Fresh Asparagus.

It’s springtime!  Love is in the air, and the produce section at your local grocery store is probably overflowing with great fruits and vegetables.  We’re a bit spoiled these days in that we can get almost any type of produce year-round, but it’s this time of year that a wonderful bounty of fresh, high-quality stuff hits the produce department.  Those of you with CSA subscriptions will be enjoying your weekly deliveries soon enough, but if you’re looking for good vegetables, there’s plenty to be had, even at the local Giant, Harris Teeter, or Safeway.

Despite its (deserved) reputation for giving some people a distinctive aroma during a certain bodily process after eating it, I’m a big fan of asparagus.  But not how it’s usually cooked – I’ve been the victim of boiled-to-death asparagus too many times to count.  That product is not enjoyable at the dinner table – so tender it slides off the fork, with a nasty off-green color and a strong odor that overpowers the palate.  Sure, it’s nutritious, but we shouldn’t be condemned to suffering through our vegetables!  In a way it’s similar to broccoli – too many people have terrible memories of being forced to eat their broccoli by their parents, so they avoid it later on when they actually control their home menu.

Prepped and Snapped Asparagus.

But we have better ways of cooking vegetables!  We don’t have to boil them into submission; we can apply better techniques and enjoy them quite a bit more.  And before I lose you here – you don’t have to spend hours doing it, either.  High-quality produce doesn’t need to be shepherded through difficult sauce-making or other rigorous techniques.  While asparagus goes very nicely with Hollandaise sauce in classical French cuisine, those tricky emulsions still have me scared.  And when I’m making dinner for my wife, I’d rather not worry about a sauce breaking – I want my dishes to be ready reliably.  (The same holds true for any of you guys attempting to woo a lady with your cooking, which is a tactic I highly recommend.  Date night recipes shouldn’t be too labor intensive, and should be fail-safe!)  In any case, you have two big points to remember when getting high-quality vegetables into your kitchen:

Cooked and Seasoned Asparagus.

#1:  Prep.  This is probably the most important point for vegetable cookery, as you simply can’t bring veggies home from the store and toss them in the pot (most of the time, anyway).  With asparagus, you’ll want to “snap” them – bend the stalks along the length until the woody base naturally snaps off.  You wouldn’t want to eat that section anyway!  You’ll be left with tender portions of the green stalks that won’t at all remind you of biting into a tree.

#2:  Method.  My favorite way to cook asparagus without absolutely killing it is high-heat roasting.  Many restaurants recommend blanching veggies first, but they mostly do that in order to save time on the line.  In the home setting, it’s easy enough to roast your asparagus all the way through without having to boil a pot of water.  It’ll take a little longer, but since you’re not firing dishes out every five to ten minutes, you can afford to wait.

The beauty of asparagus is that it’s got a relatively strong natural flavor, meaning it will stand up to seasonings and spices pretty well.  You can play around with the flavor elements in this recipe as you like – some sources I’ve seen recommend sprinkling the cooked asparagus with nutmeg or allspice as it comes out of the oven.  I’ve also seen suggestions for using lemon zest, but I prefer the stronger flavor of fresh lemon juice.  You don’t want to drown your poor veggies, but a solid squeeze over the plate after they come out of the oven, followed by seasoning and whatever spices you’d like to enjoy, will elevate the dish far beyond your dreaded memories of the family dinner table in your youth.

Roasted Asparagus

1 bunch asparagus stalks

Olive oil

1 lemon

Salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Prep your asparagus stalks by snapping off the woody lower ends and washing thoroughly.  Toss with a tablespoon or two of olive oil until well coated and lay out in a single layer on a roasting pan or oven-safe plate (such as Pyrex).

Roast for 5 minutes, then check the tray and turn any stalks that appear to be browning quickly.  Roast for another 5-7 minutes (depending on how thick your stalks are), then remove from the oven.

Squeeze fresh lemon juice over the asparagus, then sprinkle generously with kosher salt and fresh black pepper.  Optional:  omit lemon juice and sprinkle with nutmeg or allspice.  Basil chiffonade is another nice option if you’ve got fresh herbs available.

Enjoy!

