Court Jester

RESTAURANT REVIEW Cafe Berlin German 322 Massachusetts Ave., NE Washington, DC (202) 543-7656 Open daily for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. German restaurants, once a part of the trio of European cuisines that made up Washington's "foreign" food, are now almost an endangered species. The metro area has many fewer German restaurants than Thai restaurants, making a meal at Cafe Berlin seem almost like an adventure in exotic eating. Starters include very good marinated herring, served with onions, apples, and sour cream. The limp potato pancakes were a disappointment. Schnitzels get top billing. The Wiener schnitzel is terrific, breaded and fried to a delicious crustiness; there's also Rahm Schnitzel, with a cream-and-mushroom sauce, and Jaegerschnitzel, a sauteed pork steak with bacon and mushrooms. Another German standby that's done well is Kassler Rippchen, smoked pork loin served with sauerkraut. Zwiebelrostbraten, a sirloin steak topped with crisp onions, was cooked to order and served with a delicious gratin of potatoes. If you're not a beer drinker, a dry German Riesling is a good accompaniment to this hearty cooking. Cafe Berlin, 322 Massachusetts Ave., NE; 202-543-7656. Open daily for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. — Thomas Head August 2001

Bistro Bis, George Hotel French 15 E St., NW Washington, DC (202) 661-2700 Open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wheelchair accessible. At Jeffrey Buben's first restaurant, Vidalia, he reinterpreted traditional recipes from the South and the Eastern seaboard using the techniques of classic French cooking. The result was a striking style that represented very good Modern American cooking. At Bis, he chose to reverse the formula: The dishes are drawn from the rich repertory of French cuisine bourgeoise and given contemporary American treatments. Although there are a few missteps, the cooking at Bis is generally very good. Executive chef Cathal Armstrong has both a passion and a talent for charcuterie. A collection of his saucissons secs hangs from the rafters of the glass-walled wine cellar. Start a meal with a combination plate of pates, terrines, and an exquisitely buttery mousse of chicken livers, or with his signature gallantine of duck with foie gras, and you'll be impressed from the outset. For a lighter beginning, choose the splendid Brandade Provencale, a heady puree of salt cod, potatoes, and garlic that evokes memories of a summer lunch in the south of France. The main courses that secure Bis's two-star rating include striped bass with a saffron-and-fennel bouillabaisse sauce; braised veal short ribs with aromatic vegetables; and a contemporary treatment of the classic saute of rabbit with mustard sauce. As an alternative to dessert, consider selections from Bis's impressive selection of small-production cheese, offered at a very reasonable $7.50 for three portions. — Robert Shoffner January 2003 At Bistro Bis in the George Hotel, Jeffrey and Sallie Buben seem to have hit on the perfect formula for a Washington restaurant. The decor is modern yet comfortable. The bar scene is lively but doesn't interfere with the dining experience. Service is polished and friendly. Chef Cathal Armstrong's French-bistro cooking is both familiar and innovative. The result is a restaurant that's elegant enough to serve as a setting for Hill business, youthful enough to attract an after-work crowd, and accomplished enough to attract diners who go to restaurants for the food. Good beginnings include a lovely plate of rabbit rillettes, snowy white against the colors of pickled spring vegetables; beautifully textured duck galantine paired with seared fresh foie gras and a tart-sweet compote of apples and cherries; and a hearty Moroccan lamb salad--rare-roasted loin of lamb with Moroccan spices, olives, artichokes, and greens. Familiar bistro fare includes a main course of rabbit Dijonnaise, the leg and loin in a tangy mustard sauce with perfectly cooked baby vegetables. Steak frites is cooked as ordered, and the fries are thin-cut and crisp. Monkfish--an often-abused staple of New American cooking--is pan-roasted and served on a bed of Savoy cabbage, baby turnips, and braised lardons. Pastry chef Maura Clark's desserts are lovely: an intense Lemon Opera Torte, layers of almond genoise with honey buttercream and lemon mousse; pineapple beignets, served with coriander sugar and muscat sabayon; and a dream of a pear tart, which is even dreamier if you accompany it with a glass of Belle de Brillet, a liqueur that tastes like essence of pears. — Thomas Head August 2001 With the exception of a zinc-topped bar and a couple of framed ads for aperitifs, there is little about the setting that bespeaks a bistro. Sheathed in blond wood, its tiered dining areas descend gracefully toward an open kitchen. Bis has a grand sweep about it that befits its proximity to the corridors of power on Capitol Hill. Although they are no longer trying as hard to reinvent traditional bistro cooking as when they opened Bis three years ago, co-owner Jeffrey Buben and executive chef Cathal Armstrong are least successful when they create dishes meant to reflect the restaurant's motto: "Classic French Cooking with an American Sensibility." A filet of near-raw salmon served over a tart shell filled with shredded braised oxtail bound in a gelatin-rich brown sauce is not a fortuitous combination; nor is grilled tuna with foie gras, a pairing that was a bad idea in France ten years ago. What is a good idea is starting a meal at Bis with chef Armstrong's superb galantine of duck paired with a slices of seared foie gras in an apple-cherry compote. Equally good is a fantasy called "Moroccan Lamb and Merguez Salad," with incisive spicing that whets the appetite for the main course to follow. For a starter that is pure comfort, look for the splendid Brandade Provencale, a gratin of pureed salt cod, potatoes, and garlic, meant to be scooped up with slices of grilled bread glistening with olive oil. For the main course, the simplest choices are the best: Look for such bistro classics as braised veal short ribs, rabbit with mustard sauce, duck confit, and a quite wonderful monkfish bouillabaisse. For dessert, you can't go wrong with pastry chef Maura Clark's tarte Tatin. — Robert Shoffner January 2002

Barolo Italian 223 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Washington, DC (202) 547-5011 Open Monday through Friday for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. Chef Enzo Fargione's Barolo is the most ambitious Italian restaurant on the Hill. The wood-paneled front dining room soars up two stories, and the windows provide a nice view of Pennsylvania Avenue. Yet it's a restaurant that's hard to love. A surly reception at the door is where it begins, but the problems don't end there. On a recent visit, the best of the cold appetizers sampled was a simple, satisfying dish of asparagus and prosciutto with Taleggio cheese. Diver scallops in a crust of black pepper were served with black olives, peppers, and capers, strong-flavored garnishes that obscured the natural sweetness of the scallops. A dish of freshly seared scallops with prosciutto and green olives was much better, the saltiness of the olives and ham in nice contrast to the perfectly cooked scallops. Slices of seared tuna, served too cold, were almost tasteless, but the accompanying caponata was flavorful and well cooked. Pasta dishes included very good agnolotti filled with ricotta and spinach in Gorgonzola sauce, but fettuccine with a ragu of venison tasted mostly of salt. Beef tenderloin--a nice piece of beef cooked as ordered--had an odd, sweet sauce of reduced balsamic vinegar and honey. Lamb was very well prepared and served with a tasty stew of artichokes, pancetta, and potatoes. A restaurant in this price range should have more consistent cooking. Il Radicchio, Barolo's sister restaurant downstairs, is a better value. Barolo, 223 Pennsylvania Ave., SE; 202-547-5011. Open Monday through Friday for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. — Thomas Head August 2001

B. Smith's American Southern 50 Massachusetts Ave., NE Washington, DC (202) 289-6188 Open for lunch and dinner daily. Dinner until 11 Monday through Thursday, until 12 Friday and Saturday, 9 on Sunday. Sunday brunch 11:30 to 3. Dinner for two is about $90. The space in Union Station occupied by B. Smith's was a presidential reception room, and it is the grandest dining room on the Hill and maybe in the city. The appearance of the room is less formal than when Adirondacks occupied it after the train station was refurbished, but the real difference is in atmosphere--friendly, lively, casual, a good setting for chef James Oakley's upscale Southern cooking. You can start with any one of a number of dressed-up, down-home favorites. What Oakley calls Florida Gulf Dip, a gratin of crabmeat, artichoke hearts, spinach, and garlic-flavored cream cheese, seems straight out of a Junior League cookbook--one of those dishes people secretly love but seldom admit to making. A bowl of spicy red beans and rice, offered as an appetizer, is delicious--and enough for a meal. The only disappointment has been fried green tomatoes, as tasteless out of season as their ripe, red counterparts. As hard as it is to resist a dish called Swamp Thing, a mixture of seafood over greens in a mustard-based sauce, there's much else to explore on this menu. Shrimp Lafayette are fresh-tasting and nicely fried, served on a warm black-eyed-pea relish with portobello mushrooms and wilted spinach. Lemon Pepper Catfish, topped with stewed tomatoes and okra, is a treat, as are the macaroni and cheese and spicy greens that accompany it. Cajun Chicken Maque Choux was marred by soggy breading. Homey desserts include a good peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream and a delicious chocolate Bayou Voodoo cake. While B. Smith's Union Station location is a plus for the restaurant, the lack of valet parking is not. You can park in the Union Station parking facility, a long walk from the restaurant's door, or take the Metro. B. Smith's, Union Station, 50 Massachusetts Ave., NE; 202-289-6188. Open daily for dinner, Monday through Friday for lunch, Saturday and Sunday for brunch. — Thomas Head August 2001

Anatolia Middle Eastern Turkish 633 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Washington, DC (202) 544-4753 Open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday for dinner only. Dinner served until 10. Dinner for two is about $55. Good food, attractive surroundings, and genuine hospitality make this Turkish restaurant one of the most pleasant places for a casual meal on the House side of the Capitol. The selection of mezze, or appetizers, that usually start a Middle Eastern meal are of very high quality. Baba ghanoush is smoky with the flavor of roasted eggplant. Hummus is tart, gar######y, and fresh-tasting. Grape leaves are stuffed with rice, pine nuts, currants, and fresh mint. Roasted eggplant is topped with a tart, house-made yogurt. All are accompanied by freshly baked pita bread. You can sample them all by ordering a mezze platter for the table. Kebabs--meat cooked on a skewer--are a big part of the menu. Try the lamb or beef yogurtlu kebab, good-quality meat served over crisp pita bread with yogurt and marinara sauce, accompanied by grilled vegetables and a delicious rice pilaf. Adana kebab, ground lamb molded around a skewer and grilled, is nicely spiced and delicious. Doner kebab--thin slices of marinated lamb formed into a loaf, roasted on a vertical rotisserie, then sliced and served with yogurt and tomato sauce over crisp pieces of pita bread--is served as a Friday-night special, which means that Fridays are Anatolia's busiest nights. Lamb shank is long-cooked, falling-off-the-bone tender, and full of flavor. Izgara köfte, grilled-lamb patties, are crisp on the outside and moist and spicy within. Chicken dishes tend to be dry and not as interesting as lamb or beef. Anatolia, 633 Pennsylvania Ave., SE; 202-544-4753. Open Monday through Friday for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. — Thomas Head August 2001

