Jackson Hole Dining (WY - Jackson Hole)

Jackson Hole has changed very little in the thirteen years since I last visited. The elk still roam just outside of town, stray moose still stop traffic occasionally and Rendezvous Mountain is still "the big one."

The most noticeable change is the culinary revolution that has been carried into town in the wake of the fur and jewel encrusted jet-setters that now make Jackson their playground.

A day on the slopes used to be followed with nachos and a beer at the Mangy Moose or steak and ribs at any one of a half dozen chop houses. If you were really going out on the town, you would head to the Cadillac Grille.

Today, Jackson boasts three Thai restaurants, three sushi restaurants, a wine bar, a microbrewery and myriad restaurants that would feel right at home in Chicago, New York or Los Angeles. Even the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar now serves its Pabst in BOTTLES.

Day 1

We landed too late to get in any skiing, so we unpacked, took a nap (damn elevation) and then headed out to an early dinner.

Koshu - Koshu is a wine bar and 20-seat Asian restaurant attached to the Jackson Hole Wine Company. Most people who come to Koshu for the food stop into JHWC and buy a bottle to BYO.

JHWC does a brisk business in everything from cold cases of my beloved PBR to bottles of first growth Bordeaux. I was shocked at the selection. They have every wine growing region, price point and format represented. Want a $9 magnum of white zin? No problem. A split of Vin Santo? Check. A $100+ bottle of Napa Valley Cab? Pick your vintage.

The restaurant itself is just a handful of tables and a few seats at a bar. The back wall is opaque Plexiglas that hides what would be an open kitchen. The result is that you can see shadows dancing back and forth in the kitchen, but not make out the detail - like shadow puppets.

We started with a few selections from their fairly extensive list of wines by the glass, seaweed salad and "dry fried green beans." The seaweed salad was good enough - the stuff you get in most Japanese restaurants (sesame oil, a little lemon, etc.) but the green beans were superlative. They are coated in hoi sin sauce and sesame seeds before being pan fried. They come out slightly crispy on the outside, but still tender in the center and the hoi sin reduces to a thick glaze.

For entrees, we shared a Vietnamese chicken bowl and Coho salmon in green curry. The chicken bowl was disappointing. It was bland and colorless with the chicken grainy and dry - showing signs of having been kept at high temperatures for a long time (think of those immense vats of soup in your college cafeteria that were continually replenished, but you never actually saw them emptied and cleaned).

The Coho was another story altogether. Vibrant, tell-tale vermilion flesh still raw in the center riding on a wave of pungent green curry and coconut milk. We discarded the sad Vietnamese chicken and devoured the Coho. When we were done, we dumped in a bowl of rice in order to soak up every last drop of the green curry.

Day 2

We had a great day of skiing with clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid teens. After a hot tub back at our hotel and late afternoon tea, we showered up and headed into town.

Million Dollar Cowboy Bar - You want Wild West kitsch? You've got it. Saddles are mounted as bar stools, Wagon wheels are turned into chandeliers and yes, just like at the Phil Vassar concert, you can pick up a souvenir thong for that special lady in your life.

After a few PBRs and some good natured shenanigans with a group of wayward Montanans, we settled up and headed over to OYG.

Old Yellowstone Garage - A few people suggested that this was a pretty decent Italian joint (many of the same people who told me to avoid Nani's at all cost) but everyone we met swore by the Sunday night pizza dinner at OYG. For $18 per person, you get a salad of mixed greens and all-you-can-eat of whatever pizzas the chefs feel like making that night.

They manage to keep it civilized, with the chefs making four or five of a given type of pizza and then dispersing the wait staff in different directions. You then have five to ten minutes to wait before the next pizza is pulled out of the brick oven.

Over the course of the evening, we sampled:

- spicy pepperoni
- pesto / sausage / red onion
- red pepper / zucchini / potato
- four cheese
- pesto / potato ("Genovese")
- grilled chicken / mushroom
- grilled chicken / pepperoni / sausage

Our favorites were the pesto / sausage / red onion and the four cheese white pizza, but they were all very good. I highly recommend this if you are in Jackson on a Sunday night.

Day 3

The wind kicked up a bit, carrying in clouds and the promise of fresh snow. We had a great morning of skiing and then stopped for lunch at Casper Lodge (at the top of the Sweetwater Triple).

Casper Lodge - Sunday afternoon we choked down some pretty bad "rubber" turkey burgers at Casper, but the weather was so glorious, we didn't really care. Monday, we had the opposite experience - a killer cheese steak eaten near the fire as we sought shelter from the whipping winds and poor visibility.

Casper is great - a warming hut that serves a surprisingly wide variety of good food. Aside from the Mangy Moose, this is probably the best option for slope side food at Jackson. If you go, be sure to go early (before 11:30) as the place can get very crowded.

After a few more runs, we called it a day, with flat light, shadows and drifting snow conspiring to get the better of tired legs.

We partook in our daily ritual of hot tub and afternoon tea before showering off and heading back to Koshu for drinks. We had a few glasses of wine and then walked two blocks to the Blue Lion.

Blue Lion - We had reservations at the Rendezvous Bistro (same owners as Snake River Grill) but really didn't feel like taking a cab or bus to and from dinner, so we cancelled it and scrounged up a table at Blue Lion. Big mistake. Huge.

The Blue Lion feels like a holdout from an earlier, less culinarily advanced era - the culinary equivalent of a wooly mammoth. Everything is just a bit overdone - massive salads come with the entrée and meats are drowned in heavily seasoned sauces. They have completely missed the boat on everything good that has happened in cooking in this country in the last 15 years (fresh ingredients, simple preparations, smaller portions, etc.).

We started with the French Onion Soup and a bowl of the daily special, a White Bean and Sausage stew. The French onion was pretty good and massive - it could have been an entree by itself. The White Bean and Sausage soup was somewhere between a cassoulet and a ribbolita - a thick mélange of beans, sausage and green vegetables. This was also very good, but man did it drop into your stomach harder than a bad matzoh ball.

The salads arrived with a Chipotle/Raspberry dressing. I was very much looking forward to this dressing, before I realized it was basically Russian dressing from a bottle with nary a hint of Chipotle to be found.

