Kinkead's and a sad weekend

I know, I'm slow. But I got around to writing it at least.

The weekend before last I went down to DC. There were a couple goals:

First, go to a restaurant supply store. K-Ram said he'd seen one and was all proud of himself for finding something I like. So on Saturday we head over there. We fought our way into the parking lot and into a spot despite some very badly parked cars. We walk up to the door to be greeted by a sign that says only restaurant owners with proof were allowed. After all that we went back to the car and left. It was sad. Strike one.

Second, get a bottle of decent olive oil that isn't rediculously expensive. I was not thrilled with my choices at Walmart. I wanted a bottle I could use up in 6-12 months that was tinted and not rediculously expensive. So we went to Costco. Their olive oil is supposed to be decent. So we get there and I go in search of olive oil. They only had gallon size bottles. That's not gonna be used up in 6-12 months. And the bottles weren't tinted. Strike two.

Next was dutch process cocoa. I have a few recipes I've been wanting to try that need dutch process cocoa. The one I was looking to make was chocolate rolls. We looked at Costco though I didn't really expect it to be there. We went to Whole Foods and I expected it to be there. We went down every aisle repeatedly because I felt strongly that it should be there. Eventually I accepted that it was not. I was pretty devastated at this point so we went to Harris Teeter, to make a final try. No luck there either. Strike three.

Strike three. I think that's when something bad happens in baseball right? Isn't the game over or something? Anyway, I lost. My coworkers would be devastated to hear that thought.

I did some searching and apparently Dutch Process cocoa powder is seasonal. Not sure what season but I guess I'll keep watching until whatever season it is comes along. I also found another restaurant supply store that is open to the public. It's right next to the place we were at. Haha. Well at least it gives me something to look forward to this weekend. And I bought an appropriately sized bottle of olive oil from Aldi's. It was only $4 and I've been pretty happy with the quality of everything else I've gotten there so far so hopefully this will work out well. That was a major impulse purchase day. That will have to be another post maybe.

Anyway, there was a better part of the weekend. We had made reservations at Kinkead's. At 8:50 we showed up for our 9:00 reservation. Our table wasn't ready so we sat at the bar for like 20 minutes until it was. It's a pretty nice place, kinda sophisticated and a lot quieter than a lot of the other more trendy places. Apparently huge but the space was broken up a lot so it's hard to say. We chose most of our meal from the chef's specialties section.

We started with a crabcake that was quite good. Very Maryland, lotsa crab, not much filler. They also had a really good mustard sauce with it. Mmmm mustard sauce. It wasn't uber breaded so it came apart really quickly.

I got a cod dish that had a crab thing on it, with cornbread and whipped sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes were a lot like the sweet potato souffle we attempted to make a while back. Theirs of course was prettier. The cornbread had little bits of ham in it that gave it a bit of smoky salty goodness. The cod and crab part had a really creamy sauce that was a bit much. Clearly I am getting old because I never used to think any sauce or dish was ever too sweet or too rich.

K-Ram had a salmon thing that had some mixed vegetable thing that when the waiter described it, it sounded like a puree but turned out not to be, which is probably a good thing. Puree'd crab meat just seems a little strange.

Last was dessert. I got the lemon trio and K-Ram got the creme brulee trio. My lemon trio had a lemon granita with a lemon cream underneath it, a tart with lemon curd in it and one other thing that I forget now. They took it off the menu so I can't check, which is rather upsetting. Well they were all quite good and satisfied my lemon craving. Though none of them had that really lemony mouth puckering bite that I kinda wanted.

This was what was in the creme brulee trio: Semi Sweet Chocolate, Pistachio and Vanilla Bean with Fleur de Sel Chocolate Cookie and Cinnamon Shortbread. The chocolate was really good, really rich and chocolatey though the top didn't quite have that crunch that a creme brulee should have. Something went wrong with the vanilla bean one. The custard was just off. Not sure why. The pistachio was alright, but really the best one was the chocolate.

Service was good. I forgot to check out the bathroom!!! I'm kinda upset about that but I guess it's too late now. Maybe I'll go back sometime just so I can check out the bathroom. Well I guess I'll get a meal too, while I'm there.

So that was my weekend.