Cork Wine Bar, DC

This weekend, I met up with a friend, Mike, in DC's U street corridor before a show at the Black Cat. We met up at Cork Wine Bar which has been getting some good reviews since it opened in the last few months.
We arrived pretty early and got a good table, but as the course of the evening progressed, the place got really crowded. I started with a glass of Domaine La Manarine, Côtes du Rhône 2004, and we started ordering food.
At Cork, all items are served to be shared which is my favorite way to eat. We started with the Rosemary Chicken Liver Bruschetta. It came with a tasty shallot marmalade.

We got the cheese plate. It had a Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk- which was nice & creamy, a
Pecorino Ginepro- a firm cheese, and a delicious Twig Farm goat cheese.

The Potato and Leek Gratin with gruyere was good- I liked how the potato was diced up in this piping hot dish so you had more surface to be coated with the cheese.

We got two main meat dishes. The first was the Red-Wine Braised Lamb with pomegranate, radicchio, and spinach. The lamb was really well cooked, and you gotta love fruit and meat combinations.

This is the Roasted Eggplant mixed with chili and mint. At this point, I moved on to my second glass of wine, this time a Château La Bourrée, Côtes de Castillon 2005.

The second meat plate was the Duck Confit served on a mushroom polenta. It was also nicely prepared.

We also had a very good side of Caramelized Sunchokes aka the Jerusalem artichoke. It reminded me of parsnips. Yummy.

Dessert was pretty good at Cork as well. I got what was called a Grapefruit Financier- which was like cornbread with grapefruit- really light and very delicious.

Mike got the Goat Cheesecake which was not at all heavy to eat. All in all, Cork was a really good experience with good wine and outstanding food.