For entrees, my wife had the house specialty, Rack of Lamb and I had an Elk Tenderloin. The Rack was massive. There were eight or nine chops, heavily breaded and floating in thick rosemary cream sauce. Inside they were perfectly medium rare, but you couldn’t taste the meat through the hard shell of butter and seasoned breadcrumbs. Any lamb essence that might have slipped through was instantly drowned out by the rich rosemary cream sauce. They could have served my ski boot in the same preparation with no noticeable impact on the overall flavor of the dish.

The Elk Tenderloin was beautifully cooked. It was silky smooth, deep purple in the center (I requested it rare) and the texture was a velvety, melt-in-your-mouth feeling that even the best beef tenderloin struggles to achieve. Unfortunately, it too was drowned in a rich sauce - this time the culprits were green peppercorns and brandy. Minus the sauce, this dish would have sung - garnish with some fresh vegetables and a starch and you have a real award winner here. Drowned under the brandy and supported by a cast of over-cooked green beans in butter and ready-mix mashed potatoes, it simply a terrible thing to do to a great piece of meat.

We cut our losses and skipped dessert.

Day 4

We decided to give our legs a day of rest from skiing and try our hand at dog sledding. We drove the hour and a half north to Togwotee Lodge, where we spent the morning behind a team of 12 eager dogs. I can't say enough good things about this experience - especially if you are a dog lover. You are alone in the back country, with the only sounds coming from the dog's breath and the crunch of the snow under the sled's runners. Absolutely breathtaking. Togwotee Lodge - Our half day package included round trip transportation, dog sledding and lunch at the Togwotee Lodge. I suggest you skip the lunch. We had well done bison burgers served with cold fries in a room that felt very much like a high school cafeteria - well, what your high school cafeteria might have felt like had it been full of snowmobile operators ogling your women folk because they hadn't seen another female in days. I recommend saving the $20 a head and scooting back to town to visit Sweetwater or the Bunnery for lunch instead.

We spent the late afternoon lounging in the hot tub and napping and then headed off to an early dinner at Trio.

Trio - As I mentioned earlier, when a "star" restaurant experiences chef defection and said chefs hang out their own shingle just down the street, then a town has reached culinary maturity. When three chefs from the Snake River Grill left to open Trio, Jackson dining came of age.

Trio is a zero aesthetic sort of place. Simple wood floors, corrugated metal walls, high unfinished ceilings and an open kitchen with a few seats at the bar. It felt like they hired the same design firm as the folks over at Koshu. [By the way - I mean Trio and Koshu no disrespect. I actually prefer zero decor - and am highly skeptical of restaurants that spend too much attention on the decoration.]

Our waiter was the first person we met in Jackson who I believe actually knew something about food. Many restaurants neglect the front of the house, especially in a resort town, but the gang at Trio really spent some time educating the servers. He had sampled everything on the menu and was as facile describing their béchamel sauce preparation as he was commenting on the cold front that was moving in (most waiters in Jackson are way more comfortable discussing snow conditions than food).

We started with a mango mojito for my wife and - against my better judgment - a basil mojito for me. These are the sort of drinks that usually signal an unhappy end to the evening for me - not because of their alcohol content, but because they are a great leading indicator of the trendy cuisine that will likely follow.

We sucked these down while snacking on the delicious basil infused olive oil and fresh bread. They infuse their oil at the restaurant, which I know isn't that hard to do, but theirs is really outstanding stuff - like a very good basil pesto, without the gravity of the garlic or cream. [BTW - our candidate for “Resort Town Waiter of the Year" was able to describe in painstaking detail how the chefs infuse the oil with such a strong basil flavor.]

We started with the "BLT soup" and Waffle Fries w/ Blue Cheese Sauce. Our waiter noticed we planned to share both, so he split the soup for us and had it plated as two smaller bowls. It arrived looking exactly like something out of Todd English's deconstructionist daydreams - a pool of deep red tomato soup punctuated with chunks of crispy pancetta and a mound of green lettuce "pesto." Individually, the tomato soup, lettuce and pancetta were very good, but when sampled together, it absolutely tasted like a BLT sandwich - a little "gimmicky," but good.

I would never have seen the waffle fries at the bottom of the menu - and had I seen them, I would almost certainly never have ordered them - but the front desk clerk at our hotel told us they were her favorite dish in Jackson. She is definitely onto something. A pile of crispy, golden-brown waffle fries is covered in a blue cheese béchamel sauce. The sauce is rich, but not overpowering and the blue cheese just sings. Do not miss this dish. I recommend a progressive dinner beginning with Koshu's green beans followed by these fries. . .

For an entree, we split the Elk Bolognaise, a hallmark of the chefs' former employer. This was lighter than I was expecting and actually tasted like elk. It reminded me very much of some of the boar and other wild game ragout we had last fall in Tuscany.

We were going to skip dessert, but our waiter noted that the banana crepes are "out of this World." He is right. They serve three fresh crepes under a wave of grand marnier, bananas, candied walnuts and vanilla ice cream. It is a good thing we are spending our days burning calories on the slopes.

Day 5

OK, so maybe dog sledding isn't as relaxing as we had originally thought. We woke up too sore to even think about skiing, so we crawled down to breakfast and then directly to the hot tub. As it turns out, the road to the mountain was closed anyway due to white out conditions. We lazed in front of the fire, reading until we got hungry for lunch.

Sweetwater Grill - After settling into a cozy seat next to the potbelly stove, I realized that I was one of only two men in the entire restaurant. It wasn't uncomfortable, just a little "Stepford" for my tastes - like walking into any restaurant in New Canaan, CT for a late lunch on a weekday. The ladies who lunch come here for the salads, sandwiches and fresh baked goods, though most just push them around on the plate. Those of us who actually intend to consume the food at Sweetwater aren't disappointed either.

We both had salads that, despite being some of the first leafy greens we had seen in WY, were excellent. My Baja chicken salad with ranch dressing was solid, as was my wife's Cobb salad. NB: both salads were massive and could easily have been shared.

After a stroll around town and a stop at The Bunnery for coffee, we headed home to resume reading by the fire.

