The Atlas Room, DC

I had a really good pre-concert dinner at The Atlas Room, in the Atlas neighborhood of DC.
Their menu is unusual in that it is divided by (I hate to use this term) "proteins". For instance, under beef, they list several plates of increasing size so you are able to select a small starter, an appetizer to share, or a larger entree sized item.
I started with the grilled seafood salad which consisted of mussels, calamari, scallops, & shrimp on a bed of Israeli couscous. It was plated with droplets of basil & oil.
My second course was an order of their beef short rib ravioli served with onions, mushroom and an herbed demi-glace.
For my final course, I got one of the medium plates, the saddle of lamb with chickpea puree, fennel, tomato, olives ragout and parsley sauce. The lamb was cooked a perfect medium rare, and was just beautiful.
The restaurant also has a good selection of pre-prohibition style cocktails. I started dinner with a Clover Club made with Beefeater London Dry Gin, housemade Grenadine, lemon juice and egg white. It was sweet and pleasant.
For dessert, I opted to have a second cocktail, a La Rosa Flip. It was Cruzan Blackstrap rum, Java Head Stout, and an egg yolk topped with nutmeg. It was nice and creamy, reminding me of a coffee milkshake.
The Atlas Room makes simple, very well executed plates of food and great drinks. I would say it's probably the best restaurant in the Atlas district right now.

1015 H Street NE
Washington D.C.
(202)388-4020

Silk Road Bistro, Choyhona, Pikesville, MD

I had a great dinner at an Uzbek restaurant located in Pikesville, MD called Silk Road Bistro, Choyhona. I tried Uzbek food several years ago in New York City, and I was pretty excited to learn of this place much closer to home. Being in central Asia, it's a unique blend of cuisines from the region, taking influence from areas both east and west and making it their own.
We started with a pitcher their "homemade fruit drink" which was a lot like fruit punch. The pitcher had several half pears floating in it. Personally, I found it light and refreshing, but some fellow diners thought it too sweet.





An important part of Uzbek cuisine is the wide variety of "salads". I tried four kinds.
My favorite was suzma with radish, a sour yogurt with lots of dill, cucumbers and sliced radishes.
Second was the Smak, which was chunks of tomato, a firm cheese, crunchy croutons, and garlic tossed in mayonnaise.



In my previous experience with Uzbek cuisine, I had tried the Markovcha, a carrot salad that was influenced by ethnic Koreans who came to central Asia. The salad is made of shredded cabbage, garlic, & onion, and then is slightly pickled with vinegar. It reminds me of the bon chon dishes you get at Korean BBQ.
The last veggie we tried was the eggplant, which was sliced, deep fried, then served cold with garlic and tomato folded inside. This had a lot of garlic in it and was really good.



We ordered a few Tandoori nan, hot out of the oven. Unlike Indian naan, this bread was not flat. The crust was crisp and the inside was dense and filling.

Manti, also well known in Uzbek cuisine, are basically dumplings. We tried a couple kinds on the menu. Silk Road offers the dumplings filled with meat, potato, or pumpkin.
We got a sampling, first, of the crispy manti. We chose to get it with pumpkin. The filling was a little sweet, and these fried manti were served with shredded pickled onions.

I liked the steamed dumplings better. We were recommended to try them with the potato filling. I expected it to be filled with mashed potato like a pierogi, but instead the potato inside was chunked and from the steaming process became very soft. It was served with a side of sour cream.






Following the dumplings, we ordered another well know Uzbek dish, the Pilav, made with rice, carrots and lamb. It also had a bulb of roasted garlic on the side.
We then ordered a wide variety of shish kebabs, primarily the classic lamb, and the beef lulya, which is ground beef with spices. My favorite kabob was the lamb rib, which was on the skewer, but the meat was still attached to the rib bone. These seemed to be more rich in flavor and were very juicy. I also could not resist ordered at least one kebob with veal liver. The kebabs were served with a spicy sauce, pomegranate juice, and pickled onions which all enhanced the meat flavors.
On the menu, they had a "delicatessen kebab" (pic at top). At first I thought it might be a sausage, but they told us it was lamb testicles. We had to try it. It's texture reminded me of a Chinese fish ball or a lighter chicken gizzard. Not bad.

Afterwards, we shared cups of tea, both green and black, and ordered some dessert.
I tried of bite of their baklava, which is not the same as the Mediterranean counterpart. It's not syrupy. Instead it was more of a dry flaky pastry.
We were also told to get their "chocolate ball" which was not on the menu. It reminded me of a large very dense cake doughnut hole drizzled with chocolate sauce.









607 Reisterstown Road
Baltimore, MD
(410)878-2929

Joe's Noodle House, Rockville, MD

I can't believe it's taken me years to get to Joe's Noodle House in Rockville, MD. It's truly a delicious bastion of Szechuan style cuisine in the MD/DC area. When I went to Joe's, my friends told me that my ability to speak some Mandarin Chinese would ensure our dishes would be "Chinese" hot. Because the menu items at Joe's are coded, I'm going to include the letter-number combinations for each dish.
The dishes in our meal had a wonderful progression from salty & sour, to mild tingling, to numbing, and then to nose running hot. We opened with some small plates- spicy & sour pickled cabbage (A05) and scallion pancake (A35)- good items to cool the burn of the items to follow.

We got the Szechuan beef jerky (A52), a cold dish with chunks of beef that was chock full of Szechuan numbing spice. It wasn't that hot, just tingly.
I'm a big fan of Szechuan Dan Dan noodles (N11). It's the spaghetti Bolognese of Chinese food except spicier and with sweet sesame paste. The version at Grace Garden is my favorite, but Joe's take was good.
Our next dish was a special of stir fried tofu, peppers and celery.

