Invading the Inn at Little Washington
t says: As I had mentioned before, I’ve been pretty busy lately. Actually, since January, things have been downright crazy. But then everything came to an end this past Friday. And now I’m back, baby!
So … what did g and I do to celebrate!? We had constructed a plan to do our own “most important meal of our lives” (after all, it was a belated Christmas, g’s Birthday, and t’s-done-being-crazy celebration!). In honor of such a momentous occasion, we decided to go big time. We left town … we went to Virginia. What the hell is in Virginia? Why, the Inn at Little Washington of course!!
Now, the Inn is far more bawler than g and I normally do. It’s suit-and-tie. It’s super-fancy decor. It’s an ultra-attentive, ninja-like wait staff. And it’s fussily-presented food. But you know what … we deserved it!
So we booked ourselves a room at the Foster Harris House Bed and Breakfast via a Living Social deal (more details about that later) and we braved the silly DC traffic until we finally made it to dinner …
Let’s dive right in …
3/2010, Friday 8:30pm, Party of 2. And here was our first course!
Introducing ... the world's smallest baked potato!
That’s right! When our canapes hit the table, we feasted our eyes on “the world’s smallest baked potato”. It was so cute! I let g have her pick of canapes first (I’m thoughtful like that) so she went for the tiny baked potato (with sour cream, chives, and bacon bits) as well as that green gin-and-tonic bubble. On one hand, she said that the potato tasted exactly like a potato, so it wasn’t revolutionary, but it was so cute that it wins big points for pizzazz. The gin-and-tonic bubble was definitely some sort of molecular gastronomy concoction which g seemed to like very much. I had the one in the foreground which I believe was a braised pork belly which was absolutely divine. And to be honest, I completely forget what that friend thing was in the back there (g suspects it was a risotto ball?). So … it was a fun start. Nothing mind-blowing … yet …
Mint Pea Soup ... and a familiar sight ... gruyere bread thing!
So, then the soup came down. It was awesome! Who would have thought that mint goes with peas (not me!). And that little cheese puff thing was most certainly a gruyere gougere – very similar to that which we’ve encountered at Talula’s Table. And it was just as good. g and I wondered if we could eat it fast enough if they’d give us another like at the pop-up. But we didn’t want to try to pull a fast one here – we were sure that one of the ninjas wait staff would notice.
For our first course, I went with the lamb carpaccio … but I don’t think you’ll be able to appreciate it:
Curse my iPhone!! Or curse the iPhone operator!!
These were some insanely-thinly-sliced pieces of herb crusted lamb and scoops of Caesar salad ice cream. That’s right – Caesar salad ice cream. The ice cream was creamy, cheesy, garlicky, and worked well with the lamb. I really wish you could have seen it. I mean, it is kind of gimicky, however, the ice cream serves real purposes: flavor and keeping the temperature of the dish nice and cool. g’s first course (not pictured) was a spicy big eye tuna with avocado, mango, crispy shallots, and a sake-yuzu sorbet. It looked amazing and tasted wonderful. It reminded me of some of the bright flavors one would find in a well-made ceviche, but far more substantial, with gigantic chunks of tuna and a yummy yuzu. Her dish was better than mine – darn! g’s up 1-0.
So on to my second course:
Mac and Cheese
This mac and cheese was ridiculous. There were like 8 penne noodles with cheese and panko crumbs atop some Virginia ham (can’t see it) and one of those melted cheese touilles. And yes … truffle. Now keep in mind that I’m not one of those people who go ga-ga for truffle – but here – it was being used stupendously! The cheese was top notch with the creamy texture that a mac and cheese should have (I hate it when it’s a dry-crumbly-chunky cheese). The noodles were the perfect texture. The truffle was fantastic and the ham was beautiful … and so it should not come as a surprise that what you see before you is the best mac and cheese that I have ever had. Period.
Lobster and gnocchi combo!
g’s second course was a fricassee of lobster with potato gnocchi, green grapes and curried walnuts. I’ll leave it to her to fill you in with the details … She discreetly passed off her mushrooms which I demolished – they were delicious, too! But I’d say that I won this one (1-1)!
More Lamb!
