Carlyle Club

I don't think I've written about the Carlyle Club since it changed its menu from Lebanese to what I would call "haute South Asian" (more specifically, South Indian). I don't know why. I've eaten there twice, and both times I was quite satisfied. Last night I went with friends who live in walking distance (lucky bastards). It was pretty slow last night, but heck, it's a holiday weekend.

Eric & Alan got wine, but I went for a podina lassi ($4) - a mint, honey and cardamom lassi (yogurt drink if you're unfamiliar) that filled me up just like the milkshake it so closely resembles. Of course, I had help from our appetizers and my entrée. We all shared two appetizers and a salad. The salad was made of arugula and acorn squash ($6), and was a pretty simple and satisfying salad at that. Added to that was a helping of cochin calamari (also $6) - I'm assuming it's calamari flash fried a la Kochi, Kerala-style. It comes with a smooth tomato chutney and is not the kind of calamari you'll find in Little Italy. It's different, and tasty, but went too fast. The other appetizer was just a helping of onion pakora (I didn't catch the price). I've found most pakoras to be a little on the tough, gritty side. This one wasn't tough, and was only a little gritty, and otherwise quite tender. Yes, I'm saying you should order this when you go. It's one of the better pakoras I've had.

My entrée was a dosa, but I'm afraid I caused a little confusion - almost exclusively for myself, since I can't make a decision to save my life - by wanting to mix two dosas together. Their dosas make for good appetizers, but for someone with a small stomach and bank account it can be a very good choice for your entrée. I ordered the habanero and mango dosa ($9), which had a traditional filling of onions, lentils and potatoes with an habanero and mango sauce on the side. But I wanted some paneer as well, so the waiter proposed putting some paneer in with the traditional filling. I don't know why I am so dense, but I was the only at the table who didn't quite understand this at first!

The dosa was served not like a crepe, as I've seen it other places (such as at the Mango Grove), but was instead decoratively shaped in a cone sheltering the filling that sat on the plate. I thought the filling could have used a small dash of salt, but it otherwise tasted delicious. The dosa itself had to be filled like a tortilla, in which you put food and then eat it with your hands (at least that's how I ate it). It's a tasty dosa and a tasty filling. The Indian pickle ($1.50) I ordered on the side was a nice, sharp, salty and tangy contrast to the dosa.

What I ordered cost around $20 to $25. The guys just asked me for a twenty. I didn't ask questions. I'm looking forward to going back again sometime.



NB: Starting with this post, I'm going to begin using the "locally grown" tag when I talk about restaurants. What I mean is that the restaurant in question (in this case, the Carlyle Club) goes out of its way to use local ingredients, such as plants and meats, as part of its menu. For now I will try to use it with restaurants as well as markets. Things that won't be lumped in with tag include beers and wines (those will get the "Maryland products with pride" tag instead. It also won't include crabs, because it's assumed that those will be local. For my purposes, "local blue crabs" means Chesapeake - Maryland and Virginia crabs, not ones from North Carolina, even though those are good, too. If a local crab house does not primarily use local blue crabs, I'll be mentioning that (*COUGH**COUGH*Phillips*COUGH**).

Amsterdam Trip Part Vier: More Bites from Amsterdam

I'm back, after 24 hours of foot, tram and plane travel and two transfers for a total of three plane trips through two continents, three economic zones (euro, Icelandic kronur and US dollar). I'm surprisingly well-rested. It seems much easier to get back on schedule when you're going to a later time zone than to an earlier one.

Again, the photos will be posted sometime in the next few days. First, just some brief notes about a few other places I ate and drank at this past week.

Haute Cuisine

The Getto Bar and Restaurant is a very funky, openly GLBT-friendly place you might even find in Hampden or Charles Village. The night before Gil headed out to Arnhem, we all went in for some dinner. This was where I spent the most money for any dish, and this was not one of the more expensive places. I followed up a forgettable witte bier (€4) with a fascinating plate of game: venison, wild boar and rabbit medallions with hearty yet tender mixed vegetables (€17). It tasted pretty good, but one thing annoyed me: if I am going to order something as different as wild boar and venison, I would at least like to be able to tell them apart. All three meats tasted exactly the same to me. That's not my fault. I think they did something wrong. Very tasty and creative, but not worth €17 (for comparison's sake, that's roughly US$25). I forget what the others ordered, but they liked them. In addition to food, Gil got a very good, home-brewed rosé cherry beer (which I tasted, of course). Jim and I did go back on our last night in town for more of those home-brewed rosé cherry beers

Bars

In addition to the Getto, I stopped by a few bars, both gay and not, including a few good ones on Zeedijk (including the Queen's Head, which has a beautiful view of the canals by the Red Light District and where I got to see a hilarious Celine Dion impersonator) and Kerkstraat (a famous part of gay Amsterdam, including the Spijker Bar, where I ran into someone who, after trading genealogical info, apparently came from the same village that my great-great grandfather came from in Northern Ireland). I visited a regular old straight bar on Kerkstraat but I'm frustrated that I can't remember its name. But it's across from a gay bookstore and next to a gay sauna. Very gay area, Kerkstraat. But I must mention it because it was my first introduction to Hoegaarden, a delicious witte bier that I have to find at the Wine Source when I go next. I drank it wherever I could find it. If I can find it.

