New Orleans Recap: Part 2

April 13, 2018Leave a comment

We divided our New Orleans Recap into two posts. Click here to read Part 1 and continue reading to learn about the rest of our adventure!

Saturday

We woke up and grabbed a quick espresso at Merchant and then went on a very calm BlueBike ride through the western edge of the French Quarter and the Marigny to St. Roch Market, in the St. Roch neighborhood. St Roch (pronounced “Rock”) Market is amazing! It’s like a more relaxed (and slightly smaller) version of Union Market in DC. It has so many diverse food stalls, from local seafood to coffee to Vietnamese to Haitian.

St. Roch Market in New Orleans

I got a Roch Fizz from Coast Roast, which was espresso, vanilla syrup and soda water. It tasted like a root beer float without the ice cream! Marnay got a cold brew, great on this warm day. Both of us got our breakfast from the Daily Beet, a juice and breakfast food stand. We kept it light with avocado toast and an egg plate, since we still had a lot of eating to do.

St. Roch Market brunch at the Daily Beet in New Orleans

After eating, we walked through the neighborhood towards the banks of the mighty Mississippi. Finally! Somehow we had not seen the river since we arrived. We stumbled upon a food festival in a HUGE industrial building along the Mississippi that had a roof but no walls. The most welcome sight was a huge pot of crawfish being boiled (it was crawfish season), but we unfortunately were full and still had a lot of eating left to do.

We hit up the French Quarter, which was mobbed with tourists, as expected. We did get to watch the March for Our Lives protestors head down Decatur Street. Even though we were far from DC, it was nice to feel like we were participating.

New Orleans March for Our Lives in 2018

We grabbed BlueBikes by our Airbnb and biked through downtown and Treme and then finally, the Lafitte Greenway. Our destination was Parkway Bakery & Tavern, one of New Orleans’ most famous po’ boy joints. Our best bite: the crispy shrimp po’ boy, so fresh and covered in Cajun spices. Mmm! Afterwards, we sat on the banks of Bayou St. John, which we had biked along the day before. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were in New Orleans, and it was nice to see people having picnics along the water.

Parkway Bakery & Tavern crispy shrimp po’ boy in New Orleans

Dinner that night was at La Petite Grocery, the 2016 James Beard Foundation Award-winner for Best Chef South. We started the night with cocktails and blue crab beignets. Cleverly, the kitchen sprinkled the beignets with flaky sea salt in place of powdered sugar. For our entrees, we kept up with our theme of eating local ingredients and shared Gulf cobia with crispy skin and paneed rabbit, which tasted like rabbit schnitzel. We even got crème brulee with Louisiana sugar!

La Petite Grocery blue crab beignets in New Orleans

Our dinner was earlier than the night before, so we had time to do something else. The only question was: What to do? I had my mind set on going to a dive bar, so after a little online search we took a Lyft to Saturn Bar, in the Bywater neighborhood. Saturn Bar was ridiculously divey, but fun! It was full of mostly hipster-types but also a few crusty old men. Marnay and I both had a beer and shot and then called it a night.

Sunday

Sunday was unfortunately our last day in New Orleans, and our flight home was at 3:30 that afternoon. We woke up early so that we could make the most out of the morning and early afternoon. Since we liked it so much, we did a repeat of Saturday morning: Espresso at Merchant and a BlueBike Ride to St Roch Market. Marnay had an egg and biscuit platter from Fete Au Fete and I had an incredible Louisiana Crab Cake with Corn-Charred Cream from Elysian Seafood – so good!

roch breakfast 2

We took advantage of another beautiful day by walking around and then biked back to the Airbnb so we could pack and head to the airport. New Orleans is an incredible place to visit. I do not think we will ever forget our trip. I can’t believe it has taken us this long to get there!

Marnay and Paul in New Orleans, Louisiana

Favorite Place We Went
Paul: Lafitte Greenway
Marnay: St Roch Market

Favorite Bite
Paul: Louisiana white shrimp and tasso ham henican – Commander’s Palace
Marnay: Crème brulee with Louisiana sugar – La Petite Grocery

Favorite Drink
Paul: Bonded Sazerac – Cure
Marnay: Bandol Rose – Bacchanal

Insider Tip
Paul: RTA three-day unlimited pass
Marnay: You can experience the food and culture of New Orleans without needing to spend much time in the touristy areas.