My entree was another lamb dish. At first, I was hesitant that getting two lamb dishes would be ridiculous – but the waiter assured me that the two dishes would be different enough so that it’d still be a great meal. The lamb tenderloin was spectacularly prepared (I ate one before I took the photo). The salad had some cucumber, tomato, and [presumably fried] garlic and there was a lemon puree (I forget what the green was – mint?). Overall, the dish was spot-on – technically perfectly cooked lamb, beautiful flavors, but in the end, nothing blew me away – it was a perfectly prepared lamb … but it was overshadowed by …
Beef Two Ways (and there's a hidden third component off to the left)
g chose a beef two ways – one was a filet wrapped in Swiss Chard, and the other was a pecan-crusted short rib. But which one was better? Well, I’m a short rib sucker, so any faithful adsz reader would probably guess that I would have gravitated towards the short rib … But you’d be wrong! The short rib was amazing – with a nice sweet sauce, a wondrous crust, and pecans – it’s neck and neck with the best short ribs I’ve ever had … but that filet … it was other-worldly. In short, it was the most tender, flavorful piece of beef I’ve ever had. g won again! (She always chooses the best entree!) But how did the Inn pull it off? How could something like filet actually have flavor beyond just “beef”? Furthermore, this was no normal “tender” fillet – remember, this was the most tender filet (actually, the most tender piece of meat) I’ve encountered. What was the secret? Sous vide! I guessed it when I tasted it, but had it confirmed by the waiter. It was! Amazing! It makes me want to get one of those Sous Vide machines for our home! I wish I could better recapitulate the exact flavors for you but the descriptors escape me …
Cheese Plate
g went for a cheese plate dessert. Mere moments after she ordered, we heard a “mooo” noise. It was coming from the cheese guy. Imagine a formally dressed dude pushing a large fiberglass cow (i.e. their cheese cart) while using a toy moo-maker (I have no idea what those toys are called). And, to boot, the guy was hilarious. He was giddy for cheese and full of cow-centric jokes. For example …
“Why do cows have bells?”
“Cuz their horns don’t work.”
Ok … it might not sound funny now, but in the setting of the Inn, this was hilarious.
As for the cheese, there’s no way we’d be able to tell you every single cheese, but we can say that all those selected by their expert were fantastic. g’s favorite cheese was the gouda (apparently pronounced “Howda”). We even found the blue cheeses to be approachable and delicious – while normally blues are a turn-off for us.
And finally, I went for a more classic dessert:
A Real Man's Dessert ...
It featured a lemon cake, a chocolate souffle, and a frozen raspberry souffle (more like a frozen raspberry mousse than anything else). They were all very good and executed well, but to be honest, the cheese was superior … g takes the win 3-1!
So, let’s sum it up …
This was an amazing meal. There were some impressive sights, from the baked potato and the mac and cheese, to impressive, best-I’ve-ever-had dishes (mac and cheese and the filet). And while some of the other dishes might not have blown my mind (e.g. the chocolate souffle), ever single dish was executed perfectly; g and I, although by no means “experts”, could not identify any technical errors – I’ll leave that to the chefs and real foodies out there. The only regret I had was that we missed out on the tour of the kitchen!!! DARNIT!! Maybe next time …
The Truth … about Pretzel m&m’s
t says: One of my recent purchases was Pretzel m&m’s. But when I got home, I opened the bag and was kind of distraught. Maybe you’ll see what I mean …
Count my m&m's.
That’s right. A bag of m&m’s, and I get a total of … 14. That’s it. Now maybe I’ve grown in size a lot since my last bag of m&m’s, but doesn’t this seem kind of puny? Well, in any case, I really don’t have much else to say about these guys (they taste only ok – I much prefer the dark chocolate m&m’s to these – and my second most favorite were those crisped rice ones from a while ago). I guess I just wanted to vent that I feel that the truth about pretzel m&m’s is this: they’re kind of a rip-off.
Crack Chex
t says: a pointed out that perhaps I’ve been posting too much about desserts, accusing me of having a sweet tooth. Well, it’s true. I do have quite the sweet tooth, especially as stress levels rise (e.g. little is more comforting at midnight-1-2-am than a handful of Swedish Fish … or a Crunch bar … or Twix). Things have been more stressful recently, as exams approached, meaning that I have a few more posts about some sweet encounters coming up … sorry a.
The first is a recipe. It’s not my recipe – and I’m not changing anything about it, so I’ll link you to the original: Crack Chex. As you can see, it’s not actually called “Crack Chex” … but it should be. Basically, you melt down chocolate, peanut butter, and butter … toss some cereal in it … and then toss with powdered sugar. And that’s it. The end result isn’t exactly “beautiful”, but it tastes awesome!
Crack Chex ain't pretty ... but you're not making it to look at it.
Here are some tips/tricks:
1) Personally, I use dark chocolate chips – but you might have to cut back a little on how much you use because it can easily overwhelm peanut butter.
2) As you can see in the pic, there are some other non-Chex shapes in there. That’s because I replace some of the volume allotted to cereal with some trail mix and/or some of those mixes of dried fruit and nuts – it really punches up the eating experience with different textures and tastes. I recommend this tactic because without this substitution, the flavors/textures might get a bit monotonous, meaning that you might actually be able to stop eating it at a certain point. If you do it my way, you break up the monotony so you can easily polish off an entire bowl in a single movie (especially if you get one with dried fruit). Oh wow. I just thought that maybe I should do this to popcorn. That sounds amazing. I have to try it …
3) There is genius in this recipe. And it’s the powdered sugar. The powdered sugar’s purpose is not just to add sugar – it’s to make it so that you can consume a chocolate-covered snack without getting chocolate all over your fingers. And the powdered sugar usually sticks to the treat and not to your fingers (unless you’re one of those freaks with really warm hands).
