The Unusual Vinifera

Well, on the day of the year’s most anticipated (college) football game (by some, who only live to see who is “number one”), I am going to talk about, guess what? Food!!

Every year, around the holiday season, the little outfit that continues to employ me has a gathering in DC for its employees, and they always invite the (my term) “country cousins” from down here in Pax River.  And so far, MFO and I have had the pleasure of attending.  It is a small enough group that they can avail themselves of local spots with side rooms for such a gathering.

Fortunately they have some employees with food savvy and have always picked interesting places around the DC and NOVA area.  This year, the selection was a place in Arlington called “The Curious Grape”, which the Feeder was not aware of (increasingly more common).  A bit of research on usual sites revealed that it was pretty highly thought of amongst the foodies who love to post on such things.

The company also thoughtfully provided a hotel room for us to stay in after the party, so the prospect of eliminating a drive back to SOMD wouldn’t limit the enjoyment of the evening… if you get my drift.  So we struck out for the big city, armed with Streets and Trips maps, detailed printed directions, and I even put the address of both places into the Flutter Mobile II’s GPS system.  I don’t want to start down a bunny trail of driving in DC here, but it always seems no matter how complete directions, GPS lady, and dead reckoning all go out the tail pipe with the gas.  They have this disturbing habit of mounting directions signs (Telegraph Road, Exit 74A) on the other side of the road than where the actual exit is.  So you see such a sign over the left hand lanes, so you position yourself for a left exit.  Wrong.  It’s a good thing that drivers in DC are considerate of confused outsiders and politely offer you the chance to change lanes.  Wrong again.  

Anyway, with only a little yelling and pointing we did arrive at the Courtyard and checked in to a rather nice room.  We relaxed for a while and watched the start of the KC/Indy Colts game, and left for the party assured that KC would advance in the playoffs..  Wrong yet again! So with only one more “THAT exit” cry as it flew by the car, we did find the Curious Grape(CG) with easy parking and went into the place.  

The Curious Grape (never did find the evolution of the name) is one of those places that are sort of: It’s a wine store, It’s a restaurant;  It’s a restaurant, it’s a wine store.  That place over in Ocean City (Liquid Assets) and more locally Blue Wind Gourmet come to mind.  In CG, approximately one half is given over to dining spaces, and the other half to wine racks.  It is nicely decorated in kind of a muted way, sleek and modern, glass and black leather, no table cloths.  There is a bar that sort of separates the wine stocks from the dining places. Since we were in a special room, I never found out what “the deal” was, sometimes you get X% off your bottle of wine for your meal.. we were ushered into a room off to the side with a view of the main dining room, (and vice versa) which was nicely set up for our party of 20 something.

Off to the left was a little table with a selection of five wines for tasting.  I believe that there was a Prosecco, an “off dry” Pinot Gris, an Unoaked (thank you very much) Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, and a Rhone like blend (mouvedre,  syrah (?) and maybe something else).  There were three very enthusiastic (and for once, I’m NOT being sarcastic) servers who would explain about the wine, what it might go with, etc..  The labels were not ones I was familiar with.  Eschewing the sparking, I started with the Chardonnay, and it was quite adequate.. Fruit and no overwhelming oak.  Was from Santa Barbara County, I believe.. Pours were very generous.  There was a cheese plate for pairing with the wines

which featured a pretty nice variation of textures and tastes, along with some grapes, bread and the usual stuff you find on such a spread.  All were labeled, and one of the roving servers was again only too happy to describe the cheese and which wine it would go with.  Eventually some passed appetizers appeared from the kitchen, a bruschetta, chicken bits on a skewer with a spicy sauce, and also some spanakopita.  All were very tasty, arrived hot (due to the kitchen right outside the entrance to our room – which I like because I can watch!)

After the Chardonnay I went with the Pinot Noir, which I thought a bit thin and with less fruit, but still quite drinkable.  After a glass of that, I went to the blend, which was much better, probably my choice of the bunch.  Eventually everyone were satisfied with the cheeses and appetizers and gravitated to our places.   We each had a menu in Prix Fixe form (shown here for form only, don’t expect you to be able to read it)

Each of the choices for the starters, entrees, and desserts had a nice range.. entrees included pasta (vegetarian); Sea Bass; Chicken Roulade, and Dry Aged Beef.  Each of course carried a further description of the dish, for example the roulade had local mushrooms, mascarpone, dates, marcona almonds, and Marsala Jus.  

I need to move on to the service a bit, because it will be center stage near the end.  The three ladies took orders around the tables (MFO: Endive salad, Sea Bass, and the “giandujabavarian” milk chocolate dessert;  Feeder:  baby spinach salad, Chicken Roulade, and ricotta cheese cake), and didn’t take long.  And neither did the food, as the starters arrived in short order,  my spinach salad was quite nice

(Garnished with blue lake blue cheese, maple roasted apples, candied walnut and crispy walnut phyllo)

At this point the wine had rounded off my alertness to service, but I THINK dishes were placed in front of the correct person, no auctioning necessary.  This followed through to the entrees, although they COULD have been served by dish (chickens, fishes, beef) but I am not sure.  Service was rapid enough that we didn’t have to do the “go ahead… dance”.  Nicely done.  My chicken was hot, and very tasty

It’s hard to see in the hastily grabbed photo, but the “stuff” next to the chicken rested on kind of a flat piece of something which turned out to be rolled from those dates!  Nice touch.  Wines glasses were filled as often as desired.  This also applied to the water glasses.  MFO's fish was very nice although I guess I have to get used to "skin side up" service...

Okay, let’s talk about that service I promised.  The person who identified the date wafer on my dish was quite knowledgeable on the food and wine.  Didn’t have to “go check”..  So we went on to the desserts which were again delivered properly.  My Ricotta cheese cake (with semolina crumb and burnt honey orange sauce) was attractive enough (which is NOT reflected in the image – it really looked nicer.. still much to learn about food photography)

but upon trying to cut the little cake, my fork just forced it off its perch without making a dent in it.  Hmmm…  MFO’s Chocolate dish was served in kind of a tube affair, and she had the same luck..  A lady with the same dish down a couple of places started sawing on hers with a knife to no avail.  I soon discovered that the problem was that all were frozen almost solid.  Quite a bit solid.  Given they were sort of small portions, they would have melted in a bit, but still… 

So I caught the eye of that server and said ‘these are frozen”.  Immediately she apologized and whisked off to the kitchen.  Within a few minutes she (and the rest of the staff) appeared with platters of assorted pastries, little sweets of various kinds, daubs of chocolate, that kind of thing, and each and every one was described.   Besides that, small dishes of panna cotta were delivered for passing.  These were consumed while the frozen dishes thawed and then they were good also.

My point is that they immediately recognized a problem and took action to remedy the situation..  No blank “Sorry about that” and nothing, their mistake was acknowledged and a substitution was made very quickly.  Was it wrong to serve frozen desserts?  Of course, but they DID something about it.  So when you left, your memory wouldn't be: “the damn desserts were frozen”, but rather, “that was very nice of them to offer the additional items”.  Big difference.

If I lived up there, I would certainly return, all my/the food was very good and like I said it is a pleasure to have servers who care about what they are doing.  I would hope the same would apply to the general dining room. 

And, of course it was so nice to see some of the people in the company we never get to meet, and thanks to the “company” for caring about their people.

The whole room was
DFD

Go FSU, whom I would rather not root for, but just hate to see a two miracle play wonder team claim they are the best football team in the nation..