For dinner, we were jonseing for Thai food in the worst way. Even since moving to New York City in 2000, I have noticed that I start to get the shakes every three to four days if I haven't gotten my fix of coconut milk, lemongrass, kefir lime, chili peppers and curry. After some brief confirmatory diligence with the front desk at our hotel, we decided on a place we had overheard some locals raving about - Teton Thai.

Teton Thai - When the people of faaaabulous Jackson get to be too much for you to stomach, this is the place to go. To get there, you walk a few blocks off the town square, down an alley and through a court yard, ultimately arriving in a 10'x20' room that pushes maximum density to contain a lunch counter, cooler, cash register and kitchen. Cash only. BYO.

Here people cram shoulder to shoulder at the bar, or just stand up to eat. Two Thai women work the stove at a feverish pace while extreme skiing videos play on the TV overhead and the thick, sweet perfume of Thai cooking hangs in the air like a modern day opium den.

We stopped off at JHWC to pick up a bottle of wine on the way (no need to chill it, really - at 12 degrees outside, it is pretty much chilled by the time you make the ten minute walk to the restaurant). When we got there, we grabbed two empty seats and a menu and tried our best to blend in. It was no use. We were not just the only ones in the restaurant that didn't have a season pass, we were the only ones in the restaurant that didn't work at the mountain. It didn't help that we were drinking Caymus Conundrum while everyone else swapped beers.

The food is outstanding. We split a chicken satay to start and then moved on to Pad See Ew and a Massaman Curry that was served in a bowl big enough to backstroke in. The Pad See Ew had a vinegar-tanginess to it that was a little odd, but it was good nonetheless. The Massaman Curry offered chicken and potatoes in a thick, spicy red curry. After fishing out all of the meat and potatoes, I dumped in the rice to repeat the ritual scavenging that I performed with the green curry a few nights earlier at Koshu.

As we were leaving, some of our fellow diners were busy working the phones to find friends to cover for them at work in the morning - it appeared certain that a front was moving in and bringing with it more of the "fresh."

Day 6

The kids were right - it started snowing after midnight and when we got to the mountain there were six inches of fresh snow and counting. We skied all morning, taking advantage of the fresh to explore more of the mountain, eventually grabbing a late lunch at the base.

Cafe 6311 - The lines here are very long, no matter when you arrive. They offer made to order sandwiches, coffee, breakfast and smoothies. We split a turkey sandwich and a mango smoothie that were both very good, but not worth the effort it took to get them.

We skied the rest of the day and then grabbed a sunset hot tub before changing for dinner.

Snake River Brewing Company - This is another place that some locals recommended to us, more for the beer than the food. Sure enough, the place was mostly packed with locals. We saw the night bellman from our hotel as well as the musher from our day of dog sledding both hanging out at the bar. I don't want you to get the wrong idea about me, but is there anything better after a long day of skiing than a cold beer? We sampled a few of SRB's offerings:

Snake River Pale Ale - Light, hoppy, refreshing beer with a bit of backbone to it

Last Tram Ale - Malty, amber ale that reminded me very much of - forgive me - Sam Adams

Monkey's Dunkle - Classic German inspired dark lager that is smooooooooooth

Zonker Stout - SRB's award winning stout is more coffee and chocolate than cream, if you know what I mean (think Beamish, not Guinness or if you are on the old sod, "home" not "away")

We bid our friends farewell and headed back to the center of town for a "gut buster" at Billy's.

Billy's Burger - This venerable grease trap has been on the town square in Jackson forever (at least it seems that way). In addition to providing the burgers for the Cadillac Grille next door, they also have a few dozen stools at their counter. You can expect thick, fresh, greasy burgers and waffle fries all served with the wit and witticism of Billy's line cooks. This isn't haute cuisine, but when you need a really good burger, this is the place to go.

Day 7

Another six inches of fresh snow overnight brought the three day total to an even two feet of snow. We were on the mountain when the lifts opened and skied through noon before taking a break, opting instead to eat a late lunch in town on our way back to the hotel.

Mountain High Pizza Pie - This is another local favorite. Nothing comes close to New York pizza, but this place makes some very good - and very creative - pies. You can choose thin or thick crust and select from ingredients as pedestrian as pepperoni to as adventuresome as Thai sesame sauce. We had a small thick crust Sunny Pesto pizza - a chewy crust topped with pesto, mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes and chicken.

After lunch we strolled around town before all of the shops closed, eventually stopping into Shades for a cup of coffee.

Shades Cafe - This place is tucked in just down the street from Sweetwater and is a funky combination of two parts coffee house to one part sandwich shop. The coffee was pretty bad, but the food we saw while we waited (and believe me, we waited a long time) looked and smelled very good.

Wild Sage - Nothing in Jackson requires you to get terribly gussied up, but there is something very appealing about not having to put on a parka to walk to dinner, so we decided to try the restaurant on the first floor of our hotel. Besides, after eating fantastic breakfasts all week, and getting to know all of the wait staff by name, it would have felt rude not to try them for dinner at least once.

Wild sage only has about six tables and the open kitchen is at most 8'x8'. The wince cellar shares one wall with a fireplace and the other wall is windows that look out on the town of Jackson. We had a quiet table near the window and after selecting a wine, were offered an amusee of tuna sashimi with sriracha sauce.

We began with the Yakinori Salad Roll and the Venison with Sweet Potato Gnocchi. The salad rolls were passable - crisp fresh vegetables wrapped in rice paper and served with a racy ginger, ponzu and lemongrass dipping sauce. The venison was better, with the peppercorn and juniper berry crust on the meat providing a good counterpoint to the silky sweetness of the gnocchi, but was very heavy as a first course.

For entrees, we had the Montana Beef Tenderloin with Red Potato Hash and the Achiote Rubbed Wapiti Loin. The tenderloin was pretty simple - a beautifully rare piece of meat astride a mound of red skin mashed potato and garnished with a ratatouille of sorts. This wasn't overly creative, but very high quality.

