It wasn't exactly a tart, more pizza-like, but damn close and the Parisian ham was to die for. Next up was a special of the evening, a beef daub with braised carrots and onions in a wine stock reduction with mac and cheese with truffle oil on top. Oh my god, what a wonderful combination of tastes this was! The meat and veggies were braised to perfection and the mac and cheese and truffle oil were the richest possible topping for this simple peasant dish. We ate and sopped and scraped and loved each bite and the wine accompanied us every step of the way.
Seeing as how there was still wine left, we felt obligated to order the chocolate marquise with meringue and candied orange peel to satisfy our sweet tooths. Fortuitously, the dessert concluded about the same time as the wine did, signaling that it was time to move on. We departed under a light mist of rain and headed back towards the Ward, where Holmes was parked and I live.
As it happened, Bistro 27 was still open as we cruised home, so we stopped in for a final brown drink and glass of wine whilst we chatted up the always-interesting staff. In other words, I got music recommendations from Dave, concert talk from Ken, Restaurant Hell menu week discussion with Carlos and banter and a hunk of dark, dark chocolate from Pedro. I'm not sure I could have asked for a more satisfying end to the evening, although once again, I seemed to find myself the last customer (albeit with Holmes) in the place. What's up with that?
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