jordyn

I was in D.C. last night, and had dinner at Equinox with a couple of friends. Previously, several people whose opinion I trust had strongly recommended Equinox, so I was excited to eat some good food. My friends were a little late in arriving, and the woman who initially tried to find our reservation seemed to be struggling to use their computer system. Fortunately, I only had to repeat my name four times, before someone more capable showed up, promptly found the reservation, and guided us to our table. Unfortunately, we were promptly led to perhaps the worst table in the restaurant--wedged into a corner between the "inside" and "outside" rooms, the only four top in a space dominated by two large (and noisy) parties. We're obviously not part of the Washington elite, but the restaurant didn't fill up during the evening, so I consider it unfortunate that they found it necessary to banish us. Service was fairly hit or miss generally. When asked for some elaboration on the preparation of the squab and lamb entrees, the server did little more than repeat the description from the menu. My wine glass frequently sat empty waiting to be refilled, although water glasses were well tended to. When we were actually being helped, service was professional, but we often went through long stretches without any attention from the staff, which was particularly frustrating because I had a train to catch at the end of the meal. On to the food. No amuse; I'm not sure if there's never one, or if we just didn't deserve it. The appetizers we tried were: Grilled Fennel and Blood Orange Salad with Crispy Duck, Citrus Vinaigrette, and Fresh Chervil. This turned out to be a crispy duck salad with a few small slices of orange and some fairly insipid fennel. Fortunately, the duck was quite good, richly flavored without too much fat, so this was more a matter of mismatched expectations than a flawed dish. Poached Maine Lobster with Ginger Cream, Maitake Mushrooms, and Spring Onions. This was simply excellent. The lobster was full-bodied but soft, melting into the buttery cream of the sauce, with the ginger adding just enough zing to keep the dish from becoming too rich. Probably the second best lobster dish I have ever had, second to Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco. Pistachio Crusted Goat Cheese served with Quinoa Salad, Dried Cranberries, Mache Lettuce, and Fresh Lemon. This was fine, with no surprises. The cheese was slightly chalky, and the pistachios didn't add anything particularly interesting to the flavor. On to entrees. One of my dining companions had Seared Yellowfin Tuna served on Whipped Yukon Potatoes with Whole Grain Mustard Cream, Sweet Onions and Organic Mustard Sprouts. This must have been pretty good, because he ate it all before I had a chance to taste any. Spiced Breast of California Squab served on Barley Risotto with Spicy Onions, Applewood Bacon, and Hazelnut Squab Jus was quite good. The spices in the sqab were hard to detect, but the bird itself had an excellent flavor and was cooked to perfection. The barley risotto was excellent, and seemed to be infused with foie gras or perhaps squab liver. Mushroom Crusted Niman Beef Tenderloin with Celery Root Puree, Black Truffle Sauce, and Celery Heart Salad. The celery root and truffle sauce here were excellent compliment to a soft but not particularly beef flavored piece of meat. Unfortunately, although this was requested "medium well" despite the chef's usual "rare to medium rare", it came to the table rare. Finally, dessert. Due to the slow service and my need to catch a train, we ate dessert rather hastily, so these impressions may not be as well formed. Rustic Apple Tartlet with Cinnamon Hazelnut Croquant Ice Cream and Pomegranate Sauce was okay, not great. The pomegranate sauce added little, and the apples were not as flavorful as I would have liked. Roasted Banana Sourdough Bread Pudding with Honey-Clove Ice Cream and Caramel Sauce was good, although the flavors of the pudding were also a bit jumbled. The ice cream was very nice, with clear flavors of both honey and clove in nearly perfect proportions, but the portion was so small that I only got to enjoy it for two bites before it was no more. Stuffed Doughnut Holes of Vanilla Custard served with Lemon Sauce and Raspberry Coulis was excellent, with the stuffing balancing the density of the sugar-coated donut holes. Unfortunately, there were only three of these bite sized morsels as well. This tiny portion facilitated us leaving in time for me to make our train, but would have been disappointing had we actually been expecting to sit and enjoy dessert. Neither of my friends were drinking, so I focused on the list of wines by the glass and half bottles. There seemed to be about a dozen wines by the glass and about 10 half bottles, representing a decent range of California favorites. I settled on a half bottle of 98 Chalk Hill chardonnay for $43. Prices were in the $10 - $15 range for appetizers, $25-$29 for entrees, and about $7 for desserts. Dinner for three, with my wine, tax and tip, came to $235. Overall, the evening was a mixed bag. Most of the dishes were competent, with a few excellent standouts and a few slightly confused dishes as well. Service was generally disappointing, and the noise level (in our area at least) was nearly untolerable, even for someone used to dining in New York. [Edited to add comments about price and the wine list.]

My dinner at Kinkeads left me with the same sort of impression that Damian describes--good fish, not particularly inventive or memorable, but a fine option any time. Certainly it's not one of the top few restaurants in the country. I particularly enjoyed the time I ate brunch at Kinkeads, however. I'm not usually a big fan on fish with breakfast type foods, but I think Kinkeads does an excellent job of matching fish with eggs, potatos and other morning flavors.

In my experience, high end restaurants tend to be fairly flexible about making modifications to tasting menus, or mixing and matching different kinds of tasting menus. A frequent dinner companion of mine is a quasi vegetarian (she'll eat fish and sometimes fowl when we go out, but not most shellfish). To the best of my recollection, no place that we have been to in any of the cities we have eaten in recently (New York, San Francisco, Washington, and Toronto) have refused our request to serve her a version of the tasting menu conforming to her fussy eating habits. Two restaurants stand out in my mind as being particularly accomodating: at both Susur in Toronto and Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco our server engaged us in a fairly detailed conversation about her likes and dislikes, and the kitchen produced a fairly customized tasting menu around these requirements. I don't know whether this is coincidence or not, but I've found that places that provide a significant amount of flexibility around the creation of a tasting menu invariably serve excellent, memorable food. In New York, our experiences have also generally been good: at places that offer both vegetarian and non-veggie tasting menus (Grammercy Tavern and Verbena spring to mind), we've had no problem combining the two, and on other occasions it's been possible to substitute fish for red meat for her meal but not for mine. Generally, restaurants have something printed on the menu indicating tasting menus are not to be combined with a la carte ordering. I tend to think if they want to make this requirement, it's their business, and have never challenged it. In fact, I've been over conditioned to believe that this is how it always works. Recently, at La Couronne in South Africa, I was eyeing the tasting menu, but my dinner companion, who had gorged at the place where we ate lunch, was having none of it. Since the usual "required for all at the table" rule was not printed on the menu, I asked whether it was possible for me to have the tasting menu and for her to order from the a la carte selections, and was pleasantly surprised to be answered in the affirmative. Although it was slightly odd to be served courses when my companion was not receiving any, it didn't make the meal particularly awkward, and everyone ended up happy. It's certainly great when restaurants are this flexible, but I can understand how managing different numbers of courses for different participants in the meal could be a more complicated endeavor than the kitchen wants to undertake.

While this is true, and probably also explains why the EPA doesn't suggest it as a way to reduce the amount of drinking water that you use, let's draw a distinction between saving the Earth's water resources and saving New York's water resources. Right now we have a drought in New York. There are also places that are not suffering from droughts. If you drink water that has been imported from Maine or France or Fiji, you don't deplete the amount of water available in New York. This could certainly have as much of an effect as "don't run the water while you brush your teeth", which is one of the pieces of advice that I have heard the government giving to people.