I was drawn to the wapiti (elk) loin because it was described as being prepared with an achiote rub and a hemp seed mole. I had visions of luscious, gamey elk cured in spicy pepper and cooled with rich mole. I could not have been more wrong. The elk was perfectly rare, but there was no trace of the achiote and whatever "mole" was there got lost in a sea of mushroom and tomato which was described as "cuitlacoche and smoked Portobello ragout" but I can't honestly vouch for that claim. [NOTE: cuitlacoche is a fungus that grows on corn in Mexico] There were so many different ingredients, but the flavor had all washed out and on the whole, the dish was a real let down. Remember our favorite German architect’s mantra, "less is more." The dish was an optical disaster as well - shades of grey and red intertwined on the plate like some leftover goulash from behind the iron curtain.

For dessert we had the Chocolate Mousse Martini and the Croissant Bread Pudding. Both were outstanding. The chocolate mousse arrived in a martini glass and topped with an "olive" of milk chocolate wrapped around peanut butter. The bread pudding was a thick, rich, gooey mess of croissant chunks, pear/apple chutney, caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

All-in, this was a decent meal, but very uneven. I think the kitchen suffers a bit from an inferiority complex - trying to dress up their dishes to justify the lofty prices on the menu as though diners somehow do food cost calculations in their head during dinner and judge restaurants by that math.

Day 8

Well, all good things eventually come to an end. For our last day at Jackson, the sun came out and we enjoyed the blue skies and mild temperatures as we cruised all over the mountain. Finally, just after noon, we got in line for our last tram ride ever (the tram was retired on April 2, 2006).

After some technical difficulties (one of the tram cars hit a tower and sheared off some piece of equipment), they got us up top. After some photos, my wife rode the tram back down and I headed off to race her to the bottom. Once we were all present and accounted for at the bottom, we grabbed some PBR pounders to enjoy in the sunshine, toasted the mountain and then kicked off our skis to head to the Mangy Moose to relax.

The Mangy Moose - This is a Jackson institution. There is a dining room attached to the bar, but the real draw is the noisy bar with great live music, cold beer, a roaring fire and solid bar food. These are what get this place named "the best après ski bar in North America" time after time. They proudly serve, amongst other brews, two of our favorite domestic beers: Moose Drool Stout and Fat Tire Amber Ale. We ordered a few of these to nurse our quivering quads while we awaited our order of their famous nachos.

The nachos measure a full twelve inches across and eight inches high. Inside this tangled mess are tortilla chips, beef chili, jalapeno peppers, melted cheddar and jack cheese, sour cream, salsa and guacamole. These are some of the best nachos around. The two of us picked at them for half an hour and still barely made a dent.

We caught a ride back to town, enjoyed one last après ski hot tub and then took a nap before heading to dinner.

Snake River Grill - This place has the reputation as the best restaurant in Jackson. As such, it attracts all of the beautiful people that the locals love to hate.

The uniform for women is tight black pants or Sevens jeans tucked into newly-purchased cowboy boots crafted from an exotic leather (extra points for endangered species) with an over-sized belt buckle of semi precious stones, a tight-fitting, low cut top that shows off the 300-600 cubic centiliters of what God DIDN'T give you (but your surgeon did) and a fur. Men generally wear the same uniform below the waist, with slicked back hair and an unbuttoned blazer up top. Nowhere else in Jackson are people quite as pushy, loud and obnoxious and the overall feel of the place reminds me very much of why I moved out of Manhattan a few years ago.

I was immediately on edge and as my wife and I took turns rolling our eyes, I was determined to hate this restaurant.

Try as I might, I couldn't do it. The server was a charming, knowledgeable, altogether too perky woman who knew the ins and outs of every dish on the menu and was even fairly well versed in the wine selections. We started with Buffalo Carpaccio and the special, Venison Tamale.

The Carpaccio was one of those elusive "perfect" dishes - ruby-red slices of buffalo topped with cracked black pepper and very thinly shaved pieces of pecorino. The gamey flavors of the buffalo paired perfectly with the slightly nutty notes in the cheese.

The tamale was bizarre. I would never have ordered it, except that the waitress assured us that, "I don't normally eat tamales, but this one is great." Inside the corn husk were tender morsels of venison, bits of mushrooms and spicy red peppers all combined with some of the softest tamale filling I had ever tasted. This stuff was closer in consistency to good risotto than it was to that kindergarten paste that you typically find inside tamales.

Next we opted for the restaurant's famous Wild Game Bolognaise and the chef's signature Crispy Pork Shank. The wild game bolognaise was outstanding - a plate of papardelle dotted with tender bits of venison and elk in a hearty tomato-based sauce. This was comfort food of the first order - reminiscent both of the Elk Bolognaise from Trio and of many of the game-based pasta dishes we enjoyed in Tuscany.

The pork shank is another dish that I was prepared to look past until our waitress recommended it. It arrived as a Fred Flintstone sized pork shank on its end rising out of a bowl of sauce like some porcine iceberg. The outer skin is crisped to perfection - what my Southern friends would attest to as "good cracklings" and glowed golden brown in the dim light of the dining room. Inside, the meat was tender, pink, succulent and fell off the bone in ribbons, cascading into the moat of tangy, vinegar-based sauce below. The caramelized cippoline onions that garnished the dish tied it all together, proving an adequate foil for both the opulence of the pork and the bite of the sauce. I wasn't quite able to finish this dish, but I desperately wanted to.

The waitress left us alone for a bit of a breather as we worked through the rest of our wine and buoyed our strength for a run at the dessert menu. In the end, we couldn't avoid the "New Orleans Style Beignets." Jazz Fest is just around the corner and when the waitress admitted that these were made to order, we had to try them. The piping hot balls of fried dough arrived at our table in a paper cone, having been freshly dusted in powdered sugar. On their own, they were outstanding, but dipped into the accompanying pool of melted semi-sweet chocolate, they were divine.

Suffice it to say, if you can stomach the other guests at SRG, the food is well worth the trip.

2941 Restaurant (VA - Falls Church)

Ahh Virginia - land of Civil War battlefields, Beltway Bandits, Red State values and yes, serious food. No, I'm not talking about that much ballyhooed Relais & Chateaux joint in Little Washington (I think we've all realized by now how far they have fallen), I'm talking about 2941 Restaurant.

