Range

Some great friends of ours surprised my hubby and I to a day of fun recently. First we saw an amazing concert pianist and then we had dinner at a restaurant called Range, which features modern American cuisine by celebrity chef, Bryan Voltaggio.  Range is also known for its Chesapeake shellfish at the raw bar and their wood-fired hearth.

 The first course was a cheese plate, of course! The four cheeses were cabot (a hard cheddar with a nutty flavor), hazen blue (nice mild blue tanginess), kunik (soft and creamy, similar to a brie), and grayson (kinda stinky, but reminiscent of a swiss). It was served with raisin toasts and a pear compote. I love cheese! I haven't met too many cheeses I haven't liked (and I've even tried limburger), and these were no exception.

Left to right: kunik, grayson, hazen blue, cabot

We also had a ham tasting...a country ham and a surryano ham, both from Virginia, served with a creamy, spicy mustard that had a bit of a punch. But it was a nice compliment to the salty sweet hams.

Being a Southern girl at heart, I love biscuits and I love pepper jelly. So when I saw an appetizer for cheddar jalepeno biscuits with pepper jelly, I knew I had to get them. So yumma yumma! The biscuit was warm and flaky and the pepper jelly was the perfect combo of sweet and spicy!

Next came the bone marrow. If you've never had bone marrow, you need to. Its so delicious and unctuous. We first had bone marrow at the Blue Duck in DC which was amazing. The bone marrow dish at Range, cannot compare to the Blue Duck, however, it was pretty tasty on its own merit. This dish was served with shallots, pinenuts, and raisins, which added an unexpected sweet element.

All the above dishes were small plates, which we all shared between the four of us. Next came entrees...Superking chose the hangar steak, cooked medium rare, served with bacon grits, swiss chard, and a chimichurri sauce. Bacon grits...need I say more?

I had the lamb neck with coconut curry sauce and flatbread, which was accompanied by roasted cauliflower with a za'atar seasoning and tzatziki sauce. The lamb was so tender it was practically falling off the bone and melted in my mouth. I love all those mediterranean flavors and aromas!

One of our friends with us was gracious enough to let me take a picture of her dish as well. Her dish was pork belly with a smoked apple, vanilla, and fennel salad. Bright, sweet, salty, delicious!

For dessert they had this adorable "candy cart" that they could wheel around the restaurant to your table. Very non-traditional dessert offerings of chocolate covered rice krispie treats on a stick, variety of truffles, and caramel corn. I chose bacon caramel corn. It was gone in no time flat. While my friend went for a cute little custard of orange and cream with some sort of crumble on top, served in a little jar.

Overall, the food was delicious and unique, as was the atmosphere. The service was just "ok" though. It took a long time for the each course to come out, and all the dishes came out at different times, which was a little odd. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that it was because its a fairly new restaurant to the area and they are still working out the kinks? Nevertheless, it was a night of great fun, great food, and great friends!

The Organic Butcher of McLean

It always seems like I go through these periods of about two weeks without hardly any food adventures at all to write about and then BAM! I get like six within two days.  This is one of those times. Yesterday I already wrote about our trip to 2Amys pizza shop which was so yummy! But we also went somewhere else food-related that was really cool.

The Organic Butcher of McLean.  Superking and I have been wanting to go there for some time to check it out.  Now we finally had the perfect excuse to go.  Easter is tomorrow and we are having our traditional family Easter dinner at my in-laws'.  Our family usually gets a big juicy ham, which I used to just love.  I still like ham but after reading some info about Smithfield hams and other factory farmed meat companies like Smithfield, I'm very cautious about wanting to know where my ham is coming from.  The rest of the family can enjoy their ham this Easter but Superking and I wanted an organic alternative.

Superking decided on  lamb.  Organic fresh lamb from the butcher shop. Not many other people in our families eat lamb but there will be plenty to share for anyone who wants to be brave and give it a try.  And if not, more leftovers for us!!

So through the rain and cold we made our trek from 2Amys in DC to the Organic Butcher in McLean.  Its a teeny tiny place.  There's maybe 5 parking spaces out front and the back end of your car (especially if you have an SUV like us) is barely a couple feet from the road of traffic behind us.  Needless to say, its a little tricky getting in and out of there.  But its so worth the trouble.

Fresh farm-raised, organic, grass-fed meat straight off the farm right into the hands of a very skilled and knowledgeable butcher.  An amazing quality and variety of meat like you will not see in most grocery stores or anywhere else for that matter.  Just about any cut of beef, pork, poultry, veal, lamb you can imagine.  Plus house-made sausages and specialty meats like wagyu beef, sustainable seafood, and wild game such as boar, elk, buffalo, rabbit, and quail, just to name a few. Obviously they don't have all these meats all the time but whats in season and whats available from the local Virginia farms they work with.