-HML

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Check out my friend Ami’s Costa Rica Tours and don’t forget to use the code “TOUCAN” to save money. He has some group tours that you can join, including an upcoming August tour, and I hear that airfare to Costa Rica is inexpensve right now for August.

-JAY

The team at Wildfire Restaurant in the Tysons Galleria recently held one of their specialty dinners, those monthly events at which the chef gets to stretch his cooking out a bit for a select audience.  This event, dubbed their “All-Star Beer Dinner,” commemorated the beginning of the baseball season, and Executive Chef Eddie Ishaq brought a few tastes from his hometown of Chicago to the tables for his guests.  The beer selection was superb, too – the chef and his team paired each course with a specialty beer and the wait staff made sure that no one’s glass stayed empty for long.

I arrived at the restaurant and was directed to one of the location’s private dining rooms.  Wildfire can host special events for up to 120 people according to their website in an expandable series of private rooms off of the main dining room.  The construction was interesting, too – the staff told me that the walls literally slide up into the ceiling to open up the additional spaces, but they’re also solid enough that we couldn’t hear any dull roar from the packed bar that evening.

The tables were adorned with boxes of salted ballpark peanuts for us to munch on as we arrived, and each attendee was handed a D.C. Brau on the way into the room.  After a few minutes, the wait staff began circulating with mini half smokes and mushroom-Swiss sliders.  The half smokes were nothing to joke about, loaded down with chili and topped with chopped onions, and the sliders were superb, though I’ll confess that I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms on my burgers.  The crowd seemed to love them, though – every serving platter left the room empty as far as I could tell.

After we sat down, we heard a few words from the estimable Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog).  Steinberg, a quiet, unassuming sports reporter whose blog is now in my RSS reader, regaled the crowd with stories from his beat, describing how he broke the story on the Nationals Park 8-lb. Strasburger (available on select game days at the Red Porch for $59) and covering the Torino Olympics for the Post.  Steinberg took the microphone between each course to tell us about the life of a sports reporter in the new media era – one point he made, for example, is that while the Olympic Games are incredibly popular with Post readers, covering them is tremendously expensive for media organizations, and the Post has had to cut back on its coverage team for the upcoming London games compared to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.  While Steinberg greatly enjoyed his trips to the Games in the past – and his ability to find a nontraditional story, like a wonderful cheese shop while covering the Torino games, seems unparalleled on the sports beat – he won’t be going to the U.K. this summer.

The first course was an absolutely massive Buffalo Chicken Salad.  I’d heard from the staff on my tour of the restaurant that Wildfire’s salads are gigantic, and I was not disappointed.  No one at my table of 6 finished their salad – not for lack of trying, but the next courses on the menu looked good, too!  The salad was tossed with a full dozen ingredients, including a few nontraditional choices for a Buffalo Chicken dish – artichoke hearts and Kalamata olives – but those two ingredients particularly helped cool down the chicken’s heat.  The salad was served with Brooklyn Pennant Ale.

The main course was a Chicago-style Italian Beef sandwich served with sweet peppers and cheese fries.  The sandwiches arrived wrapped in grease-spotted paper, and the cheese fries were served in paper sleeves just like you can get at the ballpark – nice touches, both of those.  The fries were crisp and hot, and the cheese sauce fantastic.  I spotted a couple of people digging the last of the sauce out onto their plates so they could finish it.  Waiters circulated during this course with Goose Island Honkers Ale, a made-in-Chicago label.

Finally, dessert was served, a Boston cream pie accompanied by Sam Adams Double Bock, a hefty beer to complement the sweet cake, cream filling, and rich chocolate.  I searched in vain for an untouched cake that I could spirit away, but it seemed that everyone in the room had proudly tucked theirs away.

As the meal concluded and we began rising from our seats, the Chef swung by the dining room to graciously accept a round of applause from the dinner guests and to announce the team’s next dinner special:  a “Pork and Pinot” dinner, their third annual, to be held on May 23^rd.  The menu is posted on Wildfire’s website (http://www.wildfirerestaurant.com/sites/default/files/Pork%20%26%20Pinot%20_menu_155_%2712.pdf) and will include four varieties of Pinot Noir from the west coast, as well as several courses devoted to showing off the Bay Haven Farm hog being raised especially for the chef and his crew.