I had my doubts at first. A Falls Church location and naming the place after the address were serious warning signs. Falls Church conjures visions of strip mall ethnic food, not fine dining and the "name your restaurant after your address" thing was very popular in the late nineties - with many restaurants that are no longer with us. I worried that I was stumbling into just the current power lunch spot du jor, struggling to attract dinner crowds.

My first experience at 2941 was on a sleepy Sunday evening in May. I was completely blown away by the breadth of ingredients and depth of flavors. Knowing that you can't draw a trend line through a single data point, I went back Tuesday night - on Valentine's Day. Sure the kitchen hums when it is slow and everything under the sun is coming into season, but how would it be on the busiest night of the year, with a more challenging sourcing environment?

They didn't skip a beat. A small group of us dined at the kitchen table and came away convinced that 2941 is turning out some of the best food in the area. Period.

First of all, this is one of the most pleasant kitchen tables I have ever experienced. Some, like Charlie Trotter's and the one at Galileo are cramped, in-the-way offerings, where you feel the heat of the line, experience every smell of the kitchen and occasionally get tossed around by over-zealous runners. Others, like Tru are so civilized that it is hardly like being in a kitchen at all - almost like sitting in a private room watching the Food Network.

2941 is the best of both Worlds. You are set back into an alcove that provides sound protection and climate control, while also providing a front row seat for all of the drama that unfolds over the course of a service. Two examples underscore my point: First, someone was shaving fresh black truffles just ten feet from the table, but because of the ventilation, we couldn't smell a thing; Second, someone dropped a tray of crystal wine glasses next to our table, but we were completely untouched - safe and sound in our alcove.

The meal began with the restaurant's signature bread service. DC is the baking equivalent of Chernobyl - there has been no life here for so long that we begin to doubt if there ever will be again. Against this sad backdrop, where Firehook passes for good bread and Cake Love is where people go for desserts, 2941 rolls their own. The result looks to me like they are trying to run up the score. Every night, they serve up to eight different freshly baked breads, each one better than the one before. On your table will be everything from a plain French baguette to a pumpernickel raisin bread, a sun dried tomato and oregano bread, an olive and rosemary bread and even a chocolate and cherry bread. You could very easily make a meal out of the bread basket and a bottle of wine (Hell, they could serve the bread basket with a flight of wines paired to each bread and call it a day!).

As we gorged ourselves on bread, the first course arrived, a lobster bisque with aged sherry, tarragon oil and chervil paired with champagne. The bisque was a deep orange/brown - the kind that comes from roasting your own shells, not using the bright pink crap from SYSCO. [Don't laugh, I worked in a white tablecloth place in Baltimore that added MSG to the SYSCO stuff, garnished it with canned lobster meat and sent it out the door for $15.] It was a silky, luxurious, uniform consistency punctuated with a few tender lobster morsels. The tarragon and sherry nose gave way to the sweetness of the lobster, which was held in check by the bite of the chervil. The champagne was an excellent pairing, with the bubbles and crisp acidity clearing the palate for the next course.

Our second course was a departure from the set Valentine's Day tasting menu. It was poached salmon with black truffle braised yukon potatoes, black truffles and truffle vinaigrette paired with pinot gris. Here a barely poached cube of glistening, fatty salmon perched on a bed of alternating slices of yukon gold potato and black truffle. This was in turn encircled by a moat of black truffle vinaigrette which formed a yin and yang with a another sauce that I believe was a white truffle oil (I don't have a copy of the menu so I am going on memory alone here). Everyone knows truffles like fat - that is why they are so often paired with butter, egg yolk or oil. This was the first time I had ever seen truffles brought to life with just the animal’s naturally occurring fat. The tender, opulent salmon melted in your mouth and provided a more than adequate conduit for the truffles. The sweet, tender potato wafers were a stark contrast to the thick, earthy truffle shavings and the acidic tang of the vinaigrette was an exclamation point at the end of every bite. The pinot gris, like the salmon, was from Oregon and served as our second excellent pairing of the night. I am not a big pinot gris drinker, typically finding them too thin, oily and inconsistent to merit any serious attention. This one was different, with significant body and acidity. It cut through the truffles and fat better than coffee beans at a perfume counter.

For our third course, we returned to the V-Day menu for some caramelized sea scallops with sun choke, melted leeks and lemongrass sauce paired with a white burgundy. The scallops were expertly prepared, with a crisp outer skin and a uniform firmness that stopped just short of cooking the tenderness out of them. They were topped with a dollop of caviar and fixed to the plate with a smear of sun choke puree. This formation was flanked by some melted leeks and a sauce of Meyer lemon and lemongrass. Here again, chef Krinn combines a dizzying array of flavors and textures that all work together harmoniously, but challenge the diner's senses to keep up. The hard saltiness of the caviar collides with the tender sweetness of the scallop, played out against the backdrop of the creamy, herbal nuttiness of the sun choke and the lingering citrus notes of the Meyer lemon and lemongrass. The Louis Jadot Mersault smelled amazing - a big bouquet of flowers and hay - but was too thin and tart. In fairness, if you were a wine, would you want to follow a mouthful of caviar, scallop, sun choke, Meyer lemon and lemongrass?!?!

For our fourth course, we were served a miniature cast iron Dutch oven full of risotto, topped with black truffles and paired with a red burgundy. This was a very simple, but well executed "mid-course" that allowed us to catch our breath. The creamy risotto absorbed the heady truffle scent that was further echoed by the earthy notes of the burgundy.

Chef Krinn re-emerged to check on us and ask how we felt about a foie gras course. We all nodded enthusiastically, undid our belts and eagerly awaited our fifth course - another deviation from the set menu - seared foie gras with saffron glazed apples paired with Sauternes. The foie was lightly pan seared, but rare to medium rare in the middle and plated with a fan of orange glazed apple slices. Apples and foie are a classic pairing - with sweet tartness of the apples a worthy foil for the nutty, fatty elegance of the foie. In this preparation, the saffron glaze adds an extra dimension to the canvas - an ethereal, fragrant high note that flits around the palate alternately playing with the foie and the apple. The Sauternes (and forgive me, I don't remember the producer) worked perfectly. Nobody will ever win an award for creativity by pairing foie with Sauternes, but the one selected here was younger, racier and more acidic than most. A heavy, syrupy-sweet version would have crushed the dish, where this accentuated it, emphasizing the apples and still packing enough punch to wash away the foie.

