Notes on Food

My last meal in Washington D.C. was a blow-out dinner with Fred, Joanna, Ameya and Murphy at the newly opened Rose’s Luxury, which earned the top spot in Bon Appetit’s Best New Restaurants list for 2015 and is home to a chef who refuses to be pigeon-holed into any one particular type of cuisine or style of cooking. Initially, we planned to get in line around 4pm, knowing from reviews that there’d be a super long queue, but our late lunch at Hank’s and stop at the Phillips Collection meant that we didn’t get there until around 5. Turned out to be a pretty big mistake on our part as we ended up waiting until around 10:30p to be finally seated (luckily, most of those 5 and a half hours was spent drinking and playing shuffleboard at a nearby bar, not waiting outside).

By the time we finally got our foot in the door, we were delirious for some food and thankfully, our server immediately served us some toasty Japanese milk bread with whipped honey butter and fennel seeds. Perfect.

Given the enormous wait we’d had to endure and not knowing the next time we’d ever be back, we decided that we might as well try to order everything on the menu. To start: the smoked trout mousse with apples and chervil; sliced beef crudo, mustard oil, sea salt and watercress and chicken-fried oysters with raw oyster tzatziki. These were admittedly pretty small bites (we ordered seconds of the trout mousse and oysters) but so packed with flavor. Really loved the tart crunchy apple against the creamy mousse and those crispy crispy oysters with the cooling tzatziki. I could probably eat twenty of each of those bites and call it a meal.

Other small plates that we got were the famous pork sausage, habanero & lychee salad and the grilled avocado with tomatillo, poblano and cotija cheese. The lychee salad looked simple enough and you get to mix it all together after it arrives at the table but there’s such a great balance between the juicy sweetness of the fruit against the bite of the red onion and richness from the sausage and creme fraiche. The habanero also gives it some kick that burns the back of your throat. We also ordered a second of this dish.

Our pasta course comprised of the ricotta stuffed gnocchi with crispy sunchokes, mushroom butter and dill; mezze rigatoni “sausage & peppers” as well as a cacio e pepe that was on the house. My favorite of the three was probably the ricotta stuffed gnocchi – it definitely did not conform to what one normally pictures when thinking gnocchi and I loved its pillowy soft texture, the rich mushroom butter sauce it came swimming in, along with those crispy meaty sunchokes on top. The rigatoni was delicious as well, although a little more traditional but unfortunately, we all agreed that our cacio e pepe had been over-salted (though we still managed to finish the entire thing anyway).

For our next and last round of food, we got the Korean-fried catfish with cilantro and daikon pickles; hakurei turnips with spicy fish broth and tofu for something on the lighter side, the family-style smoked brisket, white bread, horseradish and slaw and finally, whole grilled quail with fall greens and mulled cider glaze. We were definitely struggling at this point; it was super late and we were among one of the last groups in the restaurants. Honestly, all I can really recall in my cocktail-wine-food-induced haze at this point is that everything was delicious, especially that spicy catfish, and each dish was unique and did not fit into any one particular category of cuisine. Chef-owner Aaron Silverman is doing a seriously good job of churning out great food in an environment that feels sophisticated but not stuffy.  The next time I’m back in D.C., I need to do a better job of planning my visit here because I will definitely be back.