"Central" Michel Richard 4.1

Last Friday I went to Restaurant “Central” in DC for a late lunch. This is not my first visit to this restaurant but all of experiences were on the same level in terms of service, food quality, and a lovely atmosphere.

This restaurant is run by a very famous chef Michel Richard, one of the most well known chefs in DC area, and maybe all of the US. His restaurant ‘Citronelle” always has very good ratings in the Washingtonian and Washington Post. And a couple of years ago “Citronelle” held 1st place among many fine dinning restaurants in the whole DC area. Central is one-step down from Citronelle: prices are more reasonable, the same chef, excellent customer service.

This lunch I went there by myself. I ordered a glass of French Rose. The wine was very good, and refreshing after walking outside in this hot weather.

Every time I go there, I order their cheese puffs. I do not remember the exact price on it, but lees than $10. The portion is big, and their so fresh, soft, and warm right from the oven.

Next, I ordered a burger. Yes, burger! There is no better place, than this to order a perfect burger and fries. This is a gourmet burger: special farmer meat, med-rare temperature, slices a sharp cheddar cheese, and couple of slices of smoky-smoky bacon.

Just perfect for your lunch!

Before my burger, I had a frisee salad with pouched egg. I am not a fan of pouched egg on top of my greens, but this time I actually liked it.

Small but very tasty garnish for this salad is pancetta. The salad has a beautiful presentation, and taste delicious. Once again, this was not my first experience in “Central”, but I have not had a bad experience at this restaurant yet.

Management is definitely know how to bring the right message to their customers, so they always will come back and have a great time. I was setting at the bar, and my server was very nice not bothering, but had great intuition if I need anything additional for my meal or more wine. The whole experience in “Central" was superb. I will go there again to make my day special and colorful.

Lyon Hall. 3.3

My first experience at Lyon Hall was shocking, and I will tell you why.

I heard that this is very nice and lovely quiet place, so we went there with my friend to chat, relax, and have a good time. Restaurant was very crowed, but we still got a seat, even though we did not made an reservation. Bar area was seemed somewhat nice. They had great happy hours; very good deals on drinks and food.

We sat in dinning area. Place itself is small and tables are small, too. We got the menu and started to browse food and wine item.

Somebody told me that this is a wine bar, so I was expected nice selection of wines. However, in the Lyon hall this was not the case. There were probably 30/40 bottle of red and the same amount of white wine on the menu, which is ok, but the selection was over priced and not very good.

However, the beer selection was excellent! A lot of good beers. In addition, they serve crafe wine. We ask our server to bring us a taste of 2 whites and they were horrible. Do not get me wrong, there is no such thing as bad wine, it is just compromising on quality in wine industry will bring you to not tasty wine. So, we finally chose the bottle of wine, whatever sommelier recommended, and it was ok.

Then, we order a couple of food items. Anywhere I go I have to try their mussels. It was a red sauce with ham, which I thought not very traditional. I think they were trying to be creative, and instead of chorizo, put ham. NO, NO, NO. I did not like it at all. Mussels’ sauce was not good either, tasteless, badly seasoned, with fatty ham on top.

The second dish was very close to Alsatian style cuisine. I do not remember the name, but it was a hot dog with sauerkraut. Bread was ok, sausage dry for, me, but maybe somebody will like it. If I would know, that this dish is a hot dog with some fancy sausage, I would not order it. It just not my style.

Third dish was Schnitzel. I have never been in Austria, Vienna but tried Schnitzel many times, and know how it supposes to look and taste. This one was not good.

First, Schnitzel is large, thin peace of meet, and served separate on the plate. Second, on other please, you usually get potato salad, and some greens, like spinach. Here, everything was together.

Again, the same chef: tasteless meal. Food itself is very heavy, not for wine, but for beer. To finish part about food, I just want to sum up, that I did not understand what the food theme is.

Menu is very adventured, you recognize many countries specialties there. I did not get the point of creation in some dishes.

As far as interior goes, it looks like a train with long seats and small tables next to it. Also very loud music, the young crowed 22 years old. The color theme is black and silver, not too cozy at all.

Our service was good. She was nice and thoughtful. We did not wait very long for our food. All the items were served hot and fresh.

