Persimmon

Ever since some friends introduced us to the art of sitting at the bar at Persimmon and making a meal out of their ample starters -- the lobster roll and fish tacos are our favorites -- that has been the way we visit this longtime Bethesda restaurant.

But the bar was full the other night and a table opened up just as we arrived, so we sat in the main dining room and decided to go whole hog by ordering entrees. The food was very, very good, on a par with Matisse and certainly not any more expensive.

We split the fennel and arugula salad, which was fresh, crisp and perfectly dressed, with delicious shavings of ricotta. I had the roasted magret of duck with a celery root galette and hash of sweet potato, bacon and duck confit. It was all stacked attractively in a small pillar with a thick, dark sauce and it was excellent. Andrea got the pan-seared salmon with artichokes, mushrooms and basil risotto. She reported it was tasty but noted that the salmon portion was too small at something like 4 oz.

We'd always had reservations about the noise level in the main dining room, which is quite small. And it was indeed very noisy. But the warm ambiance, the full panoply of tablecloths, silver and all that stuff, as well as the quality of the food, made it all bearable. The server was a little stressed and let it show; the bar, ironically, was extraordinarily slow in getting our drinks out. In short, we will probably still opt for the bar seats first, but we might be more venturesome in our ordering.