A few months ago, the much-altered former location of the Zebra Room (subsequently Brothers Coffee, the Zebra Lounge, and others) took its latest incarnation as a wine bar: Enology. It’s the kind of place you might actually expect to do pretty well in these reaches of Upper NW. The setting is very pretty, though the outside tables have legs which make crossing yours entirely awkward. The wine list is extensive, and VERY EXPENSIVE. The cheapest glasses are $7, but most are $9-$11.
The list is organized by color and alphabet, with no hints whatsoever about each wine’s character. Our waitress was very sweet and made recommendations, which were 50-50. She didn’t really know much about the wines, it seemed, except for set scripts. Also, they only had one type of glass: reds and whites all came in Chardonnay glasses. This wouldn’t bother me at a restaurant charging $5 a glass, but for a place supposedly showcasing wine, and also charging not lightly for them, this is unacceptable. Silly as it sounds (and I’ve only recently become aware of it), the right glass really makes wine taste better.
Food is similarly expensive ($10 for a flatbread, $7-$9 (small) and $12-$14(large) for salads, etc.), but seems pretty OK. We had the Loramie Creek flatbread, with “goat cheese, local mushrooms, snipped chives.” The bread was nice and soft, though it did have harder sections (uneven heat?), and the goat cheese was spread nicely and very flavorful. I thought it overpowered the mushrooms (only just barely cooked, if at all), but my companion disagreed. The cheeses look and, according to my mother are, very good.
Happy hour Monday (goes all night!) means $2 off “eclectic” wines – listed separately with no prices, so you have to page through the regular menu, not to mention the lack of descriptions – beers, cocktails, and some of the food ($8 off the large cheese plate is great, except that it’s still $50). Happy hour doesn’t mean a cheap time, but a bit more affordable for a once-in-a-while trek to the northlands (or a stop after (before?) visiting the Cathedral).
All told, Enology is a nice place to go for an occasional Something Different, but I doubt that, even if I were wealthy and lived in the neighborhood, it’d be a regular haunt.
Enology Wine Bar
3238 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
202.362.0362

In the late 19th century, British hunter Guy Beringer wrote in the long-defunct Hunter’s Weekly that we ought to abandon the heavy English Sunday dinner, a “post-church ordeal of heavy meats and savory pies” and instead introduce a “new meal, served around noon, that starts with tea or coffee.” This revolutionary idea, which Beringer termed “brunch,” was principally appealing to him because it would “make life brighter for Saturday night carousers” (i.e. allow him and his friends to stay up later and get drunker on Saturday nights). Over a hundred years later, with brunch soaring in popularity, the justification for it remains essentially the same.

As a lifelong New Yorker until my recent transplantation to Washington, I had grown accustomed to what I had mistakenly thought was a nationwide solution to the brunch meal: the prix fixe brunch menu with coffee and/or drinks included. Prix fixe brunch is pervasive in New York City. The best one is Essex on the Lowest East Side of Manhattan, and serves a $16 prix fixe meal that includes three bloody marys, mimosas, or screwdrivers with free coffee on Sundays if you arrive before noon. The food is a highly creative Jewish-Latin mix consisting of food that you won’t find outside of New York (maybe it’s illegal to ship bialys across state lines?) such as Eggs “LEO”– scrambled eggs with onions and gravlax — or challah French toast.

When I moved down to Washington a little over a year ago I assumed D.C. would follow this successful trend. Unfortunately, I was sorely mistaken. The only brunches I’ve found in D.C. that even remotely resemble the drinks-included prix fixe deals you’ll find in New York are the touristy (Kramer’s), the mediocre buffets (Front Page — a “buffett” spelled with an extra “t” for “terrible”), or the extremely expensive (Georgia Brown – $34.95, drinks extra). There are, of course, various places with drinks deals such as Creme’s $15 unlimited drink deal (food extra) or Tabaq‘s $3 drinks, but the drinks aspect is only one part of the beauty and simplicity of the prix fix deal.

That’s not to say you can’t get good brunch in D.C. Recently I’ve set out to find those places and have come up with some promising brunch spots around the city. On 18th street, Mezè, a Turkish place has surprisingly excellent French toast. Bardia’s New Orleans Cafe, a small hole-in-the-wall serves creative and authentic New Orleans style brunch complete with poached eggs atop catfish bites with creole sauce. Even The Diner, while way too popular for its quality, has some decent food as well, especially the French-inspired croques. Creme and Cafe Saint-Ex on U street are generally solid (good fried green tomato eggs benedict at St. Ex) and Rosemary’s Thyme and Café Tropé in the Dupont area are both good bets.

This article is from Guestblogger Michael, of BrunchDC

Summer is time for fresh ingredients, only lightly cooked if at all, and bright flavors. Some days, however, I still get a craving for pasta. This recipe is a nice compromise, giving the bright, fresh tastes of season along with the starchy goodness I crave. You can also add fresh chives to this recipe, which adds a nice sharp contrast (best instead of the lime juice) as a garnish. I sometimes add fish sauce to the mix as well, because it is great stuff.
The key with this dish is to use the best fruit possible, and cook the fruit for as little time as you can (it should still be cold in the middle). And do not even THINK about using ‘lite’ coconut milk.
Whole wheat pasta (fusili is nice)
Cut up fruit (today I used pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon and muscadine grapes)
Coconut milk
Cardamom
Anise seed
Cinnamon
Vanilla extract (real, not imitation)
Allspice
Sesame oil
Lime juice
While your pasta is boiling, mix the coconut milk with pinches – as much as you like – of the spices (ground up) EXCEPT THE ALLSPICE, and a splash each of vanilla and sesame oil. When the pasta is a little bit more al dente than you’d actually want to eat, drain it. Put it back in the pot, along with your fruit, and stir in the sauce mixture. When it cooks down a bit, and starts to be a good alfredo-ish texture, remove from the heat and spoon into serving bowls. Now, add a squirt of lime juice and a few pinches of freshly ground allspice to garnish.

On Friday, July 11, 2008 (12am-6pm) participating chick-fil-a’s will award a free combo meal to customers fully dressed like a cow. Details are here:
Cow Appreciation Day!
Somehow, this is not about the free combo meal. I’m tempted to stop by the Ballston Mall and watch the preview of next Halloween’s costumes.