I will give this restaurant another chance particularly in food. I much rather have a drink there, than a dinner.

Good place for after work happy hours.

On the Border 3.2

Continuing exploring the Woodbridge area. This time it is the restaurant, “On the Border”.
This Sunday on Father’s Day, we went there for lunch. Restaurant was very busy. However, the host sat us right away and brought us couple of glasses of ice water.

The menu was full of good and attractive food pictures, and was begging us to order. We did not have much time, for the reason of that I needed to go to work that day.

So, my son had his first corn dog, I order lunch deal $6.99 for 2, which were a cup of tortilla soup and 2 empanadas. In general, love these Mexican dishes. As far as drinks, we order Margaritas; the traditional way to feel comfortable in Mexican restaurant. It was delicious. In fact, the best Margarita I have ever tried! Moreover, a big plate of chips and salsa arrived on our table very quickly. The chips were home made, and salsa was very good.

I was considering the fact that restaurant is busy, and the expected food will arrive after 20 min or latter. Nevertheless, this was not the case. We got our food fairly soon. I liked my soup a lot. It had a very nice flavor, and consistency.

My empanadas were Ok. Not to big, but this is not the point. Just something not enough, maybe seasoning; I did not understand what actually was inside, what kind of meat? I ordered beef, but it tasted like chicken. I decided not to ask this question from our server because everything else was very good.

My husband got the same deal but 3 for 8.99. So, he got tamales, tacos, and the same soup. He liked them all. My son was trying corn dog first time, and liked it a lot. We were very full, therefore no dessert this time.

The atmosphere in the restaurant was very alive; music was not too loud, but just perfect. Nice decorations on the walls, typical for the Latin character: bright colors, sombreros, deferent small paintings, were giving specific character to this restaurant. The space itself was full of light and sun shins. I cannot say too much about service. Our server was busy assisting other table. I will give her a break, I know how that is. She still was very nice and held her frustration together.

My rating: I liked it and will comeback with my family and friends.

"Glory Days Grill" 3.1

This week I am going to tell you my experience about a couple of restaurant in Woodridge area, the area where I am actually live. Past weekend on Saturday, we went for lunch at “Glory Days Grill”, located in Lowe’s Plaza. The time was around 1 pm. The restaurant was not too busy, which is not a good sign. A host set us down, and offered us menu. This is the usual thing.

The restaurant enterer is OK. Little too dark for me, but this is the sport bar, type “men’s happy hour”.

For my lunch meal, I got a chicken salad with blue cheese dressing and blue cheese crumbles on top. My husband get short-rib sandwich, and my son had chicken fingers. For appetizer, we had buffalo chicken wings with ranch dressing. We have not had any alcoholic beverages this time, just water.

Than, maybe after 10 to 15 min we get our wings. No, questions, they were delicious, spicy and juicy. Yummy, loved it.

My salad was a big disappointment. Instead of blue cheese dressing, I got ranch, and you could barely see the blue cheese crumbles on the salad. As far as protein said, nothing exiting either, no special marinade on chicken, but will tell you truth amount of meet was more that enough. My husband sandwich, as he said, was very tasty. I liked his fries, properly done, not greasy. Sandwich was big and meet was very tender and juicy.

My son was very happy with chicken fingers and apple juice. As far as price goes, our bill were on the range of 45$ plus tips. I personally do not think that this lunch deserved this money.

However, all these factors are very subjective and depend on individual taste.

Service was fine; server was nice and welcoming. Over all rating: just some sport bar in Woodbridge.

I might go there with my friends, but just for drinks and wings, but not more than that.

Zaytinya 2.3

Last week I was dinning in Zaytinya. It is a fairly big restaurant located in DC, right across the MLK memorial Library. My best friend is workingthere now. I decided to take my time and try this restaurant.Zaytinya is Mediterranean restaurant and offers an innovative mezze menu inspired by Turkish, Greek and Lebanese cuisines. This restaurantalways has good ratings for food and service. The owner and the Chef, José Andrés, is very famous, and often shows on TV cooking channels.

Let’s start with design and interior. It is very simple: blue and white colors, glass windows, and wood furniture. This is the best combination for a Mediterranean restaurant. Clean white walls, marble bar, and gorgeous patio.