New Orleans Recap: Part 1

April 10, 2018April 13, 2018Leave a comment

Marnay and I just got back from an incredible Spring trip to New Orleans. It has been so cold here in the DC area (we had a snow day the day before we left!) so it was nice to escape to the sun and warmth. This wasn’t a relaxing by the pool vacation, though; this was a foodie exploration.

We stayed in an Airbnb in a high rise right downtown. I would call it the business and hotel district, just outside the French Quarter and the Warehouse District. That meant that it was centrally located, with easy access to public transportation and bikeshare bikes, but not as hectic as other areas. This is a good tip if you plan on using public transit on vacation: Most cities’ public transit systems are designed to start downtown and radiate through the city. (A hub and spoke system) That means that you would get the most “bang-for-your-buck” and have the easiest time getting around if you stay downtown.

Thursday

We landed around 6:30 on Thursday and took a Lyft to our place. It was beautiful! We barely dropped our suitcases off before heading out on our first adventure. New Orleans public transit (buses and streetcars) have a three-day unlimited pass that you can purchase on your phone. When you wanted to board, just show the driver your phone and you are golden. It makes using public transportation in an unfamiliar city so much easier. We took the 88 bus to Bacchanal, in the Bywater neighborhood, which a few days earlier had been named a finalist for a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Wine Program.

Marnay and Paul at Bacchanal in New Orleans

At Bacchanal, every day feels like a back-yard party. First, you enter through the wine store, a wooden shack, where you can pick out a bottle of wine. Next, grab some wine glasses and head to an outdoor table to enjoy and watch live music on the stage. When you’re hungry, head over to the kitchen window and order from their selection of small plates. Grab a number and they will bring your food to you.

Marnay and I hung out at the standing room ledges, under a gnarled old tree and just to the right of the stage, drinking our bottle of rose from the Bandol region of France. Roses from Bandol are known for being heavy duty wines, earthy and almost like a red. It was a touch chilly for a late March night, so the Bandol rose was appropriate. To eat, we enjoyed radishes with whipped butter and crusty bread, head-on Gulf shrimp and praline pecan panna cotta. Amazingly, the kitchen was able to pace out our meal even though the place was so crowded.

New Orleans Bacchanal Bandol Rose wine with radishes and Gulf shrimp

The atmosphere was amazing. The back yard at Bacchanal really felt like a chill outdoor party. Even though it was crowded, we never felt overwhelmed and could have hung out there for hours. Alas, it was getting late and we needed to get some sleep for our first full day in New Orleans.

Friday

Good Morning New Orleans! We slept well and woke up ready to explore. The high-rise condo building we were staying in had an excellent coffee shop named Merchant on the ground floor. I really needed a pick-me-up, so I got a double espresso; this ended up being my daily New Orleans morning tradition for the rest of the trip. We took the 48 streetcar through Mid-City and up to City Park, which I would compare to Central Park in New York or Druid Hill Park in Baltimore. We were not only checking out the park for its natural beauty – we were in search of beignets. We found them at Morning Call, a New Orleans institution. It is a casual sit-down place, but they had no problem with us ordering only beignets.

The beignets were hot and fresh and there was sugar on the table so that you could dust just the right amount on top. Of course, I got a café au lait with that famous chicory coffee. It was a lot of work to put the powdered sugar on ourselves, but it was worth it!

Morning Call beignets in New Orleans

After eating, we slathered on sunscreen and picked up Blue Bikes (New Orleans’ bikeshare system) and biked on along Bayou St John to the beautiful Lafitte Greenway, which looked like a highway for bikes, it was so straight and flat. Our destination: Willie Mae’s, the legendary fried chicken spot. We went in knowing that the place would be jumping (there’s always a long line) so we did not mind when we had to wait outside for 40 minutes. Once we made it inside, we were starving. I will skip to the good part: the fried chicken was amazing, the best we had ever had. The secret was the spicy wet batter, which lingered under the skin. Even the white meat was tender and juicy, which I find is rare in fried chicken. Willie Mae’s was incredible!

Willie Mae’s fried chicken in New Orleans

After eating all that fried chicken, we took the streetcar home and took a nap. But when we woke up, we had plenty of time before our 8:30pm dinner reservation at Commander’s Palace. We walked over to Compere Lapin, located inside the boutique Old No. 77 Hotel in the Warehouse District. Besides being a name of the restaurant, Compere Lapin is also the name of a traditional Caribbean tale involving a mischievous rabbit. We only came for drinks, but they were two of the more visually stimulating drinks we have ever had: One is in a copper bunny and the other has a bunny stenciled on top!