I left Wildfire that evening having experienced yet again that most wonderful of restaurant meals:  a chef’s handpicked menu, cooked with love for the culinary craft.  Chef Ishaq raised his game that night, and it was tremendously fun to see it happen.

Wildfire is located in the Tysons Galleria.

-HML

In Northwest DC, summer has started creeping in little by little.   Signs to look for include the increased number of joggers, different local produce, and rooftop seating.  Masa 14 is one of the places taking advantage of the nicer weather.  Their newly remodeled rooftop has classy seating with lots of chic wood and elegant black fixtures.  For those interested in planning a special occasion, Masa 14 does rent either half or the whole rooftop.  If it’s bad weather, the bar has glass accordion doors that can fend off the precipitation.  The rooftop at Masa 14 is a great place to relax after work or enjoy lunch over the weekend.  Eating or drinking on the rooftop allows you to escape from DC without leaving the city.  The restaurant blends Latin and Asian flavors in a fun new way.  Their rooftop has its own specialty menu, which I was invited to taste last Tuesday.

I began the tasting with a particularly good sangria.  The Pimm’s sangria consists of cucumber, sparkling wine, ginger, Pimm’s liqueur, and lemon.  Cucumber and the Pimm’s make this drink unique, and the ginger and lemon add a refreshing note.  I would recommend a Pimm’s sangria for those warm, humid nights DC tends to have.

The Crunchy Rooftop Handroll arrived in a long wooden holder and the rolls resembled ice cream cones in shape.  The Latin flavor definitely found its way into this fusion food.  The nori cone gets a little sushi rice, topped by pico de gallo, shrimp, a tangy lemony aioli, and is finished with crunchy chili tortilla strips.  I really enjoyed the handroll and would order it without a doubt.

Before going to Masa 14, I had never tasted a caipirinha.  Now that I’ve had one, I must admit I’ve been missing out.  The national drink of Brazil mixes sugar-cane rum, sugar and lime.  I had the Lemon-Basil version (using housemade lemon-basil syrup) and it was delicious.  The drink was sweet but not sugary, and the lemon and basil contrasted nicely with each other.  It’s the kind of drink you look for when you want to try something new and sophisticated.

A couple of trays came around with hot dogs.  I tried the Rising Sun and El Tigre styles.  The Rising Sun is a Kobe beef hot dog, glazed with teriyaki.  Then the dog is topped with wasabi, furikake (sushi sprinkle), and fine-diced pickles.  Try this hot dog if you go to Masa 14; I promise it is way more delicious than I can explain here.  El Tigre is a chorizo link topped with pico de gallo, shoestring potatoes, and sriracha cream.  It’s definitely spicy, but it’s not 5-alarm.  People who enjoy spicy food would probably be pleased with this hot dog.  The flavor was very good overall.  These hot dogs are not the dinky little store-bought size.  They’d make a great lunch with a side dish and a drink.

The very friendly bartenders noted my empty glass; I enjoyed a Spicy Cucumber Margarita shortly thereafter.  The spiciness is definitely “back of the throat” and adds something new to a drink.  Cucumber and agave syrup balanced the acidity of the lime, and the salt (optional) made my drink complete.  Masa 14 uses a housemade cucumber-fresno chile infused blanco tequila.  Try it and become a fan.

Next, I tried the Spicy Shrimp Flatbread.  It tasted buttery, sweet, and hot all at once.  The flatbread was soft and the Oaxaca cheese was fresh.  The julienned jicama and crushed pineapple  balance the pickled fresno chiles.  The heat is a “back of your throat”variety, not a “fire in your mouth” type.  I would absolutely order this dish and not share.  The Mojito Especial was the perfect drink to enjoy with the flatbread.

My last drink was the abovementioned Mojito Especial.  The requisite limes and mint were present, along with brown sugar and Patron Pyrat dark rum.  A faint licorice or anise flavor came through, balancing nicely with the brown sugar.  This drink is a refreshing twist on one of my favorite drinks.