Aatish Asian Indian Pakistani 609 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Washington, DC (202) 544-0931 Open for lunch and dinner daily. Dinner until 10 Sunday through Thursday, until 10:30 Friday and Saturday. Patrons of Capitol Hill restaurants tend to live or work in the neighborhood, but the number of restaurants that might lead Washingtonians to make a special trip to the Hill is increasing. La Colline, Robert Greault's fine French restaurant, has long been among these. B. Smith's in Union Station offers a updated menu of Southern favorites in a elegant setting. The Monocle, with its dependably good American cooking, remains the most popular stop for those who want to catch a glance of Washington's political celebrities. Enzo Fargione has brought a new standard of Italian cooking to the Hill with Barolo. There also is an increasing number of fine, inexpensive ethnic restaurants, including the Turkish Anatolia at 633 Pennsylvania Avenue, Southeast, and in the same block, Aatish, a Pakistani restaurant that holds its own with the area's best. Even though Aatish calls itself Pakistani, there's not much on the menu to distinguish it from other restaurants that call themselves Indian. In fact, fans of Haandi in Falls Church or Bethesda will find that much of the menu looks familiar--the owner spent more than seven years working there. The name Aatish means volcano, an appropriate name for a restaurant specializing in tandoori cooking--meats, seafood, vegetables, and breads cooked in the intense heat of a clay oven. Even though tandoori cooking has its origin in the northwest part of the subcontinent, it is now almost universal in Indian and Pakistani restaurants. With the exception of Udupi Palace in Langley Park and a couple of other Indian vegetarian restaurants, menus of area Indian restaurants are more alike than they are different. What distinguishes Aatish from the competition is not that its food is distinctive but that it is cooked very well. In run-of-the-mill Indian restaurants, tandoori chicken is dry, cooked in advance and sometimes served as a part of a buffet. At Aatish, the half chicken, skinless and marinated overnight, is served direct from the tandoor--bright red, spicy, and marvelously succulent. Don't order the chicken tikka or the chicken kebab. While they might save you the trouble of cutting the chicken off the bone, they cannot compare in flavor to the bone-in bird. Lamb is also beautifully cooked in the tandoor. The kebab is tender with good flavor, but the best lamb dishes are sauced--lamb vindaloo with potatoes in a hot curry sauce; rogan josh in yogurt with curry spices; and lamb saag in finely pureed, long-cooked spinach. Those who have eaten at Haandi will recognize lamb Karahi, a dish from the northwest frontier, done very well here--cooked in a wok with ginger, garlic, tomatoes, vegetables, and spices. One of the glories of tandoor cookery is the bread, and any meal here should include one or more of them--white-flour nan, wheat-flour roti, onion kulcha, aloo paratha stuffed with spicy potatoes and peas, lacha paratha with a delicious buttery flavor. The basket of assorted breads will probably be too much for two people, but three can finish it off handily. I'm more interested in the breads than in the appetizers at subcontinental restaurants, but here it's worth trying to make room for the samosa. Often a bland mixture of potatoes in a tough pastry shell, the samosa at Aatish is a revelation, flaky pastry enclosing a delicious spiced mixture of potatoes and peas. — Thomas Head February 1999

Colorado Kitchen American New Southern 5515 Colorado Ave., NW Washington, DC (202) 545-8280 Open for breakfast Tuesday through Friday, Friday lunch, Saturday and Sunday brunch, dinner Tuesday through Sunday. It's not often that I come across a restaurant that seems so honest, so personal, and so well realized that I want for it to succeed and for other people to like it as much as I do. Colorado Kitchen in DC's Brightwood Park neighborhood is one of those. It's a treasure for a part of town that has few sit-down restaurants. It's a very attractive place--a storefront space cheerfully decorated with a black-and-white checkerboard floor and bright-red vinyl upholstery. The chef's collection of whimsical salt and pepper shakers is on the tables, and the walls are hung with vintage advertising. Through the pass-throughs into the kitchen, customers can see chef Gillian Clark, co-owner with Robin Smith, at work. Clark has worked in some of the area's best kitchens, including the Morrison-Clark Inn and Cashion's Eat Place, but is probably best known from her time as chef at the Evening Star Cafe. Clark's cooking owes a debt to the South, but her menu is not limited by it. That menu is divided into sections called Firsts, Small Food, and Big Food. Firsts include a soup of the day (one day a lovely leek-and-potato soup), carefully made salads, and an interesting onion toast served with a relish of citrus fruit spiced with garlic and jalapenos. Small Plates--which can serve either as an appetizer or, with a soup or salad, as a small meal--include a tasty "napoleon" of layered Virginia ham and Gruyere, cooked until the cheese is toasted on the edges. A gratin of pearl onions is delicately sweet under a blanket of cheese and bread crumbs. Probably the best of all is veal cheeks, slowly cooked to fork tenderness in a flavorful sauce of sherry and shiitake mushrooms. To call Clark's main courses "home cooking" might give the impression that they're less carefully prepared than they are. A pork chop, marinated in brandy and brown sugar, is cooked to perfect juiciness and served with delicious spaetzle and braised cabbage. Salmon, seared to a beautiful crustiness, remains moist and is nicely accompanied by mushrooms, potatoes, and batons of pancetta. Meatloaf is a homey treat. Roasted lemon-sage chicken is juicy and flavorful. Shrimp and scallops are crisply fried and served with a tangy house-made tartar sauce. Most of the main courses are priced between $9.50 and $15. Children's plates of many dishes are available for $4.95. There are a couple of drawbacks. First, there's no alcohol--a glass of wine would be great with that pork chop. Second, service is uneven--not negligent, but vascillating between friendly and helpful at times and indifferent at others. At a restaurant with so much going for it, the staff should be as welcoming as the decor. Colorado Kitchen, 5515 Colorado Ave., NW; 202-545-8280. Open for breakfast Tuesday through Friday, Friday lunch, Saturday and Sunday brunch, dinner Tuesday through Sunday. — Thomas Head February 2002

