A Gauntlet Received

So last night I was supposed to have dinner with a lawyer friend.  Unsurprisingly for a new associate at a large firm, he got caught up in work and had to cancel on me.  Bummer, because I really like hanging out with this guy, but I guess that's just the way things go.  I had some other friends who were supposed to be headed over to JRs for Showtunes, (and rumors that the cast of Glee, in town for the White House Easter Egg Roll/Justin Beiber concert earlier in the day, would make an appearance were circulating) so I decided I'd break my usual rule about going out on the night before class and hopped on over.

Although my usual Monday night boys were nowhere to be found, and cast aside in favor of grueling casework by another amigo, I lucked out and ran into my buddy Chris just as I walking in.  He was saying goodbye to some friends so I went inside and met people.  They seemed nice.  I don't really remember who they are.  Later in the evening, a friend of one of Chris' friends showed up.  He's from NYC but has been working in DC during the week for the last year.  He commented that our city was nice, but that he's been really underwhelmed by some of the eating choices here.  So, having had the gauntlet thrown my way, I took up the challenge to show off DC's culinary treats.

He'd been to Rasika and recognized it as being good.  But when I rattled off a whole list of places, he'd heard of none of them.  This is going to be fun!

So, I'm thinking the plan will be to start out at PS7's.  I've always been really impressed with Chef Peter Smith's dedication to using fresh ingredients and to changing his dishes around not just seasonally but almost daily.  Also, his ample offerings of small plates mean that it's fairly easy to try a multitude of dishes without having to overburden your wallet.  Finally, after eating there during the inaugural last year, I sent a review via Opentable and got a personal response from manager Robert Hall, which really impressed me.  I am a little bit ambivalent about the restaurant's separation of their bar from their dining area.  There's a large glass hallway cutting the two in half.  If the dining room were a more shushed atmosphere, it might make sense, but honestly, I'd like to see the space opened up a lot more to allow better flow.

However, we aren't going to PS7's for any of the great things listed above.  My new friend fancies himself an amateur mixologist.  His "job" at his summer rental on Fire Island is to invent and mix the drinks for their parties!  Since, PS7's has one of the best original cocktail menus in all of DC (cocktails listed second page), hopefully he'll get some ideas.

Although if I were organizing an evening to take care of my food desires, we'd probably stay on and have dinner at PS7's, I'm thinking that the first full dinner on the culinary tour should be somewhere a little less glitzy than PS7's.  So, down the street to the original Matchbox pizza location where we can dive into pizza, their famous sliders, or anything else on the menu that catches our eyes!  They also have a surprisingly broad cocktail menu including one involving St. Germain that I particularly love.

Thoughts on this as an good intro to good eating in DC?  I'm thinking about other restaurants including Thai Tanic, Masa14, Posto, all those little joints on P Street between 14th and 15th, and Spike's Mendelssohn's Burger Joint down on Capitol Hill.  Probably also Farmers & Fishers or Loaves & Fishes.  Any other ideas?

Finally, I tried the new egg poaching technique last night.  First, you boil a pot of water.  Then you crack an egg into a ladle.  You gentle lower the ladle into the water, just letting a little run over the sides to heat the egg and get a perfect poach.  Ultimately, I'm not sure how much more effective this was than just dropping it in straight from the eggshell, but it sure was a lot more fun!

Update:  Matchbox, was of course, perfection.  I was talked into a Smoke and Fire pizza, which per usual was dastardly hot but delicious.  PS7s did good drinks.  Gnome's Water there is to die for!  Master and Margarita tastes like sea water and does not live up to its grand Bulgokovian name.