After All the Stops and Starts - Sparkling Toast at Erin & Tu's

Erin and Tu were generous enough to share the booty from their California wine tour last weekend (and toast our engagement at the same time!) I'll need to touch base with Erin to confirm the names of what we sampled- 3 sparkling wines from Mumm- but I know I liked the third one best. To pair with the wines, they offered a variety of appetizers- including proscuitto-wrapped melon and fresh summer rolls from Tu's favorite Vietnamese restaurant from Capitol Hill. The original plan was to head to Eat Bar after we had tried all of the wines, however, as is wont to happen at Erin & Tu's- they couldn't kick us out. We settled in for an evening of singing soft rock hits and later placed an order for room service for pad thai, satay & sushi.


Summer Rolls:
REO Speedwagon or Peter Cetera & Cher?
Room Service!

Busy Weekend Part One- Snow White Grill

The Snow White Grill completely lived up to my expectations. Tim insisted we eat inside to get the full experience, even if it meant waiting. Only a short wait was required before we were seated at the counter. The entire establishment, which opened in 1949, is about 12-15 feet wide- the width of the alley in which it was constructed. I had three lovely mini-burgers (2 with cheese, 1 deluxe w/ lettuce & tomato), some passable french fries and a birch beer.
As for the burgers, think White Castle or Krystal, but a few notches above. I know mini-burgers are pretty passe these days, but I still love them. Because I don't eat very much red meat (I virtually never prepare it at home)- a couple of mini-burgers hit the spot. Here's my current ranking of diminutive hamburgers:

1) Matchbox, 2) Eat Bar- tie, 2) Snow White Grill- tie, 3) White Castle, 4) Krystal. I'm up for adding more to my list if I'm missing anything. Suggestions? I'm embarrassed to admit that my visit to Eat Bar on Friday night with the Brownie moms included one last mini-burger for the day. It was completely different from Snow White Grill, but as I've mentioned before, I like the caramelized onions and truffle butter.

Early Weekend

Since we're taking off from work tomorrow to head to Winchester to have Tina Sparkles re-sized, now is the beginning of my weekend. Woo Hoo! Or maybe after today's lunch, I should say yee haw! Elise was in the Chinatown area for a meeting, and so Tracey and I met her for lunch at Capital Q. If I'd taken my camera with me, right now you'd be looking at the saucy pile of pulled chicken I devoured. Along with my sandwich, I had collard greens (with a few generous squirts of spicy vinegar) and black-eyed pea salad. Of course I also had sweet tea. Capital Q is one of the few decent purveyors of sweet tea around these parts.


On tomorrow's lunch schedule: The Snow White Grill - a Winchester institution I've never had the pleasure of visiting. Then, tomorrow night: Brownie moms (plus me) Night Out at Eat Bar. I predict hamburgers are in my future.

Unmotivated

I take back what I said about updating more often- at least for last week. A little too much working- so I had lunches from home and easy dinners. I have a pretty good food preparation arrangement with Tim- he makes coffee immediately upon rising and makes our lunches. I'm in charge of dinners and weekend breakfasts (when I'm so inclined- usually following a farmer's market trip). I do the grocery shopping as well (Tim hates grocery shopping with a passion). I generally don't mind it- actually rather like browsing. But sometimes I'm just not in the mood. Like tonight- we just ordered from "room service" instead - combo pad thai for Tim and I had veggie yaki soba. I'm feeling pretty low energy right now, but it's my own fault for staying up too late last night finishing Harry Potter. I was so afraid I'd overhear something about the end. No spoilers here, but I will say I enjoyed the last of the series.

Last week's dining highlight was definitely Elizabeth's 6th Annual Girls Movie Night.

Every year she picks a different girly movie, raises money for Arlington's Doorways for Women and Families, and puts out an impressive spread of candy for movie munching. I think the sugar high kept me energized for the midnight release of HP, too.

Crab Two Ways and Stilton Comparison

Goal for this week: update more than once.

There's too much to write about if I procrastinate until Sunday night. Before I get to my weekend re-cap I have a couple of noteworthy meals to report from earlier this week. (By the way, as I write this, Tim is attempting to use the ice cream ball for the first time. Except we don't have rock salt, and so we're experimenting with kosher salt. By the time I've finished my update, we may or may not be eating vanilla ice cream.)

Meal highlights for the week:

Monday

New hire lunch at McCormick & Schmick's. Nothing spectacular about the meal as a whole, but I did enjoy my appetizer. How much does this sound like something I'd order: Fried green tomatoes topped with barbecued shrimp & goat cheese. The tomatoes were actually a little too ripe, and so they didn't hold their texture like they should have, but the batter was extra crunchy and the barbecue sauce was nice and tangy (a good foil to the goat cheese.)

