The Little Fountain Cafe

The bustling stretch of 18th street in Adams Morgan is probably not where you'd go if looking for a romantic hideaway of a restaurant. But friends, hidden deep within the land of Jumbo Slice, hipster bars, and shots is The Little Fountain Cafe. Stepping down into the restaurant from the busy street is like stepping into Hansel and Gretel's hood. It is cozy and quaint with an old world charm. Though it is often recommended by Tom Sietsema in his weekly chats, it took a Groupon to finally get us in the door.

The Groupon expires in mid-February and, according to our waitress, most of the 899 people who purchased one waited until the last month to use it. As a result, the staff had a bit of Groupon fatigue. Lucky for you, after February 11th the Groupon reign is over.

The fun thing about getting food at a discount, is that you get to sample more items from the menu than you normally might. We splurged and each ordered an appetizer. B, always searching for his favorite crab cake, test drove The Little Fountain Cafe's version and pronounced them worthy of a place in the crustacean hall of fame.

I tried the cheese plate trio with warm almond-crusted goat cheese with fig preserves, brie with truffle oil, and stilton with honeyed walnuts. I gobbled up the cheese with the help of the grilled bread and loved the contrast in cheeses and cheese companions (particularly the honeyed walnuts). A couple of apple slices would've made this soar to another stratosphere.

Cold weather makes me crave pasta so I zeroed in on the Neopolitan-style eggplant and tomato sauce over fettucine with parmigiano reggiano. Just typing the words "parmigiano reggiano" makes me cringe because it reminds me of the way Giada and Serena (the most annoying TV food show contestant ever) say it. Since the eggplant was so finely diced, it felt much like a meaty ragu. This hearty dish was just what I needed to thaw out.

I bet you think I'm going to tell you that B ordered lamb. He probably would have but it wasn't on the menu. Instead of having a lack of lamb pity party, he shocked me by ordering the roast chicken. In all of our meals together (and there have been thousands over the years) I can't remember B ordering chicken in a restaurant. It was a decision he would not regret as The Little Fountain Cafe's bird was juicy, nestled on a cozy bed of fried garlic. B is that guy who eats the garlic at the bottom of the garlic fries at the baseball game, so he was one happy camper with this dish. While the broccoli was forgettable, hidden beneath Mr. Clucky was a creamy potato gratin.

We were feeling a bit too full for dessert but we learned that our waitress was also the pastry chef. Never wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, we "forced" ourselves to try dessert. Life can be so hard sometimes. I am happy to report that the warm milk chocolate buttermilk cake with coffee ice cream was worth risking the buttons on our jeans for.

The next time you're looking to impress a date with a quiet, cozy dinner, don't forget about The Little Fountain Cafe. After dinner you can head upstairs to their bar, Angles, for a sip from one of the city's largest whiskey collections and a game of pool. If eating in Hansel and Gretel's hood is not what you're looking for, you can order from the full cafe menu (plus a bar menu) at Angles.

Second Thoughts from B

How many stories begin with the premise of a curious child stumbling across a portal to a fantastic new world? Thousands I am sure. And I hope there is room for one more because J and I just found DC's rabbit hole/wardrobe/pixy dust/flux capacitor/red pill/wolf pajamas/Zoltar machine.

In our culinary journeys throughout the city, I can't think of anything like the Little Fountain Cafe. It is a quaint (but watch your head on the low doorways!) oasis that transports you to a simpler time when vegetables were grown out back and paired with game from the neighboring forest. If it was a house, you'd call it a cottage. If there was a fireplace, it would be a hearth. If it was correct to say, you might refer to the waitress as a maiden. It was that kind of transformative place.

And the quality of the food was part of the whole experience. Simple, fresh, and perfectly prepared. As J likes to say, a place like this doesn't put roasted chicken on the menu unless it is really good. To take it a step further, a waitress doesn't recommend the roasted chicken unless it is really, really good. And it was. Normally I have a hard time ordering things that I can easily make myself but this was the perfect meal for this perfect escape from our normal lives.

Jimmy John's

Sometimes you just want a sandwich. If you're burned out from fancy 3-course Restaurant Week meals and just want to fill your stomach fast, Jimmy John's is waiting for you. Jimmy John's has been serving sandwiches to the Midwest since 1983 and is beginning to expand into the DC area with locations in Alexandria, College Park, and Crystal City. Having fond memories of a Jimmy John's sandwich from a visit to Chicago, we decided to drop in to the new Crystal City location.

Their motto is "subs so fast, you'll freak!" While I don't think I freaked, I was impressed with the speed of both the cashier and the sandwich maker. By the time I put my wallet away, my sandwich was handed to me. With such speed, you might worry that the ingredients are sub-par or the quality suffers, but Jimmy John's promises to bake its bread fresh every day and slice their meats in the store.

The subs are a generous 8 inches and the menu runs the gamut from the Big John (pictured below) with medium rare shaved roast beef, mayo, lettuce, and tomato, to the Gourmet Veggie Club with a slew of veggies and twice the provolone. If you're still clinging to that low carb craze, you could skip the bread and get your sandwich wrapped in lettuce, but that would be a mistake. Jimmy John's shines because of its bread, so don't miss out.

This isn't Taylor Gourmet or the Italian Store, but it is speedy and convenient and a big step above Subway. So, when you just need a sandwich, Jimmy John is your man.

Second Thoughts From B

When J told me this morning that we'd be writing about Jimmy John's, I have to admit that I was at a loss. I just don't have much to say. It is just a sandwich, after all.