Compere Lapin cocktail in a copper bunny and a bunny stenciled on top

We unexpectedly still had some time before dinner, so we took a Lyft to Cure, one of the best cocktail bars in the country. At Cure, we did “the Sazerac test”. Their bonded Sazerac is $20, while their regular Sazerac is $6. We ordered one of each and tried them side by side. The verdict: The $20 Sazerac is worth it! While the $6 is a steal, the bonded Sazerac had incredible depth of flavor.

Bonded Sazerac at Cure in New Orleans

Commander’s Palace is one of New Orleans’ oldest old school restaurants – it’s been open since the late 19th century. It’s also one of the few restaurants in the country that requires jackets for men. The chef continues to serve classic Creole food that pushes boundaries while celebrating the past. Our best bite was the Louisiana white shrimp and tasso ham henican with okra, pepper jelly and a Crystal hot sauce beurre blanc, one of their signature dishes. When we were finished, we used the crusty bread the scoop up the pepper jelly. Keeping with the Creole them, we also ordered the crawfish tail gnocchi, which came with a whole crawfish on top. We rounded things out with the Commander’s Bread Pudding, “The Queen of Creole Desserts.” Hoo boy, did it taste like whiskey!

Commander’s Palace in New Orleans

Note: We divided our New Orleans Recap into two posts. Click here to read Part 2!

Whaley’s Revisited: Just as Good in the Dining Room as at the Bar

January 30, 2018January 30, 2018Leave a comment

It has been over a year since our post on our experience at the bar at Whaley’s, so we were ready to give it a fresh look, this time in the dining room. We had been back to the bar a few times in the interim and found the drinks to be good but the oysters to be a bit hit-or-miss. Mainly too gritty for our liking. On this visit, however, Whaley’s excelled in all aspects – food, service and atmosphere.

Whaley’s oysters from the Chesapeake region of Virginia and from Maine

Whaley’s is known for its raw seafood, so we started our meal with oysters. For variety, we ordered four from the Chesapeake region of Virginia and two from Maine. The oysters were superlative—all six were the right temperature, well-shucked and a nice mix between melony and briny. To complement the oysters, we ordered a bottle of Sancerre from Whaley’s reasonably priced wine list. Many bottles are under $50, which is a (welcome) trend that I am starting to see.

Marnay at Whaley's in DC

The big-eye tuna crudo was also stellar, one of the best examples of salty, sweet, spicy and sour that I have ever had. The cool-but-not-cold, perfectly and uniformly salted slices of tuna came with Seckel pears (sweet), aji amarillo consumme (spicy) and calamansi vinegar (sour). If we had the chance, we would have ordered three of these.

Whaley’s big-eye tuna crudo

It’s tempting to just get the cold dishes at Whaley’s, but it is a well-rounded restaurant and the hot plates are also very good. The best of the two hot dishes that we got were the seared day-boat scallops from Maine with Anson Mills farro, butternut squash, Cipollini onions and huckleberry jus. The huckleberry jus in particular was a great foil for the buttery yet sweet scallops. I could have done without the farro, as I did not think it brought a lot to the dish. Still, we would order the scallops again.

Whaley’s seared day-boat scallops from Maine with Anson Mills farro, butternut squash, Cipollini onions and huckleberry jus

The oyster stew, made with Benton’s ham dashi instead of the traditional cream, was inventive and tasty. My favorite part was getting a spoonful of at least one crispy ham piece and one oyster, along with that flavorful dashi. While the dish did not blow us away, I am glad that we got it. Plus, the kitchen served it in a miniature Dutch oven, so the portion was big enough to allow us a taste but not much more.

Whaley’s oyster stew made with Benton’s ham dashi

Throughout the evening, the service was professional and attentive yet not intrusive. Whaley’s showed that it is a restaurant that has hit its stride and is really coming into its own — I think that Whaley’s has taken its place among our favorite restaurants.

Best Bite
Paul: Tuna Crudo
Marnay: Oysters

Address
Whaley’s: 301 Water Street, SE #115 Washington, DC 20003
Closest Metro: Navy Yard

Fiola – Maria Menu

August 21, 2017Leave a comment

Some of Washington, DC’s pricier restaurants have more affordable lunch deals during the week. You can take advantage of them if you know where to look. Luckily, we are here to give you a review of one of our favorite lunch spots.