Finally, I tasted the Bay Scallop Ceviche.  Trays holding individual servings came around the room, and the visual appeal was evident.  Beautiful scallops had been combined with diced jicama, bright pineapple, and chopped red onion.  Then the mix had been tossed with a yuzu-sriracha vinaigrette, giving it heat and a citrus note.  I would definitely order this dish.  If you’re looking for a place that takes you out of the rat race, head for the rooftop of Masa 14.  The food is different from just about anything else you’ll find in DC, being Latin-Asian fusion, and the drinks are delicious.

-TKW

I am hosting Food Blogger Happy Hour tonight (May 2nd) at Market Tavern! RSVP Here!

And, our 9:30 Club (Sound Bites) Contest Closes Sunday Morning!

-JAY

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Check out my friend Ami’s Costa Rica Tours and don’t forget to use the code “TOUCAN” to save money. He has some group tours that you can join.

-JAY

This is the 2nd article in a series– #1 (Dolce Veloce) is here.

Restaurant kitchens come in all shapes and sizes, and after my last tour, I wanted to learn more about a big-time operation, a restaurant with an expansive dining room, a large crew of cooks and other staff, and at the eye of the storm, a talented chef managing the kitchen with aplomb.

I was not disappointed.

Wildfire Restaurant in Tysons Galleria is an outpost of a small chain based largely in the greater Chicagoland area.  Tucked away on the 3^rd floor of the mall (though with its own dedicated elevator from the top level of the parking garage), Wildfire is a location I’d walked by several times when perusing the Galleria’s shops.  The restaurant is gently lit, a strong contrast to the bright lighting of the shopping mall, and is resplendent with dark wood and leather chairs throughout.  The dining room is sizable and abuts the open kitchen with the hybrid gas/wood-fired main oven, though the staff also works in a prep kitchen a bit further backstage.

When I stopped by recently between lunch and dinner services, I found the Executive Chef, Eddie Ishaq, coolly directing his crew in the prep kitchen and slicing roasted sweet peppers for a special event the next evening (more to come on that in a subsequent post).  Chef Ishaq is a Chicago native who earned his culinary degree from Kendall College.  Having worked his way up the kitchen staff hierarchy at several Wildfire locations, Ishaq spent a short while away from the company at Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in Chicago, but in January 2011, he accepted the appointment to the top job at Wildfire’s Virginia location.

Ishaq manages a kitchen with massive output.  On a busy Saturday night, he said, his crew will push out more than 800 meals.  On Mother’s Day, they’ll serve about 1,800 people between lunch and dinner.  The kitchen remains open between lunch and dinner with 4-5 cooks manning their stations, but a busy night will require 12-15 cooks on the line.  Ishaq’s crew is 45 strong, but management told me that the cooks make up a little less than one-third of the location’s staff.  The Wildfire management team in McLean is transplanted from Chicago, but it takes more than 150 employees to run this 300-seat restaurant.  The chef was consistently proud of his cooks when I talked to him, but he also took a moment to praise the bottom rung of the culinary ladder:  “Dishwashers have the hardest job in the restaurant.  There are six of them.  Without them, we’ve got no plates, no silver, nothing.”

Chef Ishaq described his restaurant’s menu proudly:  “Our specialty is as a steakhouse, but we have a little bit of everything to satisfy every palate.”  He explained that his cooks work especially hard to accommodate customers with allergies:  “We get allergy tickets left and right…but we’re here to satisfy – we don’t let people down.  If I can do it for them, I will.”  With even a small chain restaurant, the chef has a little less control over the menu than he might at a neighborhood store.  Chef Ishaq sends ideas up to his bosses quite a bit, but he gets to demonstrate his chops a bit with daily specials.  When conceptualizing specials, he said, the single biggest factor is the season, which governs what’s available and if he can get it fresh and cheap.  The restaurant also works hard to use local purveyors whenever possible – the chef mentioned a Pennsylvania farm that sends them fresh fruits and vegetables, and another purveyor who sells him “unbelievable” high-quality eggs that he usually moves during brunch in frittatas and sauces.  For Easter Sunday alone, he said, they restaurant had ordered 30 dozen eggs, and his staff went through 5 pitchers of Hollandaise sauce.