For our sixth course, Krinn stayed with the duck theme and served us duck breast in a cassis and huckleberry sauce with shaved almond, caramelized fennel and candied orange paired with a Barolo. I will pause to let you read that again. This was a perfectly rare roast duck breast fanned out in slices against a caramelized fennel bulb and topped with all of the other ingredients. The duck/almond/huckleberry/orange combination gave me flashbacks to Thanksgiving. The tartness in the candied orange and huckleberries kept the richness of the duck and the sweetness of the fennel in check. The anise notes of the fennel and the depth of the cassis sauce were a perfect match for the Barolo which, mercifully, was a lighter, kinder and gentler version of the wine as opposed to the tannin bombs some producers release.

Like a boxer leaning on the ropes, we braced ourselves for a body blow - our seventh course - beef tenderloin with wild mushrooms, pomme macaire and a bordelaise sauce paired with a Saint Emillion. The tenderloin was tender, juicy, cooked perfectly, covered in wild mushrooms and served atop the pomme macaire. The macaire is like a twice baked potato patty. At 2941, it was seasoned with truffles and crème fraiche, though you often see this dish done with some combination of thyme or blue cheese in the mix. Anyway, the pomme macaire absorbs the bordelaise sauce from below and the tenderloin jus from above. The result is something the consistency of a firm polenta, but with a depth of character that would make it the envy of the entire tuber World. The bordelaise sauce was a deeply concentrated affair that lent both sweetness and acidity to the out and out, over-the-top gluttony of the pomme macaire and tenderloin tower. The poor mushrooms were somewhat cast adrift in this preparation, though they did lend moisture to the dish and provide taste buds with some shelter from the storm. The Saint Emillion was another great pairing - if you can't match a red bordeaux with a bordelaise sauce, what can you do?

After a brief standing eight count, we sipped our wine, compared notes on favorite dishes (each of the five of us had a different favorite) and contemplated some calisthenics to prepare for the pending dessert course.

For dessert, we had the coeur a la crème. This was a light, sweet, vanilla cream heart that was decorated with a thin chocolate heart, a sugar coated rose pedal and a passion fruit sauce. It was topped with a miniature heart-shaped chocolate well of raspberry sauce and paired with a pink, sparkling moscato blend. It was very clearly valentine's day, but the airy crème was a great way to end the meal. The dark chocolate paired well with the raspberry sauce and the passion fruit really brought out the vanilla flavor in the crème. I didn't take the wine seriously at first - a glass of light pink bubbles - but it was a surprisingly serious wine. The fruity telltale moscato nose and effervescence yielded to a sturdy acidic backbone to create a blend that actually works.

Just as we were about to push back our chairs, mignardises of pink cotton candy (cherry flavored), vanilla macaroons and lime macaroons arrived. The cotton candy joins the bread service as one of 2941's signature pieces. It is good cotton candy, but after eight courses paired with wines, it is more for amusement than for eating (though we all managed to cram in a few fistfuls of the stuff). The macaroons were outstanding - soft, chewy, almost too underdone. The vanilla version was an honest interpretation of the classic. The lime version was totally unexpected and when the lime paired with the coconut, it gave the macaroon almost a Thai flavoring. Traditional Jewish confections infused with Thai flavor - why not?

Perhaps owing to the fact that we had two pastry students with us - or maybe just because he was feeling generous, chef Krinn made one final departure from the set menu by bringing out an extra dessert course. This was a four-part dessert platter set in front of each diner. From top right, moving counter-clockwise, we had: (1) a napoleon of mascarpone and cassis mousse with quince paste, quince jelly and coconut ice cream; (2) a brown sugar brownie with rum raisin ice cream, funnel cake and roasted pineapple; (3) a chocolate jewel box with chocolate mousse, caramel and hazelnut brittle and espresso gelee; and (4) a chocolate cake "coulant" with chocolate tuille, dark chocolate caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

The sound you just heard was my pants ripping as I bent over to pick up the teeth that just fell out of my mouth. Seriously, does anyone have a spare insulin needle?

This was a dessert tour de force.

The napoleon was light and airy, with the mascarpone and cassis mouse layers evenly balanced by the quince. The coconut ice cream cleansed the palate en route to the next stop.

The gooey sweetness of the brownie paired with the bite of the roasted pineapple and the funnel cake was both an amusing visual as well as an outstanding tool for dredging up melted rum raisin ice cream.

Intensity built further with the chocolate jewel box - layers of hazelnut brittle studded chocolate mousse sandwiched between layers of milk chocolate, topped with a caramel wafer. It was easy to get lost in a chocolate/caramel/hazelnut fog, but a touch of that espresso geleé snapped you out of it.

The crescendo was the chocolate cake "coulant" - a soft center chocolate cake topped with a chocolate tuille and a touch of vanilla ice cream, surrounded by a pool of dark chocolate caramel sauce. As we worked our way through the preceding three desserts, the ice cream melted, trickling down the cake and mixing with the dark chocolate sauce creating a decadent marbled rye looking confection. The cake itself was moist, warm and sinfully rich dark chocolate though, to be perfectly honest, I could only muster a forkful or two.

I consider it the mark of a truly great restaurant when your experience has been so enjoyable that you don't even look at the bill when it comes. Maybe I am a sucker, but after truly command performances like this (meals at The French Laundry and Tru also come to mind) I simply hand over a credit card, not wanting math to spoil an otherwise lovely time. It is only when I feel like my expectations were not met that I scrutinize the tab.

All-in, for seven dinner courses and myriad dessert courses, with eight paired wines, our tab came to roughly $230 per person including tax, 20% tip, etc. This is not a bargain, but it is easily a market rate for the quality of the experience, especially in DC, where you can spend a lot more to get a lot less.

Rasika (DC - Penn Quarter)

There are so many new restaurants opening in DC that it is hard to keep up with them all, but such is my charge in life.