More Dutch

The Roode Leeuw (Red Lion), on Damrak - one of the major streets downtown that leads to the historic Dam - is in the beautiful Hotel Amsterdam (much bigger, much more expensive, and probably much better than my cruddy excuse for a hotel). We all ate here before Gil's trip to the little city of Arnhem. Their offerings were quite expensive, but we were enticed by the relatively inexpensive items on their lunch menu, including sandwiches. First I got a delicious tomato soup (€3), a common item on many Dutch menus that I saw. It was creamy and not so salty. It did strike me that, maybe, it was from a package, but since the Dutch don't oversweeten their syrups, sweets and sodas, maybe they don't oversalt their soups. Next I got a grilled mozzarella, basil and tomato sandwich - a classic panino, they just didn't call it that - for €6. I got no dessert - I wanted to save my euros for other things. But the other guys got creme brulée. I would have as well, were it not for the €8 price tag. I reasoned: as much as I love it, would I ever spend $12 for creme brulée? No. Gil did stuff a spoonful in my mouth. It was good, but not worth $12.

One thing I regret never getting to try is that common Dutch street food, salted raw herring. Last Thursday I saw the stand, all the way up to Holy Saturday, that day before Easter. I kept on putting it off. Then Easter Sunday hits and it's closed. Then it's closed Easter Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday! I never got to try it.

Argentinian

The Dutch seem to love Argentinian steak. Argentinian, Uruguayan, Brazilian - anything from South America, but specifically Argentinian. The problem with these places is their price: steak ain't cheap, no matter where you eat it. And at the typical price of €16 - €25 per steak, it was quickly ignored as a viable dinner option. But on our last night in town, Jim and I were lured into La Pampa Argentinian Grill Restaurant on Paleisstraat, again near the Dam. Their €15 complete dinners lured us in. I got a tasty if small Argentinian chorizo for my first of three courses, with a forgettable veggie garnish. The main course was a real medium-rare Argentinian beefsteak smothered in a peppercorn sauce, with frites (fries, or chips in UK English). Good steak, good sauce, pretty variable quality fries (back to those in a minute). Dessert was an okay double combo of chocolate and orange ice cream. Add one Cola Light (as Diet Cokes are called in much of Europe) for €4.50 (that is almost $7 for 200 mL of soda), Jim's two teas for €2.50 each and a basket of the softest hot bread I have ever had (no more crusty bread ever!!!) at €3.50, and we were looking at about €43 worth of food, drink, tax and tip. Just imagine if we had ordered the not-so-special steak.

One thing I did do was finally try fries with the typical Dutch frites sous (fries sauce), which is part of the mayonnaise family. Whole stands and small stores selling mostly just frites with mayo and a hundred other sauce choices are extremely common all over the Netherlands. Since I never got into those, I figured I'd try it here. I was nauseated at the idea, but it was actually much better than I thought it'd be. In fact, I even liked fries in frites sous. Then I went back to ketchup, which they also had. Peanut satay sauce is also a widely available topping for frites.

DC Restaurant Week? It'll have to wait...

Sad to report that I didn't make it down to Washington today - family emergency, and of course family is much more important than some restaurant. So I'm not able to try Butterfield 9 until the next Food Week. Instead, I'm perusing the list on the DC Foodies' website that shows more than a few restaurants are extending the Winter Restaurant Week thing through the end of January. Unfortunately, B9 isn't one of them, so next week I'll just go to one of the others. I've narrowed it down to

• Oya , a chi-chi Mediterranean in Downtown (DCRW prices until January 31), and
  
• Farrah Olivia in Alexandria (dinner offered the same dates as Oya, though the $20.08 prix fixe lunch is available for the entire year).
  

BTW: Farrah Olivia is the restaurant run by Ivorian former Next Iron Chef also-ran Morou Outtara, who combines American, African (specifically West African) and French cuisines. I've been drooling to try chef Outtara's foods. But since Farrah Olivia offers its prix fixe lunch year round, I think I'll go to Oya, which does not.

As for y'all, try to make it down there this week if you can. If not, there are other options.

