Corduroy

Corduroy is one of those restaurants that I heard about fairly often back when I was living in DC. I guess it used to be located in some out of the way, hard to find spot, so, being a bit off the map, it was never one of the first places I would think of when I wanted to go out for a nice dinner. Since I've left DC, Corduroy has moved into a new location. Although, being located next to the convention center, it still isn't in a place that you would normally go for an evening out in DC. That said, this place is a good destination in itself. The menu is a bit pricey, and the dining room is fairly formal (if you don't have a jacket, please, at least wear a tie), but the food is top notch. I thought it was just as good, if not better, than any of the big name restaurants Abby and I ate at earlier in the summer in New York. More importantly, though, Abby's friend, Natsu, recently married the chef and owner of the restaurant, so we just had to check the place out.

I'm never quite sure how to describe restaurants that, while high end, don't really fall into a well defined category (i.e. French, Italian, seafood, etc.) I guess I would say that this is classically prepared food that uses local, seasonal ingredients. There's nothing cutting edge here. Just great ingredients that are treated really well. The flavors were really clean and I liked the presentation.

For the starter, I had a salad of goat cheese, roasted beets and carrots.
Abby started with lobster tail.
I ordered crispy fluke with warm potato salad for the main course while Abby had Muscovy duck with fig sauce.

Pasta Mia

There are two things you can be assured of when you go to Pasta Mia: long lines and large portions. Situated at the top of Adams Morgan's 18th St, Pasta Mia is a DC establishment that, for some odd reason, remains one of my favorite places to eat. I'm not sure why. Sure, the portions are big, but I don't have a huge appetite, so big portions have little value to me. The food itself is mediocre. I can, and often do, make much better pasta in my own kitchen. The house wine is terrible. And, while the food is cheap, you have to wait a long time for it, and I'm not sure that the time cost justifies going to Pasta Mia on economic grounds.
In spite of all of these short comings, I always find dining at Pasta Mia to be an extremely satisfying experience. For some reason, the bad table wine seems to go perfectly with the supersized dishes of pasta, checked tablecloths and cramped quarters.

Whenever Abby and I go here, we start with the prosciutto and mozzerella. This is one of our all time favorite appetizers and something that we often make at home.
After eating this, we order whatever pasta looks good. This time around, Abby ordered the papardelle bolognese and I had grilled chicken ravioli with a pink sauce.
Both dishes were good, but not great. Even so, I really liked them. A meal at Pasta Mia isn't about refined flavors or precise technique; it's about comfort.