He also gets a chance to show off at Wildfire’s special events, generally held monthly and described in more detail on the restaurant’s website.  He mentioned a recent Scotch tasting and dinner that garnered more than 60 attendees, and he’s currently thinking about some special cocktails and beer for football season.  The crew is also planning a pork dinner, with an organic Berkshire hog being raised especially for the restaurant.

Ishaq explained that a day in his restaurant starts with prep lists.  His morning crew arrives between 8 and 8:30 – including one cook who spends several hours cutting and blanching potatoes for French fries – and begins the day’s prep lists, including an inventory of everything needed for the day’s service.  “We try to make everything fresh daily as much as possible,” the chef told me.  “If I have to make up half a batch, I’ll make half a batch.”  The menu at Wildfire is a fairly broad one, which demands that the open kitchen waste no space at all when storing cut and portioned fish, meats, garnishes, sauces, and the various other accoutrements of a professional kitchen.

Lunch at Wildfire is, well, pretty wild.  Over the course of an hour and a half, tops, the crew will serve about 350 meals.  The Tysons Corner lunch crowd appears to be fairly corporate – witness all the office towers in the area – and the customers want to be in and out 30-45 minutes.  “It’s challenging when you’re only allowed to have a certain number of cooks on your schedule, but if we need to get our hands dirty, we jump in and knock it out.”  Tickets may come in fast and furious, but they go out like clockwork – his cooks are expected to get plates out in ten to fifteen minutes at the most.

Between the lunch and dinner services, some customers will still be around, but his crew is generally working on transition.  The cooks are setting up for dinner, the chef is preparing for any private parties, and they’re all prepping for dinner service.  At about 4:00, his dinner cooks arrive, check their stations, and will work through dinner until about 11:00.  The dinner crowd usually arrives by about 6:30, and will stay until 9.  Chef Ishaq laughed as he described that difference from Chicago – the Wildfire locations there will be packed from 3:30 or 4:00 all the way until 9:00, but the Virginia crowd tends to work a little later.

Yet despite the crowds, Chef Ishaq repeatedly told me that he thrives on the pressure.  He explained that he focuses even more closely on his plates when he’s busy:  “When it starts getting crazy, I want my eyes to see every single dish that goes out.  It gets crazy busy, but that doesn’t mean the quality of the food will go down.”

The chef began assembling two of their most popular dishes for me while we talked – a macadamia-crusted Halibut filet served with asparagus, and their signature crab cakes.  The fish, cut and breaded during prep, is pan-roasted on an oiled cast-iron skillet in the main oven, which his staff keeps between 575 and 600 degrees.  After a bare few minutes and a turn, he added blanched asparagus to the skillet, and assembled the dish on a plate with a lemon-butter sauce.  The ease with which he moved, even having a stranger on the line next to him, was fascinating, and his crew’s movements around me that afternoon were seamless.  Whether assembling three-layer chocolate cakes with a light, chocolate mousse-style frosting (amazingly rich, yet light in texture), blanching potatoes, making sauces, or otherwise keeping up with the professional kitchen, not a one of his cooks blinked an eye while moving around me.  And their discipline doesn’t just extend to strangers in the kitchen:  “The key to a restaurant is portions – everything has to be consistent.  Working at a restaurant, your eyes have to be open all the time.”  Restaurants live and die on their customers’ satisfaction, obviously, and in my experience, a happy customer is one that comes back, orders their favorite dish, and gets it just the way they like it.

The chef hit on another theme I’ve heard from pros in the business:  “Presentation is key.  If something doesn’t look appealing, there’s a very good chance that nobody’s going to touch it.”  The halibut, right out of the oven, was scorching hot and beautifully crisp, with a fantastic nutty flavor.  The sauce, a simple lemon beurre blanc, went perfectly with the fish.  The asparagus was tender, nicely seasoned, and plenty flavorful – even though it was simply prepared, the fresh produce he uses made a big difference.  His crab cakes were gorgeously seared and full of crab flavor, with just a hint of mustard in the sauce.  And he must be doing something right with those, because crab cakes Benedict is their most popular brunch dish – quite an achievement for this area, no?