Fabio Trabocchi’s restaurant group in particular has some wallet-friendly lunch offerings during the week. On a rainy Monday, we spent the morning exploring some of the Smithsonian museums and enjoyed a mid-day meal at Fiola in Penn Quarter.

The Maria Menu is named for chef/restauranteur Fabio Trabiocchi’s wife and business partner, Maria Trabiocchi. Described as being based on a “healthy Mediteranean diet”, the Maria Menu is three courses for $32, which is a steal considering most entrees alone at Fiola cost more than $32.

Another great thing about the Maria menu for the cost-conscious diner (and let’s be real, we all are) is that it starts out with an amuse bouche plus housemade rosemary bread. In our case, it was watermelon-tomato gazpacho with chive oil – a good way to start the meal, although it could have used a touch of cream to cut the acidity.

Sometimes servers can be a little too informal for their own good, which can be offputting. That is certainly not a problem at Fiola, where the well-trained and impeccably dressed staff are completely focused on making sure you have the best meal possible, no fooling around.

The Madai snapper crudo, from Japan, was paired with slices of grilled Jersey peaches and peach gel for swiping. The chilled, well-salted fish was the perfect foil for the peaches, ripe but by no means cloying and kissed by the char of the grill.

Our main course was a hulking Australian tiger prawn on a bed of Sicilian capunitina, similar to an eggplant caponata. This puree contained eggplant, pine nuts, capers and golden raisins. I found the capunitina to be too sweet at first, thanks to the raisins, but as I kept eating the flavors came together and made sense. The buttery, mild shrimp flesh needed the intense flavor of the capunitina.

Dessert was billed simply as “Raspberry & Hazelnuts”, but it was far more interesting that those two ingredients. When it arrived at the table, it looked like raspberry custard with hazelnut flakes on top. A plunge of the spoon, however, revealed an entire ecosystem of flavors. Inside of custard was raspberry sorbet, whole raspberries and a luscious hazelnut praline.

The restaurant had been crowded when we first sat down, and we observed people talking and eating. I couldn’t help but think, though, that we were spending a lot less than they were.

Best Bite
Paul and Marnay: Raspberries & Hazelnuts

Address
Fiola: 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20004
Closest Metro: Archives or Judiciary Square

Sally’s Middle Name

July 5, 2017Leave a comment

Many restaurants in Philadelphia have a “neighborhood” vibe – relaxed, intimate, unpretentious—possibly because of the low rents and less demand for older housing stock which can be used to create smaller restaurants. We are always on the lookout for restaurants with this vibe in DC, and were pleasantly surprised when we found Sally’s Middle Name.

The restaurant has two levels: downstairs is decorated with white subway tiles and was bustling with the din of diners when we arrived. Upstairs, where we sat, was calmer and felt more like someone’s home. In fact, it is so much like a person’s home the upstairs bathroom even has a shower. The entire menu, including drinks and dessert, is written on a full-size chalk board on the wall. While I think this approach is cute, it is frustrating to have to keep getting up to check the board. We took a picture with our phones, but everyone may not recognize that as an option.

Sally’s Middle Name is a small plates restaurant. We have noticed that servers at small plates restaurants tend to recommend an absurd amount of food—a suggestion of three to four dishes per person is not uncommon. It was a breath of fresh air, then, when our server at Sally’s Middle Name recommended 3 to 4 dishes total, meant to be shared. That immediately endeared us to the place.

We ordered four dishes, and we ordered them all at the same time: the housemade bread and butter, the cucumber salad, the braised collard greens with Szechuan pork and the seared scallops. The result was that all four dishes came out at the same time. Not a good look, in my opinion. I would have been much more annoyed, though, if our server demanded that we order four dishes per person and then eight dishes came out at the same time. If that were the case, we would have needed to steal a neighboring table.

Anyway, the housemade white and wheat breads were delicious and a great start to the meal. They were even better with creamy housemade butter, although the white bread would have been fine on its own. For our remaining three dishes, we mixed and matched bites, not eating the dishes in any particular order. The collards appropriately got top billing, as this was a collard dish and not a pork dish—not that we minded. It was a play on traditional Southern collard greens, cooked with spicy Szechuan pork instead of a more traditional ham hock. We first got a major hit of ginger and then the lingering spice of Szechuan peppercorns.

Both of us were big fans of the buttery seared scallops served with a sauce of fermented turnips, lightly smeared on plate. The scallops were then topped with pea shoots, a nice taste of early summer. The cucumber salad, on the other hand, could have used some salt, even with a dressing of fermented carrots.

