Text 474, 120 rader
Skriven 2013-05-22 12:17:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: localAventure w/beef 584
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Lilli was in town for a couple days, having been invited by
one of her classmates; but then the classmate pooped out,
sick husband or something, and she called me up for company
and entertainment. No sweat, it takes less time to get to
Dulles than to BWI and costs about the same. So I packed up
a couple days early and prepared to go. Jonathan wondered
what was up, and when I told him, he offered to take me there
(he likes driving around, and it cuts half an hour off my
trip, so mutually beneficial if he actually doesn't get
distracted). I counteroffered that I'd buy him lunch, and
his choice was Guapo's, a small chain of South American
chicken with Mexican staples places, one of whose outlets
was just off the airport access road. He had a steakoid
sandwich, a lousy deal, a thin maybe 6 oz of marinated mystery
meat on a bun with fries on the side. For the same price I got
a quarter chicken (dark, my preference, but the default is
white for the same price) with two bbq ribs; yuca substituting
for fries was an upcharge of 40c, which I gladly paid. His
meal was sort of average, mine quite good, the chicken done to
a fall-apart condition, not my favorite, but it was moist and
flavorful with lemon, salt, and pepper; the ribs were fine,
also done quite over for my taste, but tasty under the sweet
mass-market bbq sauce. It's fast food, and we were done earlier
than I'd thought, so I got to Dulles half an hour before time.
The extra I spent researching places for dinner.

I was looking for thousand point reservations near Lilli's
hotel and found Elements on One in the Hyatt and Vinifera in
the Westin; though the latter was nearer and appeared to be a
better restaurant, it looked like the former had a menu that
would suit her more, so I figured we should go there.

It's as though they took the far end of the lobby and said
let's make a restaurant here, which is not an uncommon thing.
only here the effort was perfunctory, and the furniture said
more hospital cafeteria than grand hotel - I suppose that an
effort to be contemporary had something to do with it, but
most likely "cheapest stuff in the restaurant supply catalog"
was the main motivator.

A friendly hostess seated us dead center, with a maximum of
noise, light, and potential staff. This was okay, as romance
is not part of this particular package.

It was as I said a very Lilli-friendly menu, and we both got
steaks, which rumor says are pretty good here if cooked rarer
than you order, which is not a problem for either of us.

So I had steak frites with truffled fries and a truffle cheese
stuffed mushroom, sided with a Michael Mondavi Pinot Noir 10
as suggested by the restaurant. It was actually pretty decent
- about the right amount of meat as listed, done just jiggly
(extra rare) as I requested, plus a couple ounces of fat beyond
that. The grill wasn't hot enough, though, and the char hadn't
developed, and the texture was a little flabbier than first-rate
dry-aged heavy beef would have offered even at this level of
cookedness, but the taste was fine. The fat was uncrisp and
frankly fatty, and I can see this as minus points to most
Internet reviewers, but I like this. Truffled fries are silly,
as you take your perfectly normal fries, sog them up with a
few drops of diesel, and call the result gourmet. The mushroom
was undercooked (probably it gets tossed on with the meat and
comes off with the meat). I don't know about the cheese, as
I gave it to Lilli, who turned up her nose after a bite. There
were a couple spears of asparagus as well for garnish. The
wine was pale and unconcentrated but at least discernibly Pinot
Noir - I should have spent a couple more bucks and gotten the
same wine as Lilli got, though.

Lilli's marinated ribeye was to all appearances identical in
size and in cut to my steak, only marinated in soy sauce (the
waitress, on being asked what the marinade was, ventured a guess
of balsamic and demiglace, which was 100% wrong). It was rare
but not quite so rare as mine (she'd ordered rare to medium-rare),
not as beefy as mine, rather salty. I suspect that as it's a
couple bucks less than mine, they take the unsold ribeyes from
yesterday's steak frites and dump it in the brown goo overnight,
et voila, no waste, savings for the customer, everybody's happy. I
inherited some quite nice sweeter than usual broccolini; she ate
most of her buttery and good-tasting mash but let me have a bite.
The Rodney Strong Cab 10 had a ton more oomph and interest than my
wine - the wine pairings were probably not random, as the more
delicate wine went with the pure steak (the supposed truffles
adding a Burgundian touch to the Pinot), the stronger and better
wine going with the stronger and less good dish, the costs
balancing out, as the Cabernet cost a couple bucks more than
the Pinot.

We turned down the offer of dessert and coffee and instead had
a nightcap at the Sheraton, visiting the Cosmopolitan Lounge and
its famous wall of wine, which turns out to be mostly the same
old same old.

At the bar there were all sorts of used glasses and dishes piled
up, but we were too tired to pack up and go elsewhere.

Lilli got a De Loach Pinot Noir, which was maybe or maybe not a
notch more exciting than what I'd had for dinner, at a comparable
price. (Sadly, most of the local restaurants offer the same wines
at the same inflated hotel prices.)

A King Estate ice wine was on offer, supposedly, for $9 a glass,
so I asked for that, not knowing whether I'd be getting a proper
little 100 ml pour or maybe lucking out with a giant glass. The
bartender tried to pour me a Pinot Gris, but I stopped him and
described what I thought the bottle should look like. I suppose
he knew he was a bit out of his depth, because he eventually
gave up altogether, whereupon I asked for a Guinness. It came a
bit too cold and a bit too quickly.

This bartender went off duty, and his evening replacement, a
woman, seemed more with it; at least she cleaned all the dirty
stuff from the bar. I was tempted to go again for the ice wine,
but I'd had enough to drink.

The Sheraton room, one of the smaller ones on the club floor,
was nonetheless ample for a few hours' sleep.
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