Indigma

Since out-of-state travel was no longer an option, I decided to find something much cheaper at home. So I found myself, invariably, in Mt. Vernon again on a Saturday night. I was planning to go all the way up to Nam Kang again - I think what made me sick that one time was just a fluke, so I know what to avoid now - but when I found a parking space closer to Mt. Vernon I took it as a sign. I mean, how often does that happen?

My thoughts were decidedly on cheap food, so I planned maybe to go into Thairish, which I've heard a lot about (more good than anything else). But I can never make a decision, so I told myself I'd come back. I proceeded further south until I got to the former location of Minato, which now houses a Thai restaurant (how many on this block again?) - My Thai (Christine at blog.christine.fm* visited in mid-August, didn't like it, but was more impressed the other day). Decidedly more upscale than Thairish, it also doesn't post its menu outside like the other restaurants on this block do. That is, if you want to find out what they're offering, you have to go in and ask for the menu first. Instead, I flipped a coin and headed across the street to the fairly new Mexican place, El Patrón. I looked at the menu, decided I wasn't in a Mexican mood, and went back.

I then noticed the new Indian restaurant Indigma (see the Sun photo at left**). I have no clue why I missed it in the first place - it's not easy to miss. It's in the former Saffron location, and only opened up about a week ago. I remember that as an expensive place, so I never went in. I stared at the menu, and the proprietor pops out and strikes up a conversation with me. I had hoped he would go back in, in case I decided to head somewhere else - I knew (and he knew) that if we started talking, it'd be difficult for me to walk off!

So there I am, entering Indigma and I'm amazed at how lovely the place is (again, see Sun photo). Absolutely gorgeous, in the colors of, well, saffron with cobalt blue lamps, bright lighting in the front and more intimate lighting in the back. My compliments to the designer.

The food was, well, not cheap, but there are cheaper options. I just didn't take them. Said menu is divided into small plates (Indian tapas?) and entrées, with comprehensive wine and martini lists. I didn't get wine, but I did get a 12 oz. bottle of the Indian Kingfisher beer (either that or the 22 oz. Taj Mahal, which would've landed me in the drunk tank). The small plates and entrées shared only their haute-ness in common. Nothing that you could call traditional Indian food, save for the breads. Some of the small plates: open-faced samosas, avocado puri and minty lamb chops. I got the avocado puri ($4) as an appetizer. I'd never eaten such firm avocado before - I actually had to bite into it relatively hard. It was so good with the coriander chutney in what looked like a little sake cup, and all laying on a bed of dark salad greens.

Instead of getting several small plates, which I was going to do (I'll do that next time), I did the math and reasoned that if I got, oh, four, it'd cost around the same. And how often am I going to come to a relatively expensive restaurant? Truthfully, it's not much higher in cost than the Helmand; I just focus on the cheaper parts of that menu (still delicious). And the dish I got was just as unusual as any. I got a bison (North American buffalo) vindaloo ($23!!!), with soft chunks of potato in a dish that I didn't find that spicy. But I have a high tolerance for heat, so it will probably be spicy to most of y'all. Most of the bison was very soft - only one or two chunks were a little tough and overcooked. The basmati rice that came with it, in a small square bowl, was soft and helped to cut the heat of the vindaloo. Tasty.

I asked the proprietor, who was chatting up all the patrons, if I could get an interesting martini. It had a champagne base, but they were out of champagne. So he made another one off the menu, by his recommendation - their Kama Sutra martini ($7, like all of their martinis). It was tasty, with tiny chunks of ice, and much smoother than most martinis I have ever had - no vermouth in this one (I'm not a fan of vermouth). It didn't taste that strong, but I was certainly feeling it by the time I left. It had a lovely thin foam on top and had a mint leaf floating on the foam.

I was truly frightened to see the check, and my fright was justified: $40. Okay, that's not frightening for many people, but I'm cheap. I tend to spend as little as I can at restaurants, especially after shelling out a couple hundreds to get my car running normally. But with the tip it was worth it. And despite the bill, I had to leave a 20% tip - I usually angle for 15%. The service last night was just damn good. I was waiting a little long to order, but after that they were there by my table (and everybody else's) constantly. Even the chef came out, which doesn't happen at many places. Of course, as word of mouth spreads more people will be there, and it won't be that easy to be so attentive. But the staff are friendly and certainly went out of their way to help me out.

I still had to sober up, so where better to do that than the Hippo? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) I only got a bottle of water (about $3). Did you know they're printing their logo on the water bottles? I never realized. Then again, I usually don't get water there.

* How do I keep missing these local food blogs? Beats me.

** Photo taken for Baltimore Sun by Monica Lopossay, August 4, 2007