Winter 2007 Belated Restaurant Week Review

With a little bit of TV thrown in for good measure. So for restaurant week, J and I made plans to have dinner with Rootbeer and Spyrogyra at Indigo Landing, one of the few waterside restaurants in the DC area and one of the few QUALITY waterside restaurants in the DC area (we're looking at you Sequoia).

Located on GW Parkway just south of National airport, Indigo Landing serves an even more upscale version of the upscale low country cuisine that Georgia Brown's serves. Things like fried chicken or fried green tomatoes.

It's funny walking into Indigo Landing because the architecture is clearly that of a failed Chart House restaurant but the decor is interesting and upscale. They were trying hard to overcome the fact that the architecture was kind of screaming for a captain's wheel and a net hanging on the ceiling. We were all looking forward to warmer weather where we could lounge on the patio with a drink because the view of the Potomac was spectacular.

I'll have to commend the excellent hostess who was perfectly gracious and laid back Rootbeer and Spyrogyra were delayed by an hour with a flat tire. We were seated with a great view of the river and DC in the background. For those of you who didn't catch Indigo Landing during restaurant week, you're still in luck. All of January is restaurant week.

I can definitely give major props for their starters, all of which were excellent. The four of us gave each other tastes of our dishes so we got a fairly comprehensive idea of the menu. The four srters were the fried green tomatoes (rootbeer), the fried chicken livers (J), the oyster sausage(me) and the salad with fried oysters (Spyrogyra). While all the starters were excellent, the oyster sausage was a revelation. It tasted LIGHT with the oyster adding a rounder flavor to the sausage overall.

The two main courses I remember were sliced pork loin (Rootbeer)and beef cheeks (me). While I appreciated the dish, I thought the meat was a little too stringy and fatty and the dish overall being too salty. However, one reason why I may be forgetting the entrees was because the mashed rutabaga that came with Rootbeer's pork loin was positively divine. For such a humble sounding vegetable came a creamy but full bodied mash of heaven. I could have eaten a pho sided bowl of that.

For dessert we had the chocolate cake (me), the rspberry fool (Rootbeer), the buttermilk pie (Spyrogyra) and the coconut cake doughnuts with caramel sauce (J). Once again, uniformly excellent. However, the true suprise and standout for me was my cake. Here's the thing, I hate heavy chocolate desserts. I like my desserts light and fruity. So Rootbeer claimed the fool (a trifle of sponge cake,whipped cream and raspberry sauce) so I had the chocolate cake. It was a wise decision because this cake was light and airy. The texture was perfect and normally overpowering chocolate flavor gave some substance to this airy confection.

This is not a cheap place to eat but we worth going to for a special occasion or going for drinks on a warm spring day.

On the tv front, I am totally loving the new season of Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. Mary Alice and the adorably stoned Geoff are as funny as ever. I keep on wanting to write all of this fanfic about them. I was sad and happy to see Mary Alice's wedding photo as she and her husband made an adorable couple but sad because the MA/Geoff pair was never going to happen. I am glad that the other folks like the bald goateed ambiguously gay cake decorator, the three hip young female cake decorators and the intern wrangler were highlighted in the credits. This season is much stronger than last season and you get a better sense of EVERYONE's role and personality. Especially the adorable Geoff who while completely stoned is amazingly detail oriented and competent. I hope he hooks up with one of the cake decorators (of either gender). One complaint I have is that there's a lot of stuff that Duff does that seems like "for the camera" stuff. Would it REALLY be Duff who would drive 13 hours to Chicago to deliver a cake? Wouldn't he actually want to stay and BAKE? Although Goeff is probably baked enough for an entire Dead concert. HEE.

Ok my other Tv thing is how crazy Top Chef is. Every time I think Top Chef has brought the crazy they seem to bring even more crazy. I almost understand Cliff wrestling a frightened Marcel to the ground (which led to his elimination). Considering that on Project Runway crazy Vincent had a major freak out about DRY CLEANING, I can see where someone wouldn't think about what would be considered good natured wrestling. Although to the much more slender and much more victimized Marcel, it's just assault plain and simple. What has made this season so unwatchable has been that Ilan and Sam's ascension to the final four has been so pre-ordained. The judging has been inconsistent to lead to this conclusion and I am fairly certain it will be a Sam and Ilan final two.