All of the portions at Sally’s Middle Name were reasonable in size, so we had room for dessert. We got an impressive Olive Oil cake with strawberry jam. The jam and the olive oil cake, which actually tasted like olive oil, were a perfect match.

Based on atmosphere alone, we would go back to Sally’s Middle Name. We loved the lack of pretense, and oh yeah, the food wasn’t bad either.

Best Bite
Paul: Olive Oil Cake
Marnay: Scallops

Address
Sally’s Middle Name: 1320 H Street NE Washington, DC 20002
Clsoest metro: Union Station to H Street Streetcar

Serpico

December 2, 2016March 20, 2017Leave a comment

We were in the Philadelphia area visiting family for Thanksgiving, and since we needed a break from the traditional Thanksgiving turkey and assorted sides, we took advantage by having dinner at Serpico. Serpico, from James Beard Award-winning chef Peter Serpico and acclaimed restauranteur Stephen Starr, is located on a gritty two block stretch of South Street. Inside however, the space is full of handsome dark woods and has a completely open kitchen, full of buzzing cooks.

If you have been reading this blog, you may know that we are big fans of the Philadelphia dining scene. In fact, the Monday before our trip, I received in the mail Craig Le Ban’s Ultimate Dining Guide which I read cover to cover in anticipation. Craig Le Ban, by the way, is the widely respected long-time Philadelphia Inquirer food critic and I was excited to check out another one of his favorites. It also gave us a chance to have a meal with my Mom and Grandmother, neither whom we had seen in some time.

Confit carrot in butter foam with crispy phyllo, ginger sauce and thyme is a stunner. You will want to cut a slice of tender root vegetable and scoop up as much foam as possible, the experience bringing back memories of buttered popcorn at the movies. Expertly crafted cocktails include a classic white negroni as well as walnut-infused mezcal with manzanilla sherry, smoked maple and mole bitters.

A beet and goat cheese salad with pistachio, kohlrabi and thai basil showcases winter’s fruits and vegetables and is a beauty of a presentation, the best of the night. After these two dishes, though, it would have been nice to get new plates. I understand that restaurants do not have unlimited resources but this is a high-end restaurant and I didn’t want to eat the rest of my meal on a blood orange stained plate.

Spicy rice cakes, accurately described by the server as being similar to gnocchi, are enveloped in a sauce of XO, gochujang, white sesame and scallion. The texture from the rice flour makes the cakes gummy and chewy and we enjoyed every bite. The sauce was a huge hit at our table—my grandmother actually scooped up spoonfuls of sauce long after the rice cakes were gone.

The slow poached halibut with charred cabbage, pistachios and raisins gets its “skin” from a light breading and a quick detour to the frying pan, the real skin having been removed. Olives can sometimes be overpowering, but the green olive sauce shows that the kitchen understands this and correctly gives them a supporting role to the halibut.

A seafood stew with mussels, scallops, charred brussels sprouts and butternut squash in a tomato dashi has pleasantly chewy clams and squid and showcases more of winter’s harvest. But at a restaurant where food is meant to be shared, it would have made sense to give everyone bowls instead of plates for the broth. Eating soup from a bowl was futile and I just gave up trying to enjoy the broth.

We finished the meal with tender slices of short rib in a glaze of whole grain mustard with grilled broccoli and fried potatoes. I did not think much of this dish initially, but in the last few days since our meal I’ve had the taste and texture of the short rib on my mind. It’s actually become the second most memorable dish of the meal, after the spicy rice cakes. If you can get past the location, and really, it is not that bad…Serpico is well worth a trip. And if you enjoy good food, get the spicy rice cakes.

Best Bite
Paul and Marnay: Spicy rice cakes

Address
Serpico: 604 South Street Philadelphia, PA 19147
Closest Public Transit: Lombard South Broad Street Line Station

Whaley’s

July 6, 2016March 20, 2017Leave a comment

Marnay works near Farragut Square and I take the MARC train to Baltimore, so the perfect spot for us to meet after work is Union Station. On a beautiful Wednesday, we met up and went to Whaley’s in the Navy Yard by the fastest and easiest way possible…Bikeshare!

Whaley’s is a raw bar and seafood restaurant from the team behind DGS, appropriately set on the Anacostia waterfront. I have been really into Italian apertivos lately, especially since I started reading Spritz by Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau, so I ordered an Americano. An Americano is made of Campari, sweet vermouth and soda water. Marnay got House Cocktail #2, which is a refreshing combination of gin, yellow chartreuse, tarragon, cucumber and lemon.