As far as food goes, Zaytinya is a restaurant that does not offer big large portion meals. It specializes in small tapas pates; people could buy a couple of them and enjoy with their drinks. I ordered 3 small plates.One of them was a dish with different Spreads “Pikilia” and comes with Turkish or Lebanese bread, very soft and hot, right from the oven. The second dish was “Prawn Kishkash”: marinated huge wild prawns, withtomato sauce. And last one was “Knisa Lamb Chops”. Grilled lamb chopswere served over a smoked yogurt and caper-dill salsa. The three items were outstanding in terms of quality of the product.

I was not too crazy about prawns. It was good, but something was wrong with theflavors; maybe tomato sauce was not right combination for it. But myfavorite was Lamb Chops. They were very tender, right temperature, andjust perfect size meal.

To accompany my meal I had their house drink, do not remember thename, but taste and color similar to sangria.

It was very refreshingand not too sweet.My friend was my server, so, service was outstanding too. I had agreat experience at Zaytinya. It is a great place for romanticdates, business meetings and just to hang out.

McDonalds Breakfast 2.2

I am back in the DC area. This short review will be about my neighborhood fast food restaurant. Nothing fancy this time, but just McDonalds.

Well, I did not have a dinner last night and today in the morning I was running a little late. On my way to work I was just starving, and stopped by our local McDonalds in the Woodbridge area. I am not a fan of fast food restaurant at all, but sometimes it is ok. I was pleasantly surprised that the place was packed at 8:30 in morning, and smelled delicious.

So, not thinking too hard, I chose “Bacon, Egg and Cheese on a Bagel” and cup of coffee. Like usually, food took 2 minutes, and I was in my car in no time. To tell you the truth, my breakfast was delicious. The ingredients were fresh, and the meal was hot and yummy.

The staff was cheerful and welcoming. Overall, I had a good experience with McDonalds. The interior maybe lacking, but this is McDonalds, nothing fancy as I said.

I would not say that this was a big meal; just right for me.

Lets faces it, you don’t need to eat in a fast food restaurants every day three times a day, but sometimes, in a pinch, they are your best friend.

L'Ecole 2.1

New York, New York! Probably around two times a year my husband and I like to travel to NY for just a 2 or 3 days get away vacation. And of course what can be better than to check out a couple good restaurants, pizzerias, delicious New York hot dogs or pretzels. This time my story is going to be about restaurant “L’ecole,” at the International Culinary Institute, located on Broadway and Grand. This is our second visit to this restaurant. The reason is prices are more than reasonable, food is absolutely outstanding, and the service is marvelous.
The concept of this restaurant is based on serving a prix fixe menu. Personally I love this concept, the same as in France. The cost is $49 for a 5-course meal: starter or appetizer, fish course, meat course, small salad, and desert. The restaurant works as a non-profit establishment, and young chefs could express theirs new knowledge and God given talent.
For my first course I got the Parisian gnocchi with prosciutto and asparagus. The dish was delicious all around. The fish course was Halibut with squid. The presentation was great, unique, and the fish was fresh and flaky. This dish was served with sweet creamy corn. I thought it was the perfect combination. My meat course was a hanger steak. Oh my God, it was superb. The perfect temperate, med-rare, nice color, with the right balance of seasoning and marinate. Moreover, how tender was that! I never in my life tried hanger steak perfectly cooked, and that moist and tender. Obviously, the chefs know what they doing back there.

To accompany our dinner we had a fairly inexpensive bottle of Malbec priced around $40. It was nicely paired with all of my food items, maybe not just with the halibut. But oh well that is ok. For dessert, my husband chose the chocolate trio, and I had my favorite fromage - you cannot go wrong with cheese as a last course of your meal. I would not say that the cheese was as good as in France, but still great quality. It is very hard to find good cheese in the USA; all of them are pasteurized. This kills the flavor and the structure of the cheeses. However, this is a different story.
The waiter presented the plate of cheeses, 1 ounce of each. It was just perfect to finish my dinner with. It was a great selection: creamy and tangy goat cheese, strong flavored hard cheese, double cream soft cheese family of brie or camembert; I do not know exactly which one it was, and stinky, strong and pungent blue cheese. Oh, that was my favorite! All my cheeses I paired with LBV port. The restaurant was completely full by 8pm, and we had the best seats in my opinion, right by the window.

