Et Voila

Belgian is in -- Belgian beer, Belgian cuisine, Belgian chocolate. Brussels has always been home to fine restaurants and some of the finest cellars in Europe, dating back to its affiliation with the Duchy of Burgundy.

DC now has several Belgian eateries, and last night we revisited Et Voila, the restaurant on MacArthur Boulevard now in its second year. This visit was a much more positive experience than our first one, which was soon, too soon, after it opened. Then it was hot and loud, with spotty service and mixed fare.

Yesterday was much better. The air-conditioning was working and the narrow space was much more serene, with its pastel colors and skylights. Service was flawless and the food was very good.

The quintessential Belgian dish is of course "moules-frites," mussels and fries. I passed on the mussels yesterday in favor of a salad of Belgian endive with blue and Chimay cheeses, roasted pecans and Gala apples. It was all nicely chopped in an oval bowl and quite tasty.

For the main course, I had the flatiron steak with green peppercorn sauce, served with fries and mixed greens. The steak was tender, cooked to a perfect medium rare, and set off nicely by the sauce. The fries were great, a deep golden color, still hot and not greasy.

Though German pilsner beers remain my favorite type, I've grown to like the Belgian beers for their fresh, citrusy taste. I had a Grimbergen to wet my whistle -- a "golden blonde ale with fruity undertones and a sharp finish" as the description goes. With the meal, we had a very nice wine from the Rhone, a 2004 Vacqueyras Vieux Clocher, that had a curranty, peppery taste that went very well with my steak.

Happily, Et Voila is not participating in restaurant week, so we were free to order a la carte and skip dessert.

Et Voila specifies that it is Belgian French -- so not bound by traditional Belgian dishes. The menu seems to be an updated cuisine bourgeois, nice bistro fare, and the prices are, as they say in French, "imbattable" (unbeatable).

I didn't taste any other dishes but my dinner companions, judging by the empty plates, were very happy with their entrees -- pan-seared trout with olive and parsley crushed potatoes, mussel and gray shrimp sauce; organic chicken breast, shiitake mushrooms, fava beans, artichokes and thyme jus; and Muscovy duck breast served with braised salsify and cherry sauce.

Et Voila is a collaboration between Chef Claudio Pirollo, the best young chef in
Belgium in 1994 according to the Web site, and Mickael Cornu, a pastry chef. Pirollo spent six years as chef to the Irish ambassador in Washington before opening Et Voila in the Palisades in May 2008.

Brasserie Beck remains my favorite Belgian, but Et Voila is a good deal more affordable. It would be hard to beat Dr. Granville Moore's moules-frites, but I'll give Et Voila a chance my next trip back.

Julia Child

Julie & Julia is a movie about food, about love and about loving food. It is also a film about writing and publishing and the joy of success. I think it works really well, and it's hard to understand some of the reviewers' initial criticisms after seeing the movie.

Meryl Streep is of course great as Julia Child, the American in Paris who truly did change the world with her cookbook. But the other part of the movie, Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia's book and blogging about it, creates about as successful a blend of stories as you can imagine.

For the first time ever, the New York Times reports this morning, Mastering the Art of French Cooking will top the bestseller list next Sunday as a whole new generation of home cooks discovers Julia's masterpiece. This would not have been possible, really, without the role model played by Amy Adams, making this 40-year-old cookbook relevant for today's twenty-somethings. It proves that Julie Powell's effort always was a respectful homage, despite Julia's own criticism, to Julia's original accomplishment.

And Amy Adams, proving herself once again to be the versatile actress she is, holds up her own end, and makes Julie's story, as a personal story, as uplifting as Julia's. Of course, Julie Powell's kitchen in Queens is not likely to find its way to the Smithsonian, and her impact is not of the historic nature as Julia's, but for the purposes of this movie, it turns what could have been a hagiographic biopic into an inspiring human comedy. (Credit is also due to the third genius at work in this film, screenwriter and director Nora Ephron.)

Julie Powell had an extremely clever idea to cook 524 recipes in 365 days and blog about it, and her blog, from what appears of it in the film, was charmingly written with a distinctive voice. Yes, she's riding on Julia's back to success, but Julia herself owes a lot to Larousse Gastronomique and generations of French chefs. The book based on her blog is now out in a new paperback edition with the title, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.

The Julia part of the movie is based on My Life in France, a totally charming memoir of the Childs' sojourn in France and Julia's discovery of food and cooking. Dan Burton recommended it to me more than a year ago and it was a true revelation. Aside from the lovely depiction of postwar Paris, the book relates the back story to so many of the recipes in Mastering, adding so much to the appreciation of these descriptions.

Like so many others of my generation, I came to cooking through Mastering. I took up cooking as a hobby when I was living in Hamburg as a way to do something with my hands that was a break from reading and writing all day as a freelancer. Julia's famously foolproof recipes introduced me to so many basic techniques.

Later, in Paris, I was able to go to Cordon Bleu myself -- not for the full program as Julia did, but just a single eight-week class. I took another course later at Anne Willan's Ecole de la Varenne, but always relied on Julia's original book as my touchstone for cooking.

The very revolution that Julia inspired has given us thousands of cookbooks that take all of us into wonderful new ventures in nouvelle cuisine, new American, fusions and all the other exciting stuff that's happening in cooking. Julia's recipes now can seem dowdy and unhealthy. The Times article quotes so many recent purchasers of Mastering as being astonished about the amount of butter and other fat used in the recipes.

That's what's so exciting about Julie Powell's contribution to the movie. She ignored all that and singlemindedly and singlehandedly made Julia relevant again. Now my neighbor is suggesting that we get together with a third couple and cook up a menu from Mastering -- a suggestion I'm sure is being repeated a thousandfold around the country.

I've cooked many of the recipes from Mastering, including the de-boned duck that Julie saved to the end. I've done the carbonnades (beef braised in beer) more often than the boeuf bourguignon featured in the movie, and have repeatedly used her recipes for cassoulet and ratatouille. I may have attempted the aspic early on, but not recently. Living in Europe, I never had the chance to watch French Chef on TV, but the descriptions and drawings in Mastering were generally clear enough to attempt the most ambitious dishes.

Cowgirl Creamery

When I worked downtown, I got to Cowgirl Creamery (on F, between 9th and 10th) much more often. It is such a treat and impossible to walk out of without a few cheeses.

I had the good fortune to actually discover Neal's Yard in London, the store that helped launch England's artisanal cheese renaissance, some 25+ years ago. Cowgirl Creamery comes as close as I've seen in this country to replicating the Neal's Yard experience. (It does in fact work closely with Neal's Yard and has some of its top cheeses, a cut above the Neal's Yard cheeses you get at Whole Foods). We are lucky to have it here, and Saturday's venture downtown reminded me it's worth the trip.

They have a wonderful selection of artisanal cheeses, including many from U.S. cheesemakers. The salespeople are knowledgeable and passionate about cheese and will patiently give you samples of any cheese you want to try. It pays off because the cheeses are invariably so good, you buy much of what you taste. It's not cheap. Prices run between $20 and $30 a pound, so a relatively small piece of 1/4 to 1/3 pound will cost $7-$10. There are numerous other gourmet selections as well, including great crackers to serve with cheese.

We picked up a few cheeses on Saturday. We started with the Ashed Log from the Pipe Dreams farm in Greencastle, Pa. The helpful Library of Cheese on the Cowgirl Creamery site tells me the farm has a herd of 60 mixed-breed goats and the cheesemaker trained in France in 1983 and has been making cheese ever since. We liked this one because it has a fresh, pleasantly "goaty" taste.

We also got the Tomette d'Helette, a semi-soft sheep's cheese from the French Basque region. An artisanal version of the "Petite Basque", the rind is washed with Espelette pepper during the four months of aging.

The Pondhopper comes from a farm in the Cascade mountains near Bend, Oregon. It is a semi-firm goat's cheese with a wax rind that gets additional flavor from being washed with a local microbrew.

We also got a wonderful cheddar from Seattle called Beecher's Flagship Reserve, a semi-hard cheese with a slight crumble.

Cheese, especially soft cheeses, don't always travel that well. When I tasted a perfectly ripened Pont-Leveque cheese in the town of Pont-Leveque, I realized it was different than even in Paris.

Cowgirl Creamery has mostly hard and semi-hard cheeses that preserve a wonderful flavor. Their own triple-cream soft cheeses -- Mt. Tam, Red Hawk, Pierce Pt, and others -- are terrific, especially if you can get them out of the fridge a good two hours before serving.

Broad Branch Market

The reopened Broad Branch Market has become a real asset to the neighborhood. They have worked hard to cater to their audience and have become a combination of a convenience store and gourmet market.

The best feature, in my opinion, is the butcher counter, stocked with high-quality meat from local suppliers. The meat is pricey, with beef mostly at competitive prices and pork and chicken running high.

The big draw, though, is the prepared foods, which are generally quite good and reasonably priced. Our favorites are the fried chicken (not the best in the city -- Founding Farmers or General Store would contend for that -- but quite serviceable) and the prime rib or any other roast.

The roast chicken is uneven -- lately they have been underdone -- and they have stuck too much with stews through the summer.

That said, we had a great meal last night with their Malaysian beef stew, which we combined with North Carolina long-grain rice that we cooked at home and sauteed baby eggplants that we had bought at the New Morning Farm market on Saturday. These were small and tender and cooked very quickly in olive oil and garlic. Simple, quick and delicious.

Broad Branch also has great bulk foods, spices and teas. They have made an effort to stock good oils and other specialties along with some plain old convenience staples.

What they haven't mastered is produce. They don't give over much space to it and stocking is pretty spotty. It's not being able to count on finding the produce you want that keeps it from being a reliable one-stop shopping. If I have produce on my shopping list, I just go straight to Wholefoods and don't waste my time stopping at Broad Branch. It may just be a limitation imposed by the size of the store, but the co-op on Grubb Street manages to keep a produce section stocked.

Burger heaven

Adam Rubinson and I exchanged messages recently about the best burger places in DC. His favorite at the moment is Central, and I recommended Palena.

But home sweet home can also be a great place for burgers. The June issue of Food and Wine had some grilling tips and last night we finally got around to trying a burger recipe with a couple of interesting twists.

Laurent Tourondel, chef at BLT Burger in Las Vegas, suggested immersing the patties in a bowl of ice water for 30 seconds just before slapping them on the grill. He also recommends basting them with butter while they cook.

Apparently the ice water dip helps the keep the meat moist and the butter caramelizes to add flavor to the crust. In any case, the burgers were outstanding.

He calls for a mix of ground sirloin and ground chuck to make 4-inch patties about 1-1/4 inches thick (about 8 oz.). You mix the meat with salt and pepper, form the patties and, just before grilling, plunge them in the ice water. He calls for a hot fire (I use the hardwood charcoal from Wholefoods -- not briquets -- that burns very hot and fast) and cooking about 9 minutes for medium rare, turning a couple of times, basting with butter, and putting on a slice of cheddar cheese during the last minute on the grill.

To complete his BLT burger, you fry up a couple of slices of bacon for each burger (I used the loose bacon from the butcher counter at Broad Branch Market -- delicious) until crispy and break them into pieces. On each bun, you put some homemade Thousand Island dressing (recipe below), lettuce, a slice of tomato, a slice of red onion, the burger with cheese, then the bacon bits, and then the top of the bun.

I toasted the buns on the grill -- tricky, but very tasty. For the dressing, just whisk together 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/3 cup ketchup, 1 Tbl red wine vinegar, 1 Tbl grated onion, 1 Tbl chopped parsley, 1 Tbl chopped tarragon, and 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce, and refrigerate a while before using. The tarragon lends a really nice flavor to the burger. The BLT burger is a keeper, I think.

Blue Ridge

We have been fans of Bart Seaver since he was chef at Cafe Saint-Ex on 14th Street. His gimmick there was food cooked on a wood-fired grill.

He then moved up to the much more ambitious Hook in Georgetown, which, coincidentally, is owned and managed by our neighbors across the street here in Barnaby Woods.

The gimmick at Hook was sustainable fish, and the restaurant made a big splash and became very trendy. The food was quite good, though in my personal opinion Pesce still did a better job on fish. But Bart Seaver was everywhere -- in the Post, the Washingtonian, on the radio. A skinny young chef with tousled hair, he had a lot of personal appeal.

Seaver had a falling out with the managers at Hook and went on to take over the old Busara space on Wisconsin in Glover Park. He reopened it as Blue Ridge and it seems to combine some of the best aspects of his stays at Cafe Saint-Ex and Hook both.

There are the smoky, porky, wood-fired selections and some sustainable fish. The restaurant has received mixed reviews and it was not packed when we went there Saturday night. One problem seems to be cutting corners to save costs -- there was no bread to be seen anywhere and you got a tiny box of popcorn on the table when you sat down to go with your drink. Service was spotty, as reviewers in Zagat and Yelp have reported, but, in our case at least, good-natured.

But it might be time for everybody to lighten up a bit about restaurants. Yes, Blue Ridge, still within weeks of its opening, is a little rough and ready, but I had a good meal and will happily go back again. It is not a gourmet temple, but it's quite good, it's creative, and it was very pleasant where we were sitting on the patio.

I started with the 16-month Kentucky ham -- "texture like serrano" the waitress said -- with a couple of slices of melon. I love ham, and while this was not serrano, it was smoky and hammy and the melon was flawless. Pickled vegetables, instead of cornichons, proved to be an inspired garnish. An heirloom tomato salad ordered by a dining partner was the perfect seasonal choice.

For the main course, I ordered the ribeye steak special. It was served sliced, was cooked just right to medium rare, and was very tender. Yogurt mashed potatoes accompanied it. The portions were not big (steak was 7 oz.), but just right. A neighbor's grilled sockeye salmon had a wild, fresh taste though perhaps a bit dry, but was served with charred green beans that were salty and flavorful and almost stole the show. Another member of our party ordered grilled trout, but pronounced the accompanying ratatouille bland and tasting oddly of cinammon.

I was prepared to order fish after Seaver's tenure at Hook. But none of the fish dishes appealed to me -- there weren't too many because the menu is quite restricted. The trout was off-putting because after my years in Europe I prefer whole trout rather than filets; also the accompaniment of ratatouille together with eggplant puree seemed suspect to me. The other choices were the sockeye salmon and bluefish. There may be a day when I feel like eating bluefish, but Saturday wasn't the day. The fish of the day was Spanish mackerel, another oily, fishy choice that you really have to be in the mood for. I saw one woman at a neighboring table send it back in exchange for a hamburger -- it's just not to everyone's taste.

It would a mistake, I think, to let sustainable fish become synonymous with oily, bottom-feeding fish that are still around because they don't taste very good.

We had a great Oregon pinot gris, Remy Three Wives, a crisp, dry, pear-flavored white that was perfectly chilled, all for $30. (I had a glass of cabernet with my steak.) By the way, the drinks were good. I had a Sazerac where the rye was well balanced with the pernod and sugar, and another dining partner had a pepper-infused vodka drink that was very, well, peppery, if you like that kind of thing.

Bart Seaver may be a great chef, someday. He's not there yet and I suspect he needs more discipline to go along with his passion. But Blue Ridge was a perfectly enjoyable summer dining experience and I look forward to going back.

Rosé wines

Addy Bassin's MacArthur Beverages (on MacArthur Boulevard) is my favorite wine store in DC, at least for European wines. They have a simply outstanding selection of French, German and Italian wines with great Austrian and Spanish. The staff is expert, not just knowledgeable, and get out to visit the vineyards. Their recommendations are very reliable.

They have wine tastings most every Saturday and we get down there every six to eight weeks. Yesterday they had five rosé wines out -- a couple from Provence, a Virginia wine, a Cote du Rhone and a Bordeaux.

We liked both the Provencale wines, found the Virginia wine very drinkable but did not much care for either the Rhone or Bordeaux by comparison.

The one we ended up buying was a 2008 Domaine de Triennes, the second of the two Provencale wines we tasted. It is fruity and dry at the same time, in the wonderful flinty way that many French wines have. It is made from the Cinsault grape, according to the Triennes Web site, and the 2008 cépage won a gold medal.

The vineyard is at Nan-les-pins and was purchased at the end of 1989 by Aubert de Villaine and Jacques Seysses, two Burgundy vintners who were looking for a property in the Var. The former Logis de Nans is located east of Aix-en-Provence on a southern facing slope comprising 46 hectares of limestone terroir. It was renamed Triennes in the honor of the Triennia, bacchanalian feasts that happened every three years during Roman times. The photo above shows the vineyard.

Rosé is made by letting the skins soak in the first press to give it the color. It has historically been ignored by wine snobs as a cheap table wine and it will probably never rise to the refinements of the great varietals and labels. But they are taken more seriously now.

There was a huge fight in the European Union this spring over a proposed edict from Brussels that would allow vintners to mix red and white together and label it rosé instead of going through the longer, and more expensive process of making a true rosé. Many people probably think that's the way rosé is made anyway, but the French led the fight against this new rule. It would be like mixing Coke and Sprite together and selling it as root beer -- just not the same.

Fortunately, the campaign was successful and the rule was abandoned, so that rosé from Europe at least will continue to be made in the traditional way.

We drank a lot of rosé during our recent trip to France, which was in Languedoc just at the border with Provence. There were numerous Cote du Rhone vineyards there and we bought the wine at local organic vintner, Natura. It was a pale rosé (rosé gris), very light and delicate, and perfect for the climate and the food.

The Triennes is somewhat more robust and fruitier. It was our first choice, though the other Provencale wine, Whispering Angel, was a close second. They were similar, but the Triennes seemed more elegant. The Boxwood from Virginia was also quite good, much like the Virginia rosé we had last week at the farm dinner.

The tasting price for the Triennes was $13.99 a bottle, compared to the normal $15.99. That's more than we usually pay for a rosé, but that's why they have tastings.

Slow Food farm dinner

This annual event is held at Clyde's Willow Creek Farm in the Broadlands near Ashburn. The encroaching exurbia in Loudon County robs the setting of any rural character, no matter what you call the restaurant. However, the tables were set up in a courtyard that sheltered the diners from any views of intruding sprawl, and made for a charming venue.

The six-course menu opened with passed hors d'oeuvres -- a tiny slice of pork belly served on a spoon with a sliver of peach (stole the show); small, fluffy onion tarts; and a yellow tomato consomme served in a paper cup with frozen a cherry tomato that was very light and summery. The wine was a sparkling SP Blanc de blancs from Kluge Estate in Charlottesville that was like a good prosecco. A second aperitif was a very refreshing white sangria made with a mix of pinot grigio and viognier, a dash of soda, and peach slices and plump blackberries for the fruit.

The first seated course was roasted poussin (baby chickens) served with roasted peaches, greens sauteed in bacon fat, pickled onions and herbs. The white meat was very delicate in flavor, while the leg had a more robust taste, like a good confit. The wine was a rose from Barboursville Vineyards, dry and crisp and very French.

Next came jumbo lump crab cakes with the super-fresh crab meat supplied by Russell Hall Seafoods in Fishing Creek, Maryland. The single cake rested on kernels of local corn and a tomato coulis rounded out the dish beautifully. A Chardonnay Reserve from Jefferson Vineyards was light with only a hint of oak and accompanied it well.

The main course was a wood-roasted Virginia prime rib of beef served with a tomato smokey blue cheese gratin (the tomatoes were bursting with flavor and set off perfectly by the creamy blue cheese) and mini-fingerling potatoes. The beef was drier than your typical prime rib because of the wood roasting, but very tender and flavorful. The red Garnett from Hillsborough Vineyards in Purcelville tried to keep up but demonstrated once again how difficult it is to produce a good red in Virginia.

Artisanal cheeses were not local, the chef explained, because it was not a good season for local cheeses, but the selection from New York, Vermont and Wisconsin was very nice.

Dessert was a warm corn cake with sweet corn ice cream and blackberry compote. The cake suffered from not being able to come straight out of the oven, but the ice cream, with the barest hint of corn flavor, was tasty and fresh and the blackberry compote was terrific. A very accomplished dessert wine, Moonstone from Hillsborough, made a perfect finish.

Ample as the menu was, we missed having a salad, which would seem like a natural at a farm dinner. But it was a terrific package and for $65, wine and service included, a great bargain.

Slow Food is an international organization set up to counter fast food. In the U.S., it supports local foods and sustainable production. The DC chapter organizes an event about once a month.

Part of the program was an explanation from the Clyde's chefs about the chain's commitment to local produce, dating back 25 years. The restaurant actually grows some vegetables at the Willow Creek Farm. Of course Clyde's does not offer this kind of menu at its restaurants, for whatever reasons, so it may not represent the real solution to America's food quandary. But it's a step in the right direction.

Other speakers -- who spoke only briefly between the courses -- described the great success of the farmer's market in Olney after overcoming many obstacles and related something incomprehensible about biodynamic growing. Ann Yonkers, one of the cofounders of the Fresh Farms farmers' markets, demonstrated with an apple how little of the earth's service is given over to agriculture, but it might have been more interesting to hear her talk about farmers markets.

Falafels

The best falafel I've found in Washington is at the Ali Baba's Falafel stand in Bethesda, on the corner of the Women's Cooperative Market. The owner is Egyptian and makes his falafels with fava beans instead of chickpeas. The main thing is that they are fresh, with flavorful spices, fried fresh and accompanied with enough salad and goop to really make a meal (stick with the small size, the big one is too big).

On a second trip, I tried the beef gyro and that was terrific. The beef was marinated, grilled and matching anything from Moby Dick or any of the other gyro purveyors in town.

I'm told there is a great falafel at the place on P Street, at about 22nd, but I haven't gotten down there to try it yet. I'm always searching for a falafel to match my memory of the Sunday falafels on Rue des Rosieres when I lived in Paris. There was one stand in particular that took the little croquettes fresh out of the fryer, still sizzling with grease, and put it in the pita bread with red cabbage and a couple of great sauces. Divine.

Someone who visited Rue des Rosieres recently said it had lost much of its character, which is inevitable, I suppose. And the falafels probably were never as good as they remain in my memory. But I will continue my search.