We sat at the large wrap around bar, near the very prominently displaced raw bar. Whaley’s is rather small on the inside, although there appears to be just as much outdoor waterfront seating as indoor seating. Tempted by the aforementioned raw bar, we got poached Gulf shrimp from Alabama as well as 6 local oysters from New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland. We rarely see oysters from New Jersey around here, so I was excited to try them.

No exaggeration, these were the best oysters we have ever had. They were perfectly shucked with absolutely no grit and chilled to the perfect temperature. The shrimp were huge and buttery and something I would get again without hesitation.

We still haven’t gotten to my favorite dish! We ordered the crispy fried squash blossoms, filled with the same shrimp and placed on top of a swipe of ginger aioli. The blossoms are then topped with chives and esplette pepper. The squash blossoms actually come from the same town in Alabama as the shrimp.

Whaley’s is very new and we noticed a few hiccups, mainly with bartenders not remembering how to make drinks and servers not sure where to bring plates. These were minor and they did not directly affect us, we just could hear a lot from our perch at the bar.

I recommend Whaley’s if you are in the mood for quality raw seafood at reasonable prices and an A+ view. We will be back!

Best Bite
Paul: Squash blossoms
Marnay: Oysters

Address
Whaley’s: 301 Water Street, SE #115 Washington, DC 20003
Closest Metro: Navy Yard

Bartlett Pear Inn

November 22, 2015February 22, 2017Leave a comment

We stayed in Easton during my birthday weekend, our first trip to this part of the Eastern Shore. I let the restaurant know on the opentable reservation that this was my birthday dinner. When we walked in, the hostess sat us in this little private alcove by the window. Sitting on the table was a “Happy Birthday” envelope and inside was a note signed by every member of the staff! Even the chef! This gesture was only a sign of things to come.

The restaurant is in a historic house and it is very cozy. It really feels like you were invited to a dinner party at someone’s home. The place reminded us of the Kitchen at Rock Hall, a little further up the Eastern Shore, which unfortunately is no longer in existence.

The first thing that I noticed about our server was a jarring lack of polish. I thought about it for a while, and then I remember that this place is on the rural Eastern Shore. There is not exactly a large pool of experienced servers who have worked in a fine dining atmosphere.

We started with a half bottle of Sancerre Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley. A good wine will complement an occasion, and this wine only made the night better. Before we ordered, we were served a house made baguette from the Inn baker, along with butter molded in the shape of a pear and sprinkled with coarse black pepper and salt.

We could not decide on our entrees, so we put in an order for the Duo of Tuna Tartare. Half of the dish was slices of raw tuna crusted in what tasted like Old Bay and then sprinkled with coarse salt. The Old-Bay-like crust was different, but I liked the familiar taste of the spice blend. The coarse salt could have been applied more evenly, however. I got a few bites with no salt.

The other half of the dish was a more traditional tartare, with small chunks of raw tuna in what tasted like a sesame oil marinade. Rounding out the dish were roasted beets in a very light cream sauce, raw almonds and a black and white sesame seed cracker.

All of the dishes at the restaurant are served in the modernist-style, with very small portions and beautiful arrangements. For Marnay’s entrée, she got Rhode Island Sea Scallops with beluga lentils, swiss chard and bacon lardons. The bacon made everything SO deliciously smoky and the large scallops were perfectly seared.

I got the seared duck breast with pickled walnuts, baby greens, pomegranate-quinoa and a cherry dark-chocolate jus. We shared our entrees, each eating about half and were happy with how they came out.

Afterwards, we decided that we had room for dessert. Marnay got a scoop of house made vanilla ice cream, while I opted for a pear liquor. Much to our surprise, the server came out with a chocolate soufflé and crème anglaise! Dessert was incredible and was our favorite part of the meal. The chocolate soufflé with crème anglaise poured in the center may have been my favorite dessert EVER. And the vanilla ice cream had such an intense yet balanced vanilla flavor that I am still thinking about it. Who would have thought, memorable vanilla ice cream!

I want to reserve the last part of this post to talk about how genuinely warm every member of the staff was at the Bartlett Pear Inn. This was a birthday meal that I will not soon forget, and I would go back in a heartbeat next year!

Address
Bartlett Pear Inn: 28 S Harrison St, Easton, MD 21601

Eat Now Run Later

Tag: seafood