Pizzeria Orso

When Pizzeria Orso opened in Falls Church in 2010, many argued it was suburbia's answer to 2Amys. After all, opening day pizzaiolo Edan MacQuaid had been working the ovens at 2Amys for years in addition to stints at some of DC's other pizza temples. The positive reviews came fast and furious, and we knew we had to get ourselves out to Falls Church for a pie or two.

Life sped by and before we knew it, months had passed. MacQuaid parted ways with Orso before we got a chance to check out his pizzas. Undeterred by his departure and subsequent plummeting reviews, we stopped in to Pizzeria Orso on a trip home from Dulles.

The atmosphere felt much more Mellow Mushroom than 2Amys, and it was mostly empty on this stormy Friday night. We settled in with tomato arancini (risotto balls) and the Sardinian Salad (mixed greens, salami, pepperoni, artichokes, cherry tomatoes, grana, Sardinian flatbread). I wasn't a fan of the risotto balls as they had an overpowering tomato flavor and were so small that they tasted more of fried breading than risotto. The salad was a dream come true for people who like their salads disguised as charcuterie platters. It was packed with meaty morsels but yet still managed to strike a nice balance with the field greens and delicate dressing.

On the suggestion of our waitress we tried the Orso Bianco pizza with mozzarella, pecorino Tuscano, fontina and grana cheeses along with a vampire-repelling dose of garlic. A very good rendition of the classic "white pizza" with a chewy/crispy crust rivaling the best we've tried in DC.

We also tried the Crudo topped with arugula, prosciutto, mozzarella, grana, tomato, and basil.

Both pizzas were solid and provided us with plenty of leftovers for the next day. If you put pizzas from 2Amys, Red Rocks, and Orso in front of me in a blind taste test, I'm not sure I'd find a ton of difference between the pies. If we're in Falls Church and we want pizza, we'll be back to Orso. Worth a drive when we're blessed with so many other pizza options in the district? Probably not.

Second Thoughts from B

I'm not shy about my love of garlic. When people aren't looking (or sometimes even when they are), I'm the guy who licks the bottom of the garlic fries cup to eat the chopped garlic.

I'm also not shy about my love of all things salty. We're talking "in need of an intervention and possibly rehab" love of salt. When I was younger and dumber, I would eat chips and crackers in front of the TV until the salt burned my tongue. Gross, right? Let's just say I don't allow myself to walk down the snack aisle at the grocery store.

So when a white pizza arrived in front of me covered in a carnival of salty cheeses and garlic, I was a happy camper. Salt and garlic are the duct tape of the kitchen in my mind. If you add enough, any meal can be salvaged.

I'm not saying this pizza needed salvaging . I'm just saying that it had enough cheesy, garlicky, salty goodness that it could be two week old DiGiorno and I wouldn't complain... but anyone that had to live with me for the next couple of days might.

Citronelle

We celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary this month by crossing off a restaurant near the top of our DC Bucket List: Citronelle. Citronelle is one of the pillars of the DC restaurant scene and has been serving Michel Richard's whimsical take on French cuisine since 1994.

Over the last few years it has become popular to claim that Citronelle's service or food has slipped and it "isn't what it once was." Since it was our first Citronelle experience, we can't tell you if it's as good as it ever was, but we can say that we had a fantastic experience from top to bottom.

From the attentive but not pushy service, to the artful presentation of each and every dish, we were wowed.

To get the full experience, we embarked on Michel's Promenade Gourmande tasting journey. We put the camera away, picked up the champagne flute and enjoyed ten courses of celebration:

AMUSE BOUCHE

Delicate hamachi and jalapeno paired with an oyster shooter and served on glowing "light show" plate.

COLD GREEN ONION-MISO GAZPACHO
The bowl of gazpacho was served on a large bed of glowing ice. The complex flavors of the soup could convert any gazpacho hater.

TOMATO TARTARE WITH BURRATA
I was awed by this dish. It had the precise texture of a beef tartare but was made with tomatoes. How do they do that?

SOFT SHELL CRAB WITH TEMPURA, EGGPLANT-TAHINI EMULSION
What do you get when you take a soft shell crab and fill it with more crab? Pure bliss.

HALIBUT WITH GINGER EMULSION
Each element was perfectly cooked. Great ginger flavor but probably not a dish I'll remember in a month.

LOBSTER BURGER
Mini lobster sliders changed B's opinion of what sliders can be. These were tender and packed with flavor. They were served with a cone of the thinnest, most beautiful potato crisps that looked like delicate tree leaves dipped in gold.

SHORT RIB
After tasting this 60-hour sous vide short rib, B said "Best. Meat. Ever. Game, set, match. Done."

CHEESE
We forced ourselves to make room for a sampling of cheeses. Favorites were a Portuguese sheep's milk, strong bleu, and creamy camembert.

EGGS-CEPTIONAL LEMON MERINGUE
Another gorgeous presentation and delicious dish. Looked just like a runny egg in a shell but was actually meringue in a white chocolate shell.