My impression of Chef Ishaq was that of a consummate, yet easygoing professional.  He gave orders to his crew during the afternoon prep without raising his voice, and he clearly enjoys his work.  Referring again to customers who ask for special dishes, he simply intoned with a smile, “…My job is to make them happy.”  In an operation this size, with a crew this large, with so many meals going out the kitchen door at once, it’s refreshing to know that the Executive Chef is that modest.

And with his eye always on the customer, he’ll keep packing them in.

Wildfire is located on the 3^rd floor of the Tysons Galleria in McLean.

-HML

If you’re in the Bethesda area, or just want some really good thin-crust pizza, stop by Haven Pizzeria on Wisconsin Avenue.  Last Tuesday, the owners of the pizzeria and Andréa — of The Bethesda Foodie fame — threw a little shindig at the self-proclaimed “pizzeria Napoletana.”  Though it started a bit late (7pm) for a mid-week happy hour and tasting, the food was delicious overall and the hospitality, impeccable.

Mark, the manager, told us about the restaurant’s finer points.  He began with the twin 100,000 pound brick ovens heated with coal, which cooks the pizzas evenly and provides an authentic char on the bottom.  The fresh, organic, local produce and seasonal berries used for the salads, gelato, and pizza toppings are one of the points of pride for Haven.  The organic dairy products from Wisconsin create the delectable foundation for the artisan gelato, which is made in house daily.  Last but not least, Haven imports Italian cheeses, yeast cultures, and olive oil for that irreplaceable Mediterranean flavor.

After making a few introductions amongst ourselves, we were turned loose upon the bar.  I sampled the Parducci Pinot Noir and instantly loved it.  The clear ruby red wine was fruity and bold with a smooth finish.  It’s a great red to pair with the tomato or mozzarella pie or the Romano salad.  During the food tasting later on, I tried a glass of the Orvieto — a white wine imported from Italy — and it went beautifully with the clam pizza, as well as the spinach and mushroom pizza.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The first item brought out for us was something called the “potato chip”; essentially, it was a small pizza crust topped with garlic, olive oil, and pecorino-Romano.  It was crispy, salty, and cheesy — and did in fact taste similar to a potato chip.  The other appetizer served to us was the Haven White Clam Pie.  Fresh clams, olive oil, garlic, and cheese top the pizza.  Alas, I missed out on the appetizer version but redeemed myself during dinner.

After a tour of the pizza ovens, wine bar, and gelato churn, it was time for dinner.  Mark sent out about six pizzas, and they were all delicious.  Two important notes about their pizzas: the first is that before going into the oven, each pie gets a drizzle of olive oil for moisture and flavor.  The second note is about the crust.  Haven pizzas have a thin, slightly crispy crust that gains flavor from the char added by the brick ovens.

During round one, I tried a slice of the White Spinach & Mushroom Pie and a slice of the Tomato Pie.  The spinach and mushroom had sliced mozzarella rounds distributed over the toppings, and the pizza had no tomato sauce, hence “white.”  I appreciated the fresh mushrooms and the olive oil drizzled over the pizza.  I would order this pizza if I were in the mood for something a little fancy-tasting.  The Tomato Pie consists of freshly ground plum tomatoes and grated pecorino-Romano cheese, both imported from Italy.  If you’ve never had the pleasure of trying a tomato pizza, get one at Haven.  Their version has the char on the crust to contrast with the sweet tomatoes; it’s a beautiful thing.

Mark brought out several bottles of Foxon Park pop, which he has trucked in from Connecticut.  Our table tried the Grape, Orange, and White Birch flavors.  Yes, White Birch really is a flavor; it’s very similar to root beer, but it’s clear.  The Grape was quite tart, while the Orange tasted bold.  None of the flavors were overly sweet, which I greatly appreciated.  I enjoyed the combination of the White Birch with the meat pizza, and the Grape with the Tomato Pie.

