DC Restaurant Week

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Sonadora

The twice yearly event is back in gear for its winter edition, beginning January 14 and going through January 20. Restaurants will be offering a 3 course lunch for $20.08 and a 3 course dinner for $30.08. You can find all the important details over here, including participating restaurants.

We always try to take advantage of this event, as it gives us a chance to go to restaurants that would normally stretch our dining out budget just a bit too much. I had wanted to go back to Farrah Olivia, a restaurant we went to a while ago, of which I owe you a review!, but sadly, even trying to book several weeks out it was impossible to get a reservation. Chef Morou, the owner, recently competed on America’s Next Iron Chef, and since then, it’s been very difficult to get in. A shame too, the restaurant is near our house and very good.

So instead, we are going to check out a new restaurant and wine bar I’ve been meaning to get to, Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar in DC. We’ll also be heading back to the Melting Pot, a dinner event we’ve always enjoyed.

So if you are in the DC area, check out the restaurants and make a reservation or two!

We’ve previously gone to 1789, 15 Ria, Butterfield 9, the Melting Pot, the Capital Grille, Jaleo, and a few others that don’t appear on the list any more! The next edition is usually in early August, though we’ve missed it the last two years, once because we got married and the other because I was traveling for work!

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Melted Cheese and Chocolate

Posted on January 15, 2007 by Sonadora

Plus great company, what more could you ask for? Some tasty bubbly perhaps?

We went out last night to the Melting Pot for dinner with our friends Danielle and Tom. Always excellent to see them, especially over a fun meal. Restaurant week is now over until August, but we took advantage of it again last night.

For dinner we had a melted cheese fondue of swiss cheeses served with various bread, veggies and green apples for dinner. The second course was meat fondue in a vegetable broth, served with terrikayi steak, chicken, shrimp, gorganzola and shrimp ravioli and assorted vegetables. Finally, we had a dark chocolate fondue with marshmellow cream and Oreo crumbles. Yum. Excellent food!!

The meal was pretty much fixed, we could change the cheese and chocolate, but that was about it. So I figured with the mix of food and flavors I would pick a sparkling wine. I haven’t had a Cava in a while, so that’s what I went with. A Segura Viudas Aria Estate Brut. The restaurant price was $28, 11.5% alcohol by volume and a traditional champagne closure. I see that it’s available around $10 online, so not a terrible markup for a restaurant.

In the mouth, there were apples, pears and spices, with a hint of either a nectarine or a peach. There were nice little bubbles in the mouth and a good finish. I liked it, and would get it again if I could find it again for $10!

Filed under: Cava, Restaurant Week, Sparkling wine | 3 Comments »

Restaurant Week!

Posted on January 10, 2007 by Sonadora

It’s restaurant week here in the DC area. Which is excellent since many of the area’s best restaurants offer a 3 course meal for only $30.07 (or lunch for $20.07 but I tend to think dinner is a better deal since I rarely go out ot lunch and $20 strikes me as a lot for lunch even if it is fabulous). Tonight we have chosen to go to Butterfield 9, a restaurant I haven’t been to before but have heard very good things about. The menu for the evening sounds excellent (one of the dishes even has cheese grits (no, I’m not Southern and I never actually had grits until I moved to the South, but well made cheese grits are such a great homey comfort food), one of my favorite things, as a side dish). Menu. They are also offering a wine pairing with dinner for $19.07. I will look into it to see what the offerings are, there’s a good chance we could get better wines for our money this way than if we ordered one $38ish bottle of wine for the two of us. We shall see, as I will definetly want to know what the pairings are before I leap into that one!

Look for a wine and restaurant review tomorrow! I love checking out new places to see what kind of a wine list they have (not to mention the fact that it means I don’t actually have to cook today, which has made me very happy all day!). We are also heading out to the Melting Pot this week to take advantage of the special there. Look for that wine review this weekend.

Filed under: Butterfield 9, Restaurant Week | 2 Comments »