Showing posts with label DC area restaurants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DC area restaurants. Show all posts

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Eating Like a Top Chef in Atlanta

While I was in Atlanta last week I had the opportunity to hang out with my cousin Chris for a few hours, which was nice since I really only get to see my extended family members once a year at Christmas. Chris is a college professor now (fancy!) and had to teach the night I was in town but he picked me up from my hotel in downtown Atlanta after his class was done and showed me around his new neighborhood. Chris just bought a new condo in the Westside, a very cool neighborhood full of hip restaurants, design stores, art studios and old brick warehouses that have been transformed into industrial chic homes for all the above.

It is also home to Richard Blaise’s (from Top Chef Chicago) restaurant—Flip Burger. Chris likes Top Chef as much as I do (ps it just started taping the next season in DC!).  Last winter he went to Kevin (from the most recent season)’s restaurant in Atlanta and raved about how amazing the food was. So when he suggested we swing by Flip Burger so he could eat dinner, I was in.


Picture courtesy of the Flip Burger Facebook Page

As you might guess from the name, burgers are the focus and they have everything from the classic style beef burger to a $39 burger made with Kobe beef and topped with foie gras to a vast assortment of non-traditional burgers (turkey, crab, lamb, etc.) Unfortunately, I had eaten dinner several hours earlier so I did not get to sample the main event but I did try some zucchini fries (which were really really good and came with an equally good gremolata mayo for dipping) and had the Nutella-Burnt Marshmallow milkshake which was pretty fantastic. Chris had the po boyger which was described as “shrimp patty, old bay mayo, shaved lettuce, tomato, fried lemon, Tabasco.” It looked awesome and, according to Chris, tasted awesome too.


I was pretty pleased by my first (albeit limited) taste of a Top Chef restaurant. Apparently there is talk about opening another location in the DC area. Here’s hoping to be able to try more of it in the future!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

I Want to Go to There*

*(30 Rock is awesome!)

For those of you living in the DC area, you have to check out iEatDC’s recap of her recent trip to Volt, the Bryan Voltaggio (of Top Chef fame) restaurant in Frederick, MD.  It looks so good, I want to go to there immediately!

Being someone who likes cooking and appreciates the finer things (especially when it comes to food), going to new restaurants is truly a form of entertainment for me.  I get really excited when special occasions roll around and we get to pick out a fun restaurant to celebrate with. I am fortunate that I have friends and family who recognize this about me and who indulge my foodie tendencies—Jason took me to Kinkead’s, a veritable institution in DC, right after he proposed and my bridesmaids kicked off my bachelorette party last summer with dinner at Eventide (a 2009 James Beard Award semi-finalist)!

Although we only make it to a couple of super foodie places a year (given that a lot of these places are pricey and we don’t have an unlimited budget), it is still fun for me to plot out the places I would like to visit. Here is what’s on my list for this year (in no particular order) with brief descriptions courtesy of the Washingtonian’s Top 100 restaurants issue:

-Volt: “Arguably Maryland’s best restaurant…seamlessly fuses rustic, seasonal cooking with hyper-modern techniques without overworking either”

-Restaurant Eve: Tasting menu carefully crafted by one of the area’s brightest stars (we might actually make it there this year thanks to an awesome off-registry wedding gift from fellow members of the Finer Things Club!)

-2941:  destination restaurant with “rich, rigorously executed French dishes” (we also seriously considered having our wedding here)

-Rasika: “Modern Indian cooking, exuberantly conceived and executed with precision” (I’ve actually eaten here before but Jason hasn’t; we tried to go in December but were foiled by the Snowpacalypse…..the first one)

-Proof: Wine bar with an “ambitious and interesting kitchen.”

-Trummer’s on Main:  “Ambitious newcomer…has emerged as a home of elegant rusticity”

Hopefully we’ll be able to make it to at least a few of these this year. Good thing someone’s birthday is just around the corner…. :)