For round two, I grabbed a slice of the Mozzarella Pie with meat, as well as a slice of the Haven White Clam Pie.  Liberally dressed with pepperoni and fennel sausage, the pizza’s tomatoes and mozzarella provided a tasty contrast to the meat.  Try this carnivore’s delight while enjoying one of the many beers Haven offers.  Then I was able to sink my teeth into the clam pizza.  Let me begin by stating that the dinner version was a combination of the Haven White Clam Pie and the Coal Oven Roasted Pepper — with bacon.  Nary a tomato was found on this pizza, but roasted red peppers, bacon, clams, garlic, oregano, mozzarella, and a healthy dose of olive oil completed the dish.  I highly recommend this pizza for those who want a really fresh and good meal.  The flavors went together incredibly well, and if Haven had thrown a few potato slices on it, it could have been called the Haven White Clam Chowder pizza.

Finally, we were given huge scoops of gelato to finish the meal.  Haven makes five flavors; they’re all lower in fat and denser than ice cream, but the density makes the gelato taste creamier.  A couple of my tablemates mentioned that the pistachio flavor really tasted like the nuts.  I can personally vouch for the strawberry and coffee flavors tasting like the fresh ingredients used to create them.  Haven can also make milkshakes from their gelato.  After having tasted some their other foods and drinks, I can say with confidence that trying anything on the menu is a safe bet.  Haven does not disappoint.

-TKW

Disclosure: From time to time, we are given free items, meals, or events.

Normally, I would take a heavy editing hand to such prose, but my dear fellow native Washingtonian AJ is not only not wrong in her assessments, I think her admittedly ridiculous over-style is somehow appropriate for the inflated self-worth of ‘fancy’ fast food joints.

-MAW

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AJ Says:

I’m an admitted burger fiend. I grew up eating the things by the truckload at home and out (visits to the old Hamburger Hamlet were ever a demand foisted upon my parents’ weekends). But mostly, we ate them at home. Our burger consumption transcended all the various food and diet fads of the 80’s and 90’s – my mother, and later I, tried every one – through low fat to mid-fat to inexplicably 99% fat free beef, through turkey, through lamb, through veal and through chicken, our patties endured white buns and wheat buns, no buns and potato rolls, were eaten plain and smothered in ketchup, mustard, organic ketchup, mayo, Tabasco, Cholula and Marie Sharp’s, dipped in Kraft BBQ and home-made barbeque sauces, and mixed with onion soup mix, blue cheese, and whatever else – one thing, however, remained constant: each patty was grilled over open fire, just shy of medium-rare, with a nice charred crust all around. We ate a lot of burgers, and I’ll even cop to loving McDonalds’ through about age 14, when I discovered that my anti-corporatist streak could be more reasonably supported by liking a proper hamburger containing neither carrageenan, soy byproduct, nor griddle grease. My love of meat did (thank heaven!) stop me short of any teenage-girl notions about dieting or vegetarianism.

This brings me to the relatively recent revival of burger joints in DC and elsewhere, and how much they piss me off. Five Guys was the first I noticed – bland, grey patties cooked on soggy white buns, served aside admittedly delicious fries and momentarily entertaining peanut shells to throw at people. The Shake Shack craze I understand even less. Blah on both counts, and I never understood why people get so excited about them, but at least they admit it’s fast food. But now we come to Black & Orange, formerly Rogue States. Intrigued by the concept (and gleefully in support of just about any attempt to push DC into a better late-night town), I decided to stop in the other day on my way home from work.

To be as fair as possible, I eschewed the fancily dressed-up versions – as you may guess, I do love me some toppings – and went for the “Square One,” dressed simply with sea salt and black pepper, and topped with the ever-traditional lettuce, onion, tomato, and pickle. I excitedly dug in. And there, my excitement came to an abrupt and unsightly death.

Which isn’t to say the burger wasn’t pretty: it was really picturesque as a whole, with the right proportions, for me, of mean, topping, and bun. But, upon taking a bite, I found the bun was sweet but otherwise insipid, and the patty itself bland and mushy in texture. It was, at least, properly pink inside, and the toppings were fresh (and the lettuce not iceburg!), giving it a leg up on the above-mentioned fast-fad burgers.