RUBBER DUCKY TAKING HIS BATH
There is no other way to describe this other than ridiculously cute. We had to take a picture of this one. This little ducky was more than just looks. He was entirely edible (and tasty) and served on a "bath" of scrumptious coconut foam. If every chef did foam that tasted like this, I would never roll my eyes at the "foam trend" again!

PETITS FOURS
Right when I was getting ready to raise my napkin in surrender, our waiter brought out a plate of petits fours on fire (with a sparkler) and a chocolate Happy Anniversary note.

While we couldn't eat like this every day (or even every month), it was a fantastic way to celebrate our anniversary. Every dish and every element screamed "celebrate!" Hats off to Michel Richard for embracing his creative and whimsical personality and letting it shine on the plate.

Second Thoughts from B

Ever since we moved to DC, Citronelle has been considered among the best restaurants in the city. You may have your personal favorite, but Citronelle is always in the conversation. Unfortunately, it took us 4 years to experience it for ourselves as it is also one of the most expensive and sought after meals in Washington. (Though a couple of trips to the more casual Central provided a sneak peak)

There are many things to say about Restaurant Week in DC. Generally the conversation sounds something along the lines of: great deals that come with large crowds and poor service. But let me add one more thing to this commentary. For those restaurants like Citronelle that do not participate in Restaurant Week, finding a table can be uncharacteristically easy. Case in point, when a spot opened up on our calendar at the last minute (~5pm) and no anniversary dinner on the books (instead, J planned a getaway weekend in Mexico), I jumped online to find a reservation available at Citronelle for 7pm that same night.

We've been blessed in that we've had the opportunity to spend our last two anniversary dinners at Plume and Komi. Let's just say that those two spots required significantly more planning. So how do they all stack up?

No where in the city can you match the service at Plume unless you rent out a mansion and an entire staff to go with it. It is almost strange being so well taken care of. As for the food alone, Citronelle is right up there with Komi and others (Minibar, CityZen, and Adour immediately come to mind). It is really a matter of preference at this point.

Citronelle was notable on two fronts. First, other than Minibar which is understandably more personalized and labor intensive, a tasting menu at Citronelle is significantly more expensive than at other elite establishments. However, the construction and presentation of the dishes has more than a touch of Michel Richard's famous whimsy. While I may dream of the silky smooth flavor and texture of the short rib, I'll never forget the UFO-esque amuse bouche or the lemon meringue pie disguised as a quail egg (the witness protection program would be proud).

So while my wallet quivers at the thought of spending enough at Citronelle to fund 2 trips to CityZen or 3 to Philadelphia's Chifa, it made for a truly memorable night. And isn't that what anniversary dinners are supposed to be?

MLK Memorial

Unless you've been living under a 30 foot block of granite, you've noticed the construction of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on Independence Avenue along the Tidal Basin. You probably also know that President Obama will be dedicating DC's newest iconic feature on Sunday. What you might not realize is that the Memorial opened to the public yesterday, allowing you to see it before the President gets his turn.

In short, the statue of Dr. King - controversially sculpted by the Chinese artist, Lei Yixin - emerges from the "stone of hope," which is cut out of the "mountain of despair." The mountain is flanked by famous quotes that focus on justice, democracy, hope, and love. Standing significantly taller than the famous statues of Lincoln, Jefferson, and the Capitol dome's Freedom, Dr. King faces the Tidal Basin and the memorial for Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the oft referenced words, "...all men are created equal."

This positioning along the Tidal Basin will make for a particularly grand view, especially when the cherry blossoms bloom. However, I found it a bit odd that people are supposed to enter from the Independence Ave. side, through the mountain of despair (MLK and the quotes all face the opposite direction).

Overall, the site provides a powerful yet reflective experience. I thought that the sculpture of Dr. King presents him as stern and determined, rather than angry as some critics initially reported before a redesign was ordered. The space is more expansive that I had imagined but it remains intimate.

There are plenty of benches to relax and soak everything in, and I can imagine taking advantage of them on those warm winter nights when the city feels empty (one of the many benefits of living downtown).

For those of you eager to see the city's latest addition, we were pleased and surprised that at 8pm on the first day we were able to walk right in. While I'm sure we'll have to return a few times to fully appreciate all the nuances of this memorial, I'd encourage anyone to come on down and be part of the opening week. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, sometimes you just have to be a tourist in your own city.


J Says

What a treat to live among such beautiful memorials. Every time we drive back into DC from Virginia and catch a glimpse of the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial, I get goosebumps and remind myself how fortunate I am to get to see these treasures every day.

The MLK Memorial is a new jewel in DC's crown and a new stop on our famous (or infamous) "let's march our visiting friends through every single monument at night to make sure they see it all" tour.

Whether you marched on Washington in 1963 or are just out for a leisurely jog around town, make a point to visit Dr. King and sit a spell. The site and its meaning are guaranteed to give you those fantastic DC goosebumps. . . even in August in the middle of a swamp.