4) It’s gluten free!!! So that means that just so long as you coat gluten-free snacks with this chocolate-peanut-butter-sugar concoction, you and your celiac disease suffering friends can enjoy a sinfully sugary snack together. And the kingdom will rejoice. Yay! Ironically, I have no idea if Rice Chex itself is gluten free or not – so before you accidentally cause a lot of horrible GI distress upon your gluten-sensitive friends, check that first!!!
A Cupcake Pitstop
t says: Yes, right now there is some friction about the cupcake trucks in Philly. But in the words of a great television star, “Hell, I don’t know who to believe!”. BUT – I realize that I don’t really care just so long as the cupcakes are good. And today … I finally put up the Buttercream Cupcake truck to the test – it just happened to be on my way home!
And how were the cupcakes? Well, they have more than just cupcakes …
Let’s do the cupcakes first. Overall, they weren’t that bad – but not the best either. The texture of the red velvet and chocolate cupcakes were a little crumby/crumbly, which isn’t my style of cupcake (but for some reason, a lot of Philly cupcakes are like this!). I felt the Red Velvet didn’t really have that luscious flavor you’d get from someplace like Brown Betty’s – and the cream cheese icing was a little more on the light-and-creamy side than the cream-cheese-decadent side (which I prefer). So if you like a Red Velvet cake that you could eat two of, then this one will probably do just fine (I suppose I want one that’s so rich that I couldn’t possibly eat two no matter the circumstance). As for the chocolate one, I was happy with the ganache, but couldn’t quite get past the crumbiness.
Then there was that yellow cupcake. But this was no ordinary yellow cupcake. It was actually a banana cupcake with a nutella buttercream, and I believe it was the best of the three. The cake was light and fluffy and spongey, with a hint of banana with just a dash of nutella in the icing. It was a nice-and-playful cupcake (which I realize is what I didn’t like about the Red Velvet above – but here I like it!). It was light enough so that I suspect that g might even like the banana one (when she gets home – muhuhahahaha).
But what is the other thing in the foreground? Well, that is a chocolate pie with a peanut-butter cream topping and swirls of chocolate ganache. The filling is delicious … just so long as you like straight up chocolate, peanut butter, and sugar (which I do). I only wish the crust was a little darker – it looked a little anemic. For the most part it was a run-of-the-mill crust as far as I could tell – the filling was the star of this dessert. I’d recommend it as much as the banana-nutella cupcake – which is both good and bad. On one hand, I like the pie thingee, but on the other, why can’t someone give me some cupcakes as good as kara’s?
Maybe when g gets home, she’ll blog her opinion …
Marco Pierre White
t says: Marco Pierre White is featured in some youtube videos whipping up some rather simple dishes using Knorr packets. More interestingly, this dish is beef braised with Guiness and prunes. I’m not sure what I think about that. I’ve done the Guiness turkey, and it’s ok, and I’ve done a prune braised pork, which is pretty good. But this one just looks weird – I think it has to do with how dark it looks. Check it out.
What strikes me as really weird is not only the knife that he is using to prep those ingredients (i.e. he’s using a yanagi, a traditional Japanese knife that’s most often used for slicing fish) but also how he’s holding the knife (a very weird grip with the thumb on top). I’m going to have to research that maneuver a bit more …
Kandy Kake Wannabe …
t says: welcome to my first completely mobile post. Typing on an iPhone isn’t that bad!!
I share with you here the introduction of a new “limited edition” brownie kandy kake.
I must say that I was a little surprised when I bit into one … here’s what I saw.
As you can see, there’s no layer of hidden topping for the brownie edition (on the right)!! No pb. No creme. Not even more chocolate! It was just a cake and thin chocolate coating. In my opinion, that is NOT a “kandy kake” – there needs to be a layer of something else in there! And the cake itself was pretty unremarkable – not like a brownie at all! Sorry Tasty – I don’t think this one’s a winner. Better luck next time …
g would also like to mention that she thinks the new design for the packaging looks ugly. Not as ugly as Duetto, but still ugly.
A true Philly institution closes its doors …
t says: Robbins 8th and Walnut is closing. Man, they’ve been there seemingly forever! I recall their cheesy radio commercials from my childhood growing up in south Jersey. Bummer dude! It’s a sad day. Perhaps not as sad as when other restaurants in Philly have closed, but still sad.
Fortunately, the Delaware location is remaining open (tax free baby!).
And it’s not a total loss – a Le Pain Quotidien is moving to this spot!
after dinner sneeze 