You know you’re getting old when you figure out what day it
is by looking at your daily pill box… which hole is empty??
Yesterday we found (well, by design, more later on that)
ourselves on the Virginia side of greater DC around lunch time so we decided to
take lunch before returning to the land of chains. We were near Old Town Alexandria and saw Le Refuge, a restaurant I had heard
about and always wanted to try but never visited. It’s right on King Street; with kind of an
unassuming front, looking like it has been there for years, which, in fact it
has! We were a bit surprised that they
were open, as most respectable French restaurants are closed on Monday. But we were glad they were, and went in. Due to the relatively early hour there were
few tables occupied and MFO and our friend were seated at a nice table that
afforded us a good view of the restaurant.
It also cried out “been here forever” with has all sorts of “stuff” on
the walls
Kind of puts you in mind of our own French Restaurant, Café Des
Artistes.
We were soon greeted by our
server, a mid-aged gentleman who delivered two separate menus (regular and
specials) and asked if we wanted something to drink. The menus were all encased in plastic, tri
fold for the regular menu and single casing for the dailies. The other side of the specials menu contained
a rather uninteresting wine by the glass list, which looked like it had… been
there forever.. whites were a sauvignon
blanc, a white Bordeaux, and a chardonnay.
There were a few more reds, but I stuck with the white Bordeaux. MFO tried the sauvignon blanc, and our friend
stuck with a beer (Stella, as I recall).
Turning to food, there were several daily specials mostly of
seafood one of which was “fresh soft shell crab” at which we kind of raised our
eyebrows, but did also include coq au vin, and pot au feu. The “regular” menu contained most of the
French dishes you might expect. After a
bit of thrashing around between Poissons and Viandes, I settled on “Escalope de
Veau Francaise”, described as sort of a Piccata presentation, and our friend also
stayed on land with a Filet du Porc au Roquefort. We also decided on a shared a starter of Mousse
De Foie Gras De Canard Au Cognac. By now, I would hope the alert
readership can figure out what we had.
MFO staying light had two appetizers, a beet salad and stuffed mushroom
caps. Our entrees came with choice of
salad and we both took Salade Caesar.
It will be (painful and) difficult for me to describe the
meal. An unfortunate side effect of this
miserable, never ending, coughing and hacking &%^$#@ cold/flu I keep having is that my
senses of taste and smell have become almost non-existent. I keep hoping that “maybe today” I can taste
something. Well, yesterday still was not
that day. The Pate was mostly texture to
me, although a hint did sneak through a bit. The presented main course plates
were fairly nicely put together, but certainly not nouvelle cuisine style, mine
containing about four palm sized veal cutlets, quite thin, with a nice sear on
them, and a nice (looking) sauce, some Dauphinoise potatoes, and little serving
of what I was told was red cabbage and onions..
looked good. Our friend’s pork
was nicely cooked and a fork traded sample had a nice mouth feel, but the Roquefort could
have been mayonnaise as far as I could discern.
I can think of no worse affliction that to have your sense of taste
eliminated.
One oddity (?) was that when our plates were served, we were
told that the plates were very hot. (thank goodness NOT by the standard “watch
that plate…” speech). Just a statement
of fact: The plates are hot. And indeed
they were! Pretty much couldn’t touch
them. There was a large temperature
difference between the plate and the food.
The food was just at a good temperature and it showed none of the usual
signs of being tucked under a heat lamp like skin on sauce, or dry top of entrée. A bit of research uncovered that fact that
some French restaurants would keep the plates in the oven and get them out just
before plating or holding the item just short of being done and finish it in
the oven before adding sides and sauces.
So I THINK the food was good. My computer says their website is “dangerous”, so I have not been there, but a reference from the Washington Post says: “The menu is retro; the specials
are up-to-date; the side dishes are reliably good”. Don’t think I could quarrel with that. One time visit, one day, yadda yadda, bu I think
they seem to be kind of resting on the “been there forever” reputation. They did not make the Washingtonian’s 100
best restaurant list for the past two years..
Probably some better French options around. Still, I was glad to go..
The Acronym Graveyard
Mercifully, there is I think a “graveyard of phrases”, where
the corpses of things like: take it to the next level; game changer; jaw
dropping; and so forth are resting peacefully.
Being a sports person, I would wish that soon we will see (basketball) “three
ball” taken off life support. As far as I
know Brent Musburger, is one of the few (only?) user of the phrase. And some of those comments might apply to
Brent himself, but we won’t go there.
Anyway I think it is time to open an annex for acronyms. And as a lurker on FaceBook, I would like to commend LOL to an eternal rest. We get it, okay? It is in virtually every clever post, I guess put there to make sure us sluggard readers know they are joking. BFF about ready to go? LMAO is maybe next, although that is a bit more colorful. I see recently there has been a proliferation to TBT, which to be honest I had to go look up to find it’s meaning. Does that mean the writer is sometimes lying to us? In looking it up, I found others. Do you know BOF means “Whatever?” back to the top: you know you’re getting old when….
C U L8R!
DFD
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