Mala Tang

When B and I first lived together in Santa Monica, CA, our downstairs neighbors would often set up a hot pot on their patio and cook meat and vegetables for dinner. They also set up a torch lamp that shone light directly up into our bedroom rather than down onto their dinner (grrr), but the point is that we observed a lot of hot pot eating in our first few years together.

For some reason, despite seeing and smelling hot pot-style cooking every week, it took almost eight years together before we ever sat down to a hot pot of our very own. Thank you to the new Mala Tang in Arlington for providing us with that opportunity.


Hot pot cooking is what it sounds like: it's a hot pot full of broth that you dip thin slices of meat or veggies in to cook. Different cultures have different names for it (shabu shabu, anyone?) and different levels of spice and flavor in the broth. Mala Tang specializes in Sichuan-style hot pot, which uses the mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorn for flavor. (Mala translates roughly to "numbing and spicy hot"). Not to worry if you're a spice wimp. You can ask for mild broth in your hot pot.

One unique feature of Mala Tang is that each diner gets an individual hot pot. In a lot of hot pot restaurants, you share one or two pots with your whole group. The individual pots allow people of all spice preferences and dietary needs to dine together, and it makes for a fully interactive experience as everyone is in charge of cooking their own dinner.

The Mala Tang space is large and airy with intricately-detailed tables and chairs. There is a large bar area and patio where you can pretend to be our old neighbors and get your hot pot on under the stars.


Being hot pot rookies, we opted for the set-price menu which, for $30 each, allows each person to select the following from a list: an appetizer, hot pot broth with one protein and two vegetables, and dessert. For our appetizers we selected the spicy wontons and spicy cold noodles. Both featured tender noodles and a healthy dose of the mala spice. Overall, a good way to kick off the experience.

This is the point in the post where I wish I could tell you about how much I liked the dan dan noodles. I read a lot about them before going to Mala Tang, so even though they weren't on the fixed price menu, I tried to order them in addition. Unfortunately our waiter forgot about them, so no dan dan noodles for me. It turned out to be a good thing because we had plenty of food to go around.

And now for the main event! Between us we had beef, enoki mushrooms, broccoli, bean sprouts, shrimp, and white mushrooms. Our waiter gave us cooking instructions (things cook very fast!) and we were off to the races dipping and swishing and dunking the cooked items into the various dipping sauces.

I'm so short that I had a hard time seeing what was in my pot. Maybe a booster seat next time... Nevertheless, we successfully cooked and ate a massive pile of food in no time flat. While maybe not the most impressive ingredients we've ever had in our lives, the punch from the broth and dipping sauces created a really flavorful and fun experience.

The dessert portion of the meal was, well, really bad. They offered a choice between pumpkin pie (in August?) and sesame balls. They were out of pumpkin pie so we got the sesame balls, which were flat, oily, flavorless fried things that A) did not have sesame seeds on them, B) were not balls, and C) in no way resembled the classic "jin dui" that B's mom loves to order at dim sum. Seriously, they'd be better off going to the Giant next door and buying some ice cream to dish up. B always says "my people don't do dessert," but I've had some really good Chinese desserts and Mala Tang's does not come close to making the list.

Lots of Yelpers claim you can get much cheaper hot pot at other local places and they're probably right. At Mala Tang you pay a premium for a spiffy new space.

The premium also includes "entertainment", at least on the weekends. As we finished our meal we noticed a guy in a mask standing near the restroom. Suddenly, the lights dimmed, music played, and the costumed man began to walk between the tables in a semi-dance flipping off one mask to reveal another with a different expression painted on its face. Then, he blew a big fire ball that proceeded to catch his cape on fire, much to the shock of the people at the table next to him. He quickly extinguished his cape, took some pictures with a birthday boy, and dashed off into the kitchen. As B and I exchanged completely baffled looks, we asked our waiter how often he lights himself on fire. Our waiter deadpanned, "about once a week." Everyone went back to their meals like nothing had happened and we left, scratching our heads. Anybody know what that's about?

Mala Tang provided us with a tasty meal and a good story about a guy in a mask catching himself on fire. What more can you ask for?

Second Thoughts from B

I have a few confessions to make. I really did not like our hot pot cooking neighbors from Santa Monica which may taint my view of Mala Tang. I also burned my tongue on some freshly cooked meat, so my ability to taste all the hot pot goodness may have been lost.

With those two elements working against me, I have to say that I enjoyed our appetizers much more than our hot pot. The noodles were served in a savory sauce that had a little kick for complexity, and the texture was perfectly Jello-like (that might not sound appetizing but I love noodles that jiggle).

As for the hot pot, I think I missed something. The aroma was great and it made you want to sip directly from the boiling caldron of flavor. However, my dippables only picked up a hint of that flavor, which combined with a burned tongue, made the meal a little disappointing.

Now for one last confession. J mentioned the sesame balls. They were unappealing to me on paper and nothing changed when a pair showed up in front of me. Since I was taught not to waste food, I quickly took advantage of J's trip to the bathroom by putting one of my sesame balls on her plate. When she got back, I successfully convinced her that we were both given 3 balls and I was down to my final one. Sorry babe, my people don't do dessert... but oh boy do they do noodles!