San Marco: Italian 2305 18th St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 483-9300

Saigonnais: Asian/Vegetarian/Vietnamese 2307 18th St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 232-5300

Rocky's Cafe: Caribbean 1817 Columbia Rd., NW Adams Morgan (202) 387-2580

Perry's: Continental/Modern American 1811 Columbia Rd., NW Adams Morgan (202) 234-6218

Mixtec: Mexican 1792 Columbia Rd., NW Adams Morgan (202) 332-1011

Meze: Middle Eastern/Turkish 2437 18th St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 797-0017

Mama Ayesha's: Lebanese/Middle Eastern 1967 Calvert St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 232-5431

Little Fountain Cafe: Continental/Modern American 2339 18th St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 462-8100

La Fourchette: French 2429 18th St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 232-3077

Kuna: Italian 1324 U St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 797-7908

I Matti: Italian/Pizza 2436 18th St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 462-8844

Grill from Ipanema: Brazilian/Latin American/South American 1858 Columbia Rd., NW Adams Morgan (202) 986-0757

The Diner, 2453 18th St., NW; 202-232-8800. Open 24 hours.

Cities Mediterranean 2424 18th St., NW Washington, DC (202) 328-7194 Open for dinner daily.

Cashion's Eat Place: American/Modern American 1819 Columbia Rd., NW Adams Morgan (202) 797-1819

Arbor Restaurant and Wine Bar: Modern American 2400 18th St., NW Adams Morgan (202) 667-1200

http://www.smcm.edu/art/facshow.html Department faculty are active both on campus and off: presenting their work, participating in group shows, and researching in the field. Colby Caldwell is included in three group shows in 2003: "Situation Room", at Boyden Gallery here at St. Mary's College, "Art on the Digital Edge", at the Art Academy Museum, in Easton MD, and "bisect" at Fusebox, Washington, DC. His solo show, "songs", was chosen as one of the "Top Ten art shows of 2002" in Washington, DC by the City Paper. Amanda Guyton completed her Ph.D. dissertation "Bharhut: Narrative and Pilgrimage in Ancient India" at the University of Virginia in July 2003. Michael Hindle Sue Johnson had a one-person exhibition of The Alternate Encyclopedia at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, March-May 2003, and The Midwest Museum of American Art in Elkhart, Indiana, July-Sept 2002. Selected works were included in Insecta Magnifica at the Glyndor Gallery at Wave Hill, Bronx, New York, and Neo-naturalism at The Orange Art Center, Orange, Virginia. In 2003 she was awarded a residency fellowship by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, Virginia. Joe Lucchesi curated the show, "Amazons in the Drawing Room: The Art of Romaine Brooks," at the National Museum for Women in the Arts and the University Museums at the University of California, Berkeley. Lisa Scheer is working on a public sculpture commission for the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York.

http://www.craftassoc.com/confer.html WASHINGTON, D.C. Sugarloaf Manassas Crafts Festival 5-7 Prince William County Fairgrounds, Manassas, VA (800) 210-9900 www.sugarloafcrafts.com