Mintwood Place

This Adams Morgan restaurant strikes just the right note between fine and casual dining with a refreshingly novel menu and great execution. Friends have raved about it and I'm sorry now it took us so long to try it. We'll go back soon!

The ambiance is warm and cheerful, with tan wood tones throughout, and an open feeling with booths and room dividers creating some sense of space. It was loud, but bearable enough for the three of us in a booth.

Photo by Mintwood Place

There was an appealing list of starters -- such as a goat cheese and beet mountain pie, suckling pig croquettes and wood-grilled calf's heart and baby collard greens salad -- that I'll have to try when I can bring a bigger appetite.

This time I settled for the iceberg lettuce and blue cheese, which whetted my appetite for a main course of Spanish mackerel, fennel, piperade, picholine, rouille which was very Mediterranean. I'll confess, I probably would have enjoyed the tagliatelle bolognese that Andrea had more, but you so rarely see mackerel on a menu I just had to try it. The mackerel and garnish -- which the chef offers regularly with different fish -- was quite good in any case. The tagliatelle, served impressively in a big swirl, was outstanding, with a wonderfully full and seasoned sauce. Also extraordinary was the guanciale, chard and spaetzle carbonnade served with our companion's pork chop.

I started with a specialty cocktail, the Bardstown Square -- Redemption bourbon, snap (a ginger thing, I was told), Punt e Mes, Aztec chocolate bitters -- which balanced bitter and sweet in an intriguing way (a little too much chocolate for my taste, however). The bottle of Stangeland Willamette Valley 2012 pinot noir we had with the meal was light and fruity and kept everybody happy.

The bread was warm and yeasty and delicious, the butter was soft (always an important benchmark in our book), the service was quite good -- it was in short an all around great experience. Perhaps due to the torrential rain, I even got a parking space!