I had been anticipating Rasika's opening since I first heard whispers that Vikram Sunderam would be leaving his post at Bombay Brasserie. BB was my favorite restaurant when I was living in London (albeit many years ago) and I couldn't wait to see how well the food translated across the pond.

A small group of us tried Rasika last night and were very impressed. The menu is long and difficult to get through, but the servers are well versed in ingredients, preparation and portion control.

We shared:

Trio of Chicken Tikka
Available in both a small and a large portion, this dish arrives as three separate preparations of chicken tikka: chili, basil and cheese. Each is incredibly tender, juicy chicken in a completely unique seasoning. From the heat of the red chili preparation to the herbal calm of the basil to the rich opulence of the cheese, each is as outstanding as it is difficult to synthesize.

Dahi Batata Puri
These are puffed up papadams - like the "golgapas" at Heritage India - light flour shells filled with a variety of ingredients. In this preparation, they are stuffed with potatoes, yogurt and tamarind date chutney. The dish explodes in your mouth, with the tartness of the yogurt amplified by the sweet tanginess of the chutney. The potato is more or less along for the ride, but you need something to provide a neutral base for the other flavors.

Palak Chaat
This is quickly becoming the restaurant's signature dish. That is not to say it is the best dish on the menu, or that Chef Sunderam is particularly known for the dish, but it is the one that no food critic fails to mention.

Chalk it up to the American fascination with novelty - if you take a leafy green like spinach and petrifying it by tossing it in a fryer, people are amazed. It is the kitchen equivalent of a parlor trick (everyone remembers that "fried ice cream" at Chi-Chi's - sure, it never really tasted that good, but we ordered it anyway, because we couldn't imagine how anyone could actually fry ice cream).

This dish features flash-fried spinach, yogurt and tamarind date chutney tossed together as a salad. Think of it as the crispy spinach from The Palm married to the sauce from the best Chicken Chaat you have ever had. It is a fun juxtaposition to the chicken tikka trio mentioned above - the chicken presents uniform texture across three unique flavors, while the salad offers a synthesized flavor with different textures in every bite.

Black Cod
Black cod in an Indian restaurant, you ask? Yes. Part of the adventure at Rasika is seeing ingredients you don't normally associate with Indian food shown a new light. Here the cod is just barely cooked - crispy on the outside, but moist, flakey and meltingly fresh in the center. It is ever-so-slightly glazed with honey and kissed with star anise before being plated with fresh dill and a red wine vinegar sauce. Each of the flavors is very subtle and they blend together in perfect harmony. It is a study in balance and restraint.

Typically we associate the panoply of Indian spices with overpowering, in-your-face, bold flavors and sensations. Here the Chef reminds us that the seasonings can be elegant and delicate as well. This dish reminds me of hearing your favorite song on the radio, just as the signal is fading out - the sound is so soft that you crane your neck, hoping to tease a little more out of the radio.

Dum Ka Duck
Picking up where the cod left off, duck was another dish that you don't immediately expect to find in your typical Indian kitchen. It appears here, rubbed with chili, perfectly medium/rare (still light pink at the outer edges, deep red in the center) and astride a puddle of saffron cream and cashew nuts. Here too the flavors are subtle. Just a hint of heat from the chili, not at all over playing the duck itself, followed by just a breath of saffron and a fleeting encounter with the crumbled cashews. The dish is topped with some caramelized onions, so if the combination of duck fat and cashew fat is too thick for you, the onions provide a little acidic bite to get you over the hump.

Lamb Shank Roganjosh
This is the dish you have all been waiting for - the big, bold, bowl-me-over dish. We have all had varieties of lamb roganjosh in our neighborhood Indian joints - cubes of tough stew lamb in a hot (though less incendiary than vindaloo) garam masala and tomato sauce. In this preparation, Chef Sunderam cooks the entire lamb shank and the result is closer to osso bucco than any lamb roganjosh you have ever had.

The presentation is marvelous, with the shank lying on its side, topped with frizzled green onions and virtually floating on a pond of spicy tomato-based sauce. The meat itself falls off the bone and arrives still medium/well done with traces of light pink in the center - tender, juicy and melting in your mouth.

The sauce is lighter and fresher than any you have likely had before as well. This isn't that brownish-red sauce that has been on the buffet line for a week. This sauce is a vibrant red and you can actually taste fresh tomatoes in between the richness of the lamb and the heat of the garam masala. I am salivating just writing about it. I devoted nearly half of our table's bread basket to sopping up every last drop of that sauce.

[NB: The wine list is also ambitious. They have searched far and wide to find wines - including an unusually large variety of wines by the glass - that pair with Indian spices. I had a glass of Gruner Veltliner with our starters and then paired a Spanish Grenacha with the Roganjosh and duck.]

This was a tutorial in how mind blowing Indian spices can be. From the delicate cod perfumed with anise and dill to the tangy duck with saffron, chili and cashew and on to the heady depth of the garam masala lamb shank, each dish was unique and balanced.

This is what keeps me coming back to Chef Vikram Sunderam's cooking. He constantly pushes the envelope of Indian cooking, innovating at every turn. He throws an amazing array of flavors and sensations at you and dares you to keep up with him. Ever since college, when I phoned my Parents from London to ask if I could use their credit card to take my girlfriend to dinner at Bombay Brasserie, I have been mystified by his cooking.

The Metro isn't the tube and the Penn Quarter will never be mistaken for Kensington, but we are extremely lucky to have Chef Sunderam here in DC.

Zengo (DC - MCI Center)

I tried Zengo last night and was very pleasantly surprised by how good it was. When I heard that it was opening, I tried to avoid it at all costs (fusion cuisine, chain restaurant, celebrity backers/trendy scene - the Holy trinity of what I avoid in restaurants), but a good friend convinced me I was being to rash.

Zengo has the familiar feel of many of the restaurants in and around the Verizon (nee MCI) Center neighborhood - you enter a dark, sleek lounge/bar and then graduate to stark, brightly colored, ultra-modern dining rooms [See also: IndeBleu, Rosa Mexicano, Zola, Zaytinya, etc.]