The wontons with red hot sauce (W01) were fresh and light.
We then had back to back dishes that looked the same, but the flavors were very different. First was the Tibetan style lamb with cumin (H14). The slight bitterness of the cumin pairs well with szechuan peppers, and the heavier flavor of the lamb.

The second item was triple pepper chicken dry sautee (T20) which had a lighter texture because of the chicken. This actually had more heat than the lamb dish.

The spice level continued to increase with the next dish of spicy & tasty fried bean curd with pork (F32). The tofu was light and had a little crunch on the outside, but it was completely rubbed with spicy chiles.
Our final item put the spice level over the top. We had the fish filets and soft bean curd in Szechuan sauce (H20), which almost was like a Ma Po tofu except loaded with fish and whole chile peppers. You had to eat this with rice just to cool it down.
By the end of the meal, my whole mouth was nicely burning, and we had plenty of leftovers to take home as well.


1488-C Rockville Pike
Rockville, Maryland
(301)881-5518

L'Olivier, Marché Jean-Talon, Montreal

When we were at Marché Jean-Talon, everyone was shopping at the grocery store when I felt compelled to check out L'Olivier because of the line for sandwiches. Everyone was getting the Agneau (lamb) sandwich, so I decided to do the same. Served in a split roll, chunks of lamb are placed inside with green olives and sweet peppers. It was an incredible sandwich- the lamb was so juicy and delicious and the combination of salty-sweet from the toppings was great.

260 Place du marché du Nord

Tacqueria La Placita, Hyattsville, MD

The menu at Tacqueria La Placita in Hyattsville, MD is funny. For some reason they chose to have pictures of every taco they make, but considering the size of the menu, every picture could basically be the same.
However, their tacos are some of the best I've had in the MD/DC/VA area. I ordered the pig cheek, pig ear, and lamb barbacoa tacos for lunch one afternoon. Because of the World Cup, the place was packed.
The meats were served on seared corn tortillas, and came with a green and red sauce as well as a side of spicy pickled onions and carrots.

There was a cart making Raspados, Mexican snow cones.
I ordered one with mango and strawberry, and dried fruit in between- perfect for the hot day







5020 Edmonston Road
Hyattsville, MD
(301) 277-4477

Lambfest at the Slackhaus

This year, after the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival, Gubeen and Olironstomach invited us over for a Lambfest dinner. Our friend, Jake, also lent a hand in cooking as well as supplying us with amazing drinks.
It was a fantastic and ambitious dinner using 6 different cuts of lamb.
We started with Gubeen's tasty quinoa dish served with Jake's dish of lamb tongue, fennel and oranges. The tongue was so tender- more so than beef.

Our second lamb dish was loin chops roasted on the infrared grill. They came out a perfect medium rare and were just amazing with really no other prep beforehand.

It was served with homemade persillade, a side made of chopped parsley, garlic, oil, & vinegar, that went perfect with the lamb.

Redneckhunter was thrilled to have the next course- white beans cooked with lamb necks.



It was so good- the meat from the lamb neck actually had a really nice sweetness to it. Fougoo and I both cleaned the bones clean. I'm pretty sure I ate all the cartilage, too.

Inspired by what they had at the festival, they also made a pit lamb for us. Just to kick it up a little, the meat had a glaze of sriracha sauce. It was so much better than any pit beef I've had because of the lamb's incredible flavor.

Our last courses were grilled lamb leg and shoulder pieces. The best part was the shoulder because Jake had marinated them in Dolin vermouth. I think the shoulder was my favorite piece, or pieces rather, of lamb I had that evening.

Jake brought some bottles of Dolin vermouth- the rouge, blanc, & dry. I tried all three and really loved the flavor of each of them.



My favorite drink of the evening was an aperitif, the Cocchi Americano. I finished the evening with this fine digestif.
I should also note that after crashing in the living room that night, we had more Cocchi the next morning to kickstart the day.

Dinner at Spice Xing, Rockville, MD

I had one of the best Indian dinners I've had in the MidAtlantic region at Spice Xing in Rockville, MD, courtesy of Chef Sudhir Seth.
We started with Mirchi Paratha, a version that was whole wheat and had a strong spicy kick to it. Fortunately, you could cool it down with some Raita.
We were then served a platter with various appetizers. There was a little salad and some chili cheese toasts. (Indian pizza?)
I liked the vegetable cutless which was red inside from beets. There was Lamb Seekh Kabab and some spicy Tandoori Chicken wings.

I loved the Kathi Roll, chicken with onions and peppers wrapped in Indian bread. It would be a perfect companion to the gyro/kebob as a late night snack.





After appetizers, we were presented with our plates for dinner, already loaded with basmati rice and veggies. The revelation for me was the Methi Chaman. Imagine the spinach loaded Saag Paneer with mustard seed. The flavor is completely different, and so much more subtle. We also had Gobhi Simla Mirchi, a nice cauliflower dish.











We got four different main dishes.
My favorite was the Salli Boti Jardaloo, a sweet and savory lamb stew that had apricots.
We also had the Indo-Chinese "Chili Chicken" and the Nariyal Shrimp Curry.
I also enjoyed the Masala Baked Fish which came out piping hot in a cast iron skillet.

Chef Seth's lentil dish, the Dal Makhni was also fantastic. One of my dinnermates talked with the staff and found out the lentils are roasted beforehand to give a different flavor.




For dessert, we had the Rasmalai, saffron flavored poached cheese dumplings, and the Gajar Halwa, a carrot rice pudding. Needless to say, I was completely stuffed after this fantastic and memorable meal. We were finished off with a piece of Tandoori roasted pineapple.

100-B, Gibbs Street
Rockville MD 20850
(301)610-0303