I understand the limitations of indoor kitchens and the need for grill pans instead of grills, but seriously people: this is not a “gourmet” burger. This is a better-than-average fast-food burger. While again I do love the idea that the place is open till 5 AM, and I’ll probably stop in for some sweet potato fries and maybe even another burger after later shows at the Black Cat, by that point I’ll have had eleventeen vodka-cranberries and won’t care about much beyond “Foooooooood…nowwwwww.” For random I-need-dinner-on-the-way-home nights, however, I’ll stick to Fast Gourmet sandwiches, and just do burgers myself.

– A guest post by AJ

Black & Orange
1931 14th St. NW,
Washington, DC 20009
202-450-5365

“Stop on by for a delicious treat before you head  over to the “Dance in the Circle” and enjoy  some really wonderful chocolate at our  free sample day this Saturday afternoon.

We will be featuring a special selection of bars  made from Caribean cocoa, plus a great  selection of bars from around the world.

Bring your Family, Friends, and Co-workers.  All are welcome to this free event.

Here is our Sampling List:

We are featuring four selected Caribean bars ~ Amedei – Jamaica 70% Amedei – Trinidad 70% Amedei – Grenada 70% Bonnat – Cuba 75%

Additional featured selections ~ Michel Cluizel – Ivoire Bar Askinosie – White w/ Pistachio Dolfin – Sencha Green Tea Michel Cluizel – Milk w/ Hazelnut Patric – Signature 70% Domori – Puertomar 75% Artisan du Chocolat – Espresso 70% Dolfin – 80% Dark Blend Recchiuti – Bittersweet Valrhona – Guanaja Grue 70% Zingermans – Zang Bar”

May 19th, June 16th, and July 21st are the next few Sample Days.

-JAY

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I wanted to let you know that The Food Experiments is returning to DC and I could not be more excited. For the uninitiated, The Food Experiments is a series of amateur cook-offs that celebrate the home chef.

We are excited to return to one of our favorite culinary destinations to present the DC Chinese Take-Out Experiment, an amateur cook-off involving Wash DC’s finest, most committed, passionate, and intense home chefs. Dishes will range from the savory to the sweet, from the Hot n’ Sour to Sweet n’ Sour to General Tso to Kung Pow to the humble Fortune Cookie and every possible experiment in between! Remember, there is always room for a little experimentation and one last bite. As long as it reminds you of those special times around the Lazy Susan, it can represent. You may never look at take-out the same way.

By creating these events, my co-organizer and I have looked to develop a community of food and fun-loving people not only in our hometown of Brooklyn but also across the country. And now thanks to our presenting sponsor Brooklyn Brewery, The Food Experiments are going on the road for a second year!

The DC Chinese Take Out Experiment will return to The Rock and Roll Hotel on Sunday April 22nd, from 12-3PM. Anyone can compete! All you have to do is sign up through our website. Anyone can win!  Anyone can attend! Tickets are $12 and include a Brooklyn Brewery Beer and over 20 samples of Chinese goodness. A portion of the event’s proceeds will go towards charities that promote sustainability and local culinary education for disadvantaged children and teens.

I’d like to encourage you and your readers to enter or attend. The grand prize is a trip to Brooklyn (we take you out for some great food, and put you up in a seriously cool hotel) to eat and compete against all the cook-off winners from around the country. All DC chef-testants will be a provided with a $50 Harris Teeter gift certificate to help purchase ingredients for the competition.

Both the audience and the judges will get to name their favorites. I am proud to announce on the esteemed judging panel will include Mary Kong of Girl Meets Food, and Lauren DeSantis of Capital Cooking.

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Check out my friend’s Costa Rica Tours and don’t forget to use the code “TOUCAN” to save money. He has some group tours that you can join.

-JAY

But the bad news is a dry spell for the FUD at the moment. So, to counteract this terrible state of affairs, we are looking for…..

A FEW NEW WRITERS!! Were you annoyed by a restaurant? Do you have some random recipes to share? Have you discovered the best wine, restaurant, food truck, or (restaurant) restroom in DC? Do you want to write a comparison article for a particular item or dish? Need some hipster cred? Writing experience for your resume? Articles for your Portfolio? Passionate about food? Then we want you for DCFüd. Send writing samples to jay@dcfud.com, along with few ideas you’d like to write about. It’ll be crazy!

-JAY

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