After stopping at the bar for a mojito and a very mediocre glass of zin, we headed upstairs to our table. The menu is broken up into little bites, sushi, soups, entrees and everything in between. Some people will be put off by the entropy of the whole affair, but I like it. The chaotic choose-your-own-adventure style lends to sharing/communal dining and is a nice counterpoint to the set, formal tasting menus I often enjoy.

After much debate, caucusing and lobbying efforts (this is, after all, DC), we decided on (in no particular order):

Angry Zengo roll
This is a spicy tuna, avocado and cucumber roll topped with a sesame/chipotle mayonnaise. I'm not going to lie to you - that is a lot of flavors to pack into one roll. The dominant flavor is the spicy tuna, with the avocado and cucumber really just adding texture. The sesame/chipotle sauce is placed as a dollop on top of each slice of the roll and as such, it is the last flavor to hit your tongue. The sauce adds a long, warm, smokeyfinish to each bite.

Hamachi
Straight out of Nobu's cookbook - Thin slices of hamachi surrounded by a moat of soy sauce and each topped with a paper-thin slice of serrano chile and a single cilantro leaf. Nobu's is better. He omits the cilantro and uses a sauce that is far more dynamic than the yuzu/soy used in this dish. Zengo's version is still pretty good, just not as good or creative as most of the rest of the menu.

Arepas de Puerco
Pulled pork is tossed in what is described as an "achiote/hoisin" sauce (sweet and hot - but hot at the front of the mouth, not lingering), then set atop thick corn tortilla discs and then dressed with avocado, a slice of serrano chile and crème fraiche. While nobody seems to know if this is finger food or fork and knife food, the taste is very good. The pulled pork was tender and juicy and the hoisin base worked well - not syrupy or overly sweet and cut with just enough achiote to keep it honest. The avocado and crème fraiche played off the serrano chile well enough, but teetered very close to the brink of a "deconstructed taco" (thank God there was no lettuce or tomato). The entire dish was a juxtaposition of flavors, temperatures and textures - the sweet hoisin versus the hot achiote on the meat, the warm pulled pork versus the cool crème fraiche and the crunchy tortilla versus the soft avocado.

Pot Stickers
Pretty standard fried dumplings here - nothing to really write home about, except that the lobster/rock shrimp stuffing was lighter your typical dumpling. You could actually identify individual ingredients in the dumpling and the overall sweetness of the dish was cut by the serrano/wasabi dipping sauce.

Peking rolls
These were like little duck and mushroom egg rolls served with a trio of dipping sauces: a traditional hot mustard, a chipotle/apricot and a wasabi/crème sauce. The rolls themselves were very good - you could taste the duck confit and mushrooms seperately - unlike the unidentifyiable mush that fills most egg rolls. The wrapper was light and crisp - not at all greasy. Each of the three dipping sauces worked, but the hot/sweet of the chipotle/apricot one was by far the best.

Asiatica Soup
Move over Adobo Chicken Soup at Merkado, I have a new favorite soup in town. This murky, mysterious bowl of chicken and vermicelli steeped in coconut milk, red curry and guajillo chile has stolen my heart. I slurped up every last drop of this re-interpretation of a Thai dish with the reckless abandon my labrador shows towards a bowl of water on a hot day. Don't approach this soup thinking Tom Ka - it is a kissing cousin of that dish, but without the lemongrass and lime perfume. The result is a bolder, simpler, heartier, unadulterated affair. Order it by the gallon.

Szechwan Pork Loin
Frollicking as I was in my soup, I barely noticed the Szechwan Pork arrive on the table. This dish is a generous portion of pork tenderloin slathered in what the menu describes as a "habanero guava bbq sauce." I can't say that I recognized the guava, but the habanero is there, clear as day. The combination is a sweet, hot BBQ sauce that works beautifully with the pile of corn salsa that accompanies it. The salsa is roasted corn with traces of red onion, cilantro, lime, etc - the usual entourage. The meat itself is tender, juicy and smokey - I'm not sure where the smoke comes from, but it is definately there.

Ice Cream
We opted to try two of the four available ice cream flavors: cinnamon and dolce de leche. The cinnamon was as good as any other cinnamon ice cream I have had - a standard representation of the classic. The dolce de leche, however, was out of this World. Light, sweet, ethereal cream with just a hint of caramel on the finish. This is the real deal - it reminded me of the stuff you get from street vendors during the various national pride parades in New York.

Churros y Chocolate
The zenith of our meal was the much anticipated churros y chocolate. Our host had really talked them up in hopes of attracting us to Zengo in the first place, but even after the fantastic meal described above, we were skeptical.

The bar is pretty high. I remember ending long nights of drinking in Spain with a thick, comforting, stand-your-spoon-up-in-it cup of chocolate and a plate of fresh-from-the-fryer cinnamon and sugar coated churros. I used to say that if dunking the churro in the chocolate didn't create an oil slick similar to diving into a pool covered in tanning oil, someone was doing something wrong.

Zengo's version delivered as promised - almost. The churros are faithful interpretations - fresh fried dough strands covered in cinnamon and sugar. The chocolate, however, is a shot glass of melted semi-sweet chocolate. Thrilling as this proposition may be to anyone who possesses two X chromosomes, you are left in the awkward position of having to pour the chocolate onto your churro, rather than soaking your curro in the chocolate.

Next time I would skip the pot stickers and the hamachi. They are both good efforts, but there are too many other good things going on here to waste your time with them.

One constant theme at Zengo is the presence of cooling agents wherever spice is used. Whether it is slipping the cucumber and avocado into the angry zengo roll to counteract the spicy tuna and chipotle sauce, or tempering the achiote sauce and serrano chile slice with some avocado and crème fraiche in the arepas de puerco, at every bite, the chef is trying to balance the flavors.

All-in, this is fusion cuisine that actually works. It helps that much of the heat in Asian cooking comes from new-World peppers, making this a much more natural union than say, French and Indian - two cuisines that never really shared a historic dialogue (no offense to my friends at IndeBleu - you are doing some magnificent things with the two cuisines, they are just more of an arranged marriage).

So get over your prejudices about fusion cooking and multi-unit restaurant ownership groups and give Zengo a try. Just be sure to bring your wallet - we topped out around $70 per person, which is a little steep for your casual Wednesday night after-work gathering.