B. Smith's (DC - Union Station)

Last Wednesday I stopped into B. Smith's for a working lunch. I am embarrassed to say that I let two years of living in DC go by before I finally made it here. Shame on me.

The restaurant is nestled into the East gallery of Union Station, in a beautifully decorated American art nouveau dining room with soaring vaulted ceilings. The result is a very comfortable and surprisingly quiet dining room.

Before you even glance at your menu, it is clear that you are in for some serious Southern cooking. The bread basket that awaits you offers selections ranging from a delicate, sweet corn bread muffin to a rustic, buttery, stick-to-your-ribs green onion and cheddar short bread. Try to avoid the temptation to make a meal of bread alone and leave some room for the main event.

Our party selected the turkey pannini, the vegetarian BBQ ribs and the intimidatingly-named "swamp thang."

The pannini was the only real dud in the bunch. To be fair, a sliced turkey pannini doesn't really belong n this heavily Southern menu, but I think it is the kitchen's attempt to appeal to health-conscious diners. In any event, it was very dry and the buttered bread negated any healthy intentions.

I didn't get to sample the vegetarian BBQ ribs, but they looked delicious and got high marks. B. Smiths accomplishes "vegetarian ribs" by pressing tofu into long rectangles that resemble ribs and then coating them in BBQ sauce and grilling them (imagine if McDonald's "McRib" were comprised of high quality soy protein instead of meat turned away from the hot dog factory). This would have been a far better choice than the turkey - especially if you opted to substitute fresh fruit for the spicy fries that come with the dish.

By far the best dish at the table was the famed "swamp thang." This is a pile of wilted greens (collard and mustard greens, primarily) covered in a mixture of sautéed shrimp and scallops and dressed with a mustard cream sauce. This sounds decadent - especially for a mid-day meal - but it isn't. The seafood was cooked to perfection - the scallops were tender and the shrimp were yanked from the pan just before they began to become rubbery.

The sauce itself was surprisingly light for a cream-based sauce. I was expecting that heavy stuff that typically accompanies boudin in New Orleans, but this was thin and not at all overpowering. The greens added a bit of bite to the dish, with their bitterness cutting through the mouth coating qualities of the cream sauce.

The next time you are in the mood for some serious Southern grub, head on over to Union Station. Fo'shiggity.