Tuesday

3 course dinner for $29.00 at Oya with Erin & Ginzee. I had a tuna tempura roll with 7 pepper sauce to start, followed by the best course of the night, seared scallops with truffle jus served with slim egg noodles and hen of the woods mushrooms. I tried the ice cream trio for dessert and was disappointed. The flavors (vanilla, espresso & rum raisin) were spot on, but it had the consistency of sorbet. I would have forgiven the iciness if it were limited to the rum raisin, but I expect much more from vanilla ice cream (they should try the decadent ice cream at 2 Amy's to see how it's done right.)

Friday

Lunch from Ella's. Pucillo pizza- prosciutto, arugula, tomato & smoked mozzarella.

(Update on the ice cream experiment: Ten minutes into the process and much cursing.)

A very good weekend for dining out. I think this week should be open for a little more (much needed) home cooking.

We spent this weekend at the Northern Neck. Sadly, it didn't involve any surprise jewelry. We hit up a local restaurant, Good Eats, for dinner last night and had a fabulous time in spite of some service "glitches". Let's just say the chef/owner is a tad on the arrogant & unpleasant side. (Breaking news: kosher salt = somewhat soupy ice cream. But even it has a better consistency than Oya's vanilla ice cream!) We had a considerable wait, but were able to spend it on some benches outside with our wine glasses.

Once inside we had rosemary focaccia rolls to start and then a variety of appetizers. I had Italian tomato bread soup with mozzarella & basil, while Tim had the crab pot stickers. Real, flavorful crab inside and served with a spicy dipping sauce. (Erin would like me to mention that the sauce was too spicy and overpowered the pot stickers- I can see that.) Most of us had soft shell crabs for our entrees. Choice of starch and slightly overcooked (and over-minted) veggies to accompany. I could have cared less about the sides - the soft shell crabs were wonderful (served with lime butter). Tim and I shared chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert.

The gorging continued today with more crabs. This time steamed.

Later, we had apple slices topped with smoked trout and watercress and then two stiltons for comparison. The first was traditional blue and the second was white stilton with lemon zest. The cheese monger at WF described it as tasting like the filling of a Danish- woo boy was he right. It made for a great dessert cheese and paired nicely with both a rose and pinot blanc.

Tour of Meats

I'm a little behind on updating this week. I feel like I have to confess that I've been reading indiebride forums until my eyes bleed, and less focused on what I'm eating this week, which I think will become pretty obvious when you see what I've been up to!

Isn't July the number one month for hot dog consumption? I'm definitely holding up my end of the deal. This past week has been a big one for grilling and eating some patriotic meals.

Tuesday- Tracey's Luau

Grilled hamburger & special cake (see wedding blog for more)

Wednesday-Happy Birthday America

A butter fried hot dog- really. It was as delicious as it sounds (because it rained on our grilling attempts, I decided to cook the hot dogs in my cast iron with a little bit of butter). I also had a few ribs.

Friday- Tim's Tour of "Irelington" Bar Crawl

Sadly no grilled meats. I did have a couple of wings, though, and I think that counts for something.

Saturday-Nationals Game

Italian Sausage w/ peppers and onions. They've changed the buns though, which I'm not happy about. Although they're bigger now, they're also flimsy and prone to sogginess.

Yum, but now I'm ready for a salad. Actually, tonight we'll be enjoying some farmer's market acquisitions- caprese salad on baguette with Mozzerella from Blue Ridge Dairy.

"Blue Ridge Dairy's farmhouse mozzarella was voted third best at the 19th annual conference of the American Cheese Society."

More Meadow Creek & Copper River Salmon

Tonight I grilled Copper River salmon on the grill pan with only a drizzle of olive oil, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. I use my grill pan so rarely that I don't think I've quite mastered the timing- tonight was probably my best foray into stove top grilling. I was able to maintain the filet's moisture even while achieving some nice charring (too bad that's carcinogenic), but coming off the pan a few minutes earlier probably would have been ideal.

Remember how I said I don't cook with butter? I think I lied a little. Both of tonight's veggies had a scant amount of butter. I steamed green beans that I then tossed with lemon zest, lemon juice and a small pat of unsalted butter. I also cut fresh corn off the cob and sauteed the kernels with butter, diced shallot and lots of Old Bay- not so much butter in either case, but enough of a flavor difference that I prefer it to olive oil with these particular vegetables.

Not so much cooking over the weekend because most of our eating revolved around Ryan's house-warming party- so much grilled meat (which Ben is doing a lovely job modeling)! My contributions were a crock pot of baked beans (McCall- do you remember when we went through a phase where we ate baked beans with rice for dinner our first year out of college? yum) and a cheese platter.

I decided to try Whole Foods' other local cheese (sadly, only two in the store), also from the Meadow Creek Dairy- this time Meadow Creek Mountaineer, which was firmer and more flavorful than the Grayson. I also had Maytag Blue cheese from Iowa (a Christmas favorite when I visit Grinnell for the holidays) and extra-buttery St. Andre triple creme brie. My first choice for the soft cheese was Brillat Savarin, but sadly they were sold out. So cheese of the week two weeks in a row, which means I can take this next week off!