I'd love to tell you that I have this extra special affinity for Chicago from the summer I spent there, but that would be J. I'd love to tell you about being blown away by this incredible culinary gold mine. I'd even settle for a disaster story. But the fact of the matter is that none of that is true. Jimmy John's is just a sandwich. It won't blow you away, but it will deliver exactly what it is meant to do. Fill you up, and fast.

And maybe that is the storyline here. I doubt Jimmy John himself would tell you that this is the greatest sandwich you'll ever taste. Sure, the bread is notably soft and buttery, but this won't be appearing on the Food Network any time soon. Rather, it is a good sandwich, no more and no less. Like the caricature of someone named Jimmy John, what you lose in sophistication, you gain in reliability. You know what you're going to get and in a life that sometimes can resemble a box of chocolates, reliable isn't such a bad thing.

Tosca

Our experience at Tosca redeemed my faith in the potential of Restaurant Week. When a restaurant does it right, Restaurant Week can be a great deal. So what did Tosca do right? First, they offered choices from their entire menu instead of some piddly little Restaurant Week menu with the cheapest items on it. Second, the service was efficient yet attentive, and the servers did not look down their noses at us or make us feel like riff raff that had been dragged off the street. Third, the food was outstanding top to bottom.

For the first course, you could select either an appetizer (7 choices) or a pasta (7 choices). B chose the black ink tagliatelle with jumbo lump crab meat ragu, artichokes and roasted garlic and was in pasta heaven. Perfectly al dente pasta paired with lump crab (that was as advertised: jumbo), equaled one of the best pasta dishes we've had in these parts.

Saving the pasta for my main course, I choose the prosciutto di parma with burrata cheese, marcona almonds, and pearl onions. This dish is a prime example of what happens when you take top-notch ingredients, put them together, and get out of their way. Silky, salty, savory perfection. Oh, and by the way, have you ever seen such big Restaurant Week appetizer portions?

Each day, Tosca features different grilled fish served with seasonal vegetables. B's eyes lit up when our waiter announced that they were offering a simply grilled salmon and his eyes rolled back in his head when he tasted this fish. Tosca's chef offered the antidote for the epidemic of overcookedfishitis that has been spreading like wildfire.

There are very few things I love more than noodles. While I'm an equal opportunity noodle eater, I have a special crush on wide noodles. Call me a chubby noodle chaser, if you will. When I saw pappardelle on the menu, I squealed. (Don't worry, it was a quiet, restaurant-appropriate squeal.) However, when I saw that the pappardelle was served with a rabbit ragu, I had a momentary crisis of conscience.

You see, when B was getting his PhD, he did super important research that was completely beyond my level of comprehension. Because I rarely understood any of the words he used when describing his research, I tended to focus in on those few words I knew. So, when B came home one day and said he was working with rabbit proteins, I was intrigued and proceeded to ask way too many questions about how he procured his vial of rabbit proteins and whether the rabbits have names and babies and whether he sings to them. (B says: The answer is that I never dealt with rabbits, just a tiny vial of clear liquid that had proteins from rabbit muscle in it)

So while I eat all kinds of animals, I have some weird soft spot for rabbits. At Tosca, my love of wide noodles won out over my love for rabbits, and I went for it. My dear, sweet rabbits, you made a really tasty ragu.

After such an incredible start, we were primed for a dessert course letdown. What restaurant doesn't serve a flourless chocolate cake? Snooze. However, we were happily proven wrong by Tosca's version with warm Nutella sauce and hazelnut gelato. I had to wrestle it away from B so I could taste it. And B doesn't even really like chocolate all that much!

My rice pudding with pineapple compote and coconut crumble was similarly epic. The coconut crumble added an interesting crunch and, when paired with the pineapple compote, reminded me of pina coladas served on white sand beaches.

I'm already planning our return trip to Tosca. Lucky for us, they have a $35 pre-theater menu that we can enjoy long after Restaurant Week is over.

Second Thoughts From B

The perfect Restaurant Week experience can be summarized thusly (I really just wanted an excuse to use "thusly"): That was a great meal that I'd happily to pay full price for.

Hear that DC restaurants? See how easy it is to grab another loyal customer? Just put aside the attitude and serve up the same good food you normally do. Simple, right?

Not all of us are VIPs that require the care and anxiety of a Top Chef judge's table. We get that. It's not like I'm the senior-most Supreme Court Justice or the mayor of the country's second largest city (both made appearances at Tosca while we were there). But we also don't need to be reminded that we are not the restaurant's top priority.

So kudos to Tosca's chefs but also to their service staff. In our eyes, you've won this edition of Restaurant Wars.

Deals on Wheels

Happy MLK day to you. In honor of Dr. King's legacy of service, we want to encourage you to check out Deals on Wheels Week over at local group-buying/good-doing website Deals for Deeds.

Each day this week, Deals for Deeds will feature a coupon for a 50% discount at a local food truck and 10% of each purchase will go directly to Miriam's Kitchen. Miriam's Kitchen "provides healthy, homemade meals and comprehensive case management services to homeless men and women in Washington, DC."

You already know we love food trucks and group buying sites (See Exhibits A, B, C, D, E, F and G) Adding a charity component makes it the perfect trifecta. Check out the lineup for the week:

Monday

Eat Wonky: Check out the Wonky Dog that B loved along with a drink for only $3.75!

Tuesday

Takorean: $10 for 6 Takos and 2 drinks

Wednesday

Solar Crepes: $5 for $10 worth of food at Solar Crepes

Thursday

Sauca: $5 for 1 entree and 1 drink

Friday

DC Empanadas: 50% off

Saturday

Sabor'a Street: $5 for 1 entree and 1 drink

Check them all out and let us know which ones we can't miss!