Restaurant review: Kinship (Washington, DC)

Kinship is a newly opened restaurant in Washington, DC. The chef-owner is Eric Ziebold (formerly of French Laundry and CityZen) and his wife, Celia Laurent. We have been huge fans of Eric’s cooking since his CityZen days and have been looking forward to his opening up his own restaurant for months.

The menu is organized a little differently than most restaurant menus. There are four main categories: Craft, History, Ingredients, and Indulgence. Under these categories, the first two entries are generally appetizer-sized, the next two entries are entrée-sized, and the last entry is dessert. (I have heard complaints from some diners about this, but I’m not sure how you would read “Bahibe Chocolate Tart” and assume it’s anything but a dessert.) I also love menus that include desserts so that I can decide whether to save a lot of or a little room for the course. (Notice that I did not say save no room.) 🙂

There is a fifth category called “For the Table.” Hopefully, this category is self-explanatory, as it consists of dishes ample enough for the entire table to share.

Our group started off with the following appetizers (and there were thumbs up from all the diners):

Oeuf à la Brick au Thon (feuille de brick fried egg, tuna confit, and sweet pepper marmalade)

oeuf a la brick au thon

oeuf a la brick au thon

Aoyagi Clams (yuzu, shitake tempura, baby bok choy, and garlic fried rice)

aoyagi clams

aoyagi clams

Blue Fin Toro Sashimi (sweet, sour, salty,and spicy flavors); and

blue fin toro sashimi

blue fin toro sashimi

Path Valley Farms Sunchokes (clementine segments, toasted pepitas, and cilantro chimichurri)

path valley farms sunchokes

path valley farms sunchokes

Entrees included:

Seared Muscovy Duck (napa cabbage, peanuts, honeycrisp apples, and fermented black beans)

seared muscovy duck

seared muscovy duck

Salt Crusted Dorade (with roasted cauliflower, raisins, honey-saffron sauce, and orzo) from the “For the Table” menu; and

salt crusted dorade

salt crusted dorade

orzo

orzo

Elysian Fields Farm Lamb (sweet pepper stew and Anson Mills grits), also from the “For the Table” menu

elysian fields farm lamb

elysian fields farm lamb

grits

grits

Desserts (with no photos) were:

Sticky Toffee Pudding (with Meyer lemon marmalade, fig membrillo butterscotch, and Earl Grey ice cream); and

Valrhona Guanaja Custard Cake (with pecan nduja, espelette caramel, pralines ‘n’ cream ice cream).  (This was wonderfully decadent, and I’m not even that fond of chocolate!)

The food was fabulous (as expected with Eric at the helm). Service was very good, but the timing of the kitchen is still a bit off. We had a lengthy wait between the time we placed our order and the time the appetizers came out. In addition, if you want the Kinship Roast Chicken, it’s an hour wait, so if you know you want it, then place the order when you sit down. There is also a wait for the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Souffle so order it with the main meal if it’s your dessert of choice. That being said, we expect these kinks to be ironed out with time.

The space is very interesting—it’s spare and minimalist. There are a couple of alcoves with tables, and these are definitely the best seats for both sound and comfort.

And, finally, a disclosure: we are very minor investors in Kinship.

Kinship is located at 1015 7th St, NW, Washington, DC 20001 (www.kinshipdc.com).

Casa Luca (Washington, DC)

Casa Luca is a relatively new restaurant by Fabio Trabocchi, who also started the more well-known Fiola’s and the newly opened Fiola Mare. Casa Luca is the more informal and relaxed sibling of those two restaurants.

We dined at Casa Luca as part of a bet over whether the Obamacare website would be fixed by November 30 as promised by Jeff Zients. Jim knows Jeff well and thought that if Jeff committed to the website being fixed by November 30, it would be fixed by November 30. I pointed out that the problem was not Jeff’s intelligence and skill but the fact that the number of bugs in the website was unknown because you have no idea what additional bugs might be behind the one you fix until you fix the existing one. So the bet was as follows: if the Obamacare website was fixed by November 30, we would eat at a Mexican restaurant. If the website was not fixed by November 30, we would eat at an Italