Marcel's

We've been wanting to go to Washington's top Zagat-rated restaurant for some time and finally made it to celebrate a birthday. We like Chef Robert Wiedmaier's Brasserie Beck very much and were eager to see what his top-of-the-line restaurant had to offer.

We weren't disappointed. Marcel's offers a classy, classic fine-dining experience with exquisite food. The tasting menu format meant we could indulge in four courses and not leave stuffed; portions are designed to give you a satisfying eating experience but not to constitute a classic entree course.

I started with a lobster papardelle where everything was tender and buttery. Andrea had Carolina shrimp in a beurre blanc sauce -- in fact, the classic beurre blanc was a feature of many of Wiedmaier's dishes here. Since beurre blanc is one of her favorite things in the world, it went over well.

I followed with the restaurant's signature dish, a boudin blanc made of chicken and pheasant breast with foie gras, served with a truffle and chanterelle sauce. It was truly exquisite. Andrea had Norwegian salmon poached in olive oil -- a method that marvelously preserve the fresh salmon flavor.

From the fifth course selection (where portions are "slightly larger," we were told), I chose the duck breast with duck confit and turned honey crisp apples. The duck had a crispy, salty skin and melt-in-your-mouth tender medium-rare interior. Andrea had pork tenderloin, which also was incredibly tender and tasty.

The bread, by the way, was truly fresh baked and served with garlic butter. For once, given the modest size of the portions, there were no worries about overeating on the bread.

For dessert, I had the flourless chocolate cake, which was a very good version of that dish, and Andrea had the special chocolate souffle, which has a rich, warm chocolatey taste, though perhaps too much cocoa powder on top. What sent it over the top was the warm dark chocolate dipping sauce served with it.

A nice feature of the restaurant is that you can bring your own wine to have with the meal for the relatively modest corkage fee of $25. We brought a bottle of 2000 Chateau Figeac St. Emilion 1ere grand cru that was a gift and it was a superb accompaniment to the entire menu.

Overall, it was a lovely experience. Marcel's is tied with Komi at 29 for food (it gets the edge to be top-rated because of a higher decor rating). Our conclusion, based on our two not-so-recent dinners at Komi, was that it has the more original dishes, though the quality is the same at both. Service at Marcel's, while clearly miles ahead of most restaurants, was not the flawless performance you expect from a 28 rating. The total cost, given that we avoided both aperitif and wine charges, was absolutely in line with the value.

Unlike Komi, Marcel's is not that hard to get into, so we will definitely go back. There are selections outside the tasting menu, or individual courses can be ordered as full entrees, so there are different ways to enjoy the exceptionally high-quality cuisine it offers. There is also a three-course option in the tasting menu or a pre-theater option.

Petit salé aux lentilles

This class bistro dish was one of my favorites when I lived in France and great winter comfort food. I've been wanting to do more recipes from my Anne Willan books and this seemed very apt in the cold weather between the years.

It's very simple. You put a 2 lb pork shoulder (mine was a little bigger), tied in a cylinder, in a brine made of 2 qu. water, 2 sprigs thyme, 1 bay leaf, 2 sliced garlic cloves, 2 tsp. juniper berries, 1 tsp. peppercorns (oops, forgot these), 2 whole cloves, 1-3/4 c. coarse salt, 3 Tbl. sugar and an optional 2 Tbl. curing salt gently heated and stirred until salt and sugar dissolve then completely cooled. Cover and refrigerate, the recipe says, anywhere from 12 hrs. to a week (I saw too late that the headnote recommends at least two days and cooked mine after 24 hrs.)

To cook, you rinse off the brine and cover pork with water in a pot. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 min. then pour off water and refill. (If the pork has been in the brine longer than 3 days, soak for 1 hr. in cold water prior to this step.) Bring to a boil and simmer for 1-1/2 hrs. Then stir in 10 oz. French lentils (closer to 12 oz. in my dish), a whole peeled onion with two cloves stuck in it, a crushed clove of garlic and a bouquet garni (parsley, thyme, bay leaf tied together) and cook for another 1/2 hr. Remove pork and cover, drain excess liquid from lentils, take out onion, remove cloves, chop and return to lentils, and remove bouquet garni. Slice pork and serve on bed of lentils. The pork is juicy and tender from the brine, and salty without tasting too salty. Lentils are always great.

I've been loyal to Anne Willan since I attended a cooking course at her Ecole de La Varenne in Paris (before it de-camped for the countryside) and have several of her cookbooks. This recipe was in The Country Cooking of France. Her books tend to be big, heavy coffee table books with lots of text and photos. I don't have the impression that the recipes are quite as meticulously tested for the home cook as you would expect from someone who operated a cooking school. Nothing that can't be overcome if you do a little thinking yourself, which I tend to do after the fact. So I probably should have used a smaller pot, since there was a lot of excess liquid which may have kept the flavor from concentrating. I should have read the headnote about keeping it in the brine for two days, but why should the recipe say something different? The result was nonetheless delicious, but I will put on my thinking cap the next time I use one of her recipes.