The interior of the restaurant was typical French: a lot of wood, white table clothe, nice glasses, and plates. Service was outstanding as I mention before. Everything was just in time and as we requested.
Visiting this restaurant has become a tradition during our trips to NY.

I love this place!

Brasserie Beck. Week 1.3

I just want to start this story with ‘I love mussels” and Brasserie Beck is the best place to get fresh, large mussels, just huge portion of this dish. Let me just specify that the price is very reasonable for this portion. I was craving mussels since I left this restaurant last time.

The large pot of mussels with traditional white wine, garlic- shallot sauce, was served with perfect fried French fries and three dipping souses. It was a joy for me that day. Another dish we tried there was Duck ravioli. It is amassing. There are two big raviolis with dark, rich wine-duck comfit reduction purred all over the pasta. We order and enjoyed this dish from the first bite.

Brasserie Beck has a great selection of beer and wine. Moreover, they offer you to taste any wine you want before you buying a glass. The same goes with beer.
Bar tender was not bothering us but had enough involvement in how we doing, and if need anything. She was there for us. In contract with my last story about the Liberty Tavern, Brasserie Back has a great customer service, even though timing like usually was not perfect for lunch.

However, I am not too impressed with ambience of the restaurant. I think they could do better.

My friends and I did enjoy our last visit of this Belgium restaurant, and we will go there again.

Liberty Tavern. Week 1.1

Not log time ago I went to “Liberty Tavern” for my lunch with my boss. I like this place in general. Very casual atmosphere, not too formal. Exact place for young crowd to hang out. Place itself is specious and bar is beautiful.
I ordered Ruben sandwich and my boss did California club.

The food was not served quickly. In addition, I just wanted to point out that place was not crowd at all. 2pm is not a perfect time for lunch usually. Anyway, portions of the sandwiges were huge. My boss was end up taking half home. I am not saying that it is good having a big portions, but for lunch people expecting this size portions. Food was great: good choice of meet, dressing, bread, presentation. Seasoning was perfect and the ingredients were fresh.

One thing I want to mention about this experience is service. As I mention earlier the restaurant was not busy at all. It was our one table inside and a couple of tables outside, who already finished with their lunch. So, we asked to be served, in terms of asking somebody to take our food order. Everybody was busy with closing lunch duties, and we were neglected. In addition, during our lunch service was lacking: asking for more water, for container to go, for our check. Usually service is good in Liberty Tavern, but not this time. On our way out manager or a host was sorry about the service, and promise that it would be better next time.
I will take his word for it, and will try to come again.

Twisted Vines.Week 1.2

A couple weeks ago, I visited relatively new wine bar in Arlington “Twisted Vines.” I have a friend working there in the kitchen. The restaurant was fairly full and noisy, which is always a good sign for your first experience. Because of the fact that the restaurant is not very big, owners are not hiring a host. As soon as we walked in, one of the staff members offered us a seat, and immediately brought the menus. I liked the atmosphere in the restaurant: casual, cozy, and very simply designed.

We ordered wine through the same server. I was not too impressed with her wine knowledge. We ordered bottle of Shiraz, and get busy with studying the food menu. The wine selection by itself is mediocre.

As far as food goes, we order a coupe of small plates to nibble on. Food item arrived very fast. Usually if you are busy in the kitchen, you will wait for your dishes much longer. We order duck flat bread , and I was impressed. It had perfect crust, the right amount of meat, not over whelming, and seasoning just right. I do not remember the price, but at that point, it was a good dial. Mowing further, next dish was “Brie and Honey” with caramelized onion. We serve very similar dish in our family restaurant, but not with caramelized onion, but honey and black dry currant. Onion in this dish was awkward. I did not like it at all. Last dish, my friend made off the menu, it was sort of Antipasti plater with dolmades, olives, meats and cheeses. I like the variety of item that been offered, and everything was very fresh, and good quality.

About 10 minuses, after we got our food the owner came over to say hi and just to ask if we were doing well. This is was a very nice gesture.

Like this place, and will recommend it for you to visit.