In addition to the meats, they also sell seasonal produce, eggs, milk, cheese, ice cream, marinades and dressings, and wine, also all from local sources that are organic and hormone/antibiotic/chemical free.

Its an adorable little shop that takes you back in time to when everyone went to the butcher shop for all their meat. They boast over 80 years of experience behind the counter and can provide you with all the information you need about the meat, including the best way to cook and prepare it.

We decided to buy a bone-in leg of lamb as our ham-alternative for our Easter dinner.  The butcher gave us some advice on cooking it and even put it in a marinade for us before sealing it up.  Can't wait to cook it up and see how it turns out!  Stay tuned for that next culinary adventure...

Masa 14 in DC

So last night we had our first food adventure for Restaurant Week in DC.  We went to a place called Masa 14 located on 14th St NW between S and T streets.  Masa 14, only open for barely over a year, is a cool sophisticated place that serves a fusion cuisine of Asian and Mexican.  Whoever woulda thought to put those 2 things together? Well, someone did and it was genius!

can you see the snowflakes/ice pellets falling?

For most restaurants who celebrate Restaurant Week, they have a special prefixe menu specifically for this particular week.  And most menus have 3 or 4 courses for about $35 a person.  And in each course you usually have several items to choose from.

For our first course I chose the Tom Yum Soup...a sweet and spicy concoction of coconut milk, chicken adobado, masa dumplings, thai basil, bean sprouts, and some kind of spicy red peppers. Absolutely delicious and amazing how all those flavors work together.

Tom Yum Soup

For Hubby's first course, he chose Shrimp Ceviche...which contained juicy shrimp, yuzu (an Asian citrus fruit), melon, orange slices, cilantro, lime, and serrano chilis. For those who have never had ceviche, its essentially raw but then "cooked" in the acid of lime juice.  Its amazing how science can make food so yummy!  It was light and sweet and spicy all at once.

Shrimp Ceviche

For the second course, I chose the Country Ham Flatbread...a flat piece of bread (as the name implies) toasted crispy topped with salty very thin sliced ham, goat cheese, slices of cantaloupe (yes, you read correctly...cantaloupe), arugula, truffle, and lime.  Such a pantheon of flavors I never imagined together.  You could experience just about every flavor sensation in one bite.  Salty, sweet, crunchy, slight bitterness from the greens.  It was awesome.

Country Ham Flatbread

check out those slices of cantaloupe under the greens!

Hubby's second course was Pork Belly Steamed Buns...soft squishy doughy buns wrapped like a taco around the sweet shredded bits of pork belly topped with achiote (a paste made from annato seeds), hoisin sauce, pineapple, red fresno peppers, lime, cilantro, and pickled onions.  Again this combination of sweet, savory, and spicy was beautiful.

Pork Belly Steamed Buns

Third course...I picked Salt and Pepper Calamari...slightly crispy fried squid rings with flavors of madras curry, cilantro, mint, scallions, and a sweet and spicy chili sauce.  Fairly simple, not extremely unique but delicious and lovely all the same.

Salt and Pepper Calamari

Hubby's third course...Smoked Wagyu Beef Brisket Medallions...sweet and smokey shredded wagyu beef shaped into a lovely medallion, so soft and sumptuous you could eat it with a spoon!  It also was served with a wasabi parsnip puree, tat soi (a type of Asian green), hot and sour sauce, and truffled huitlacoche (which is actually a kind of fungus that grows on corn...sounds weird but was yummy).  There was definitely a little heat with this dish so proceed with caution if you're heat-sensitive as I am.

Wagyu Brisket Medallions

Our last course was dessert of course.  I chose a Molten Spicy Chocolate Cake...not your average molten chocolate cake here as there was definitely a hint of something spicy in that wonderful gooey melted chocolate pouring out of the center of the cake.  And next to the cake was served an orange tapioca/strawberry sorbet and gingered strawberries.  The heat from the cake (both temperature and flavor) mixed with the light fruity coolness of the strawberries and sorbet were a perfect combination of yumminess!

Left: mango panna cotta; Right: chocolate cake and sorbet

Hubby's dessert course was Mango Panna Cotta...something neither one of us had ever had and weren't even 100% sure what it was exactly.  Panna Cotta is traditionally an Italian dish kinda of like a creamy pudding type thing but with a bready texture to it.  This panna cotta was mango flavored which gave it a bright citrusy orange color.  It was topped with diced mangos, sake blackberry sauce, and a coconut tuille (which is a crispy cookie decoration on top).  Very unique for us.  It was odd and yet delicious.

the aftermath

Needless to say, our bellies were full to the brim and our plates scraped clean when we left!  Unfortunately we had a long drive home in the middle of a freezing rain downpour!! But we eventually made it home in one piece and very pleased with our food adventure.  We can't wait for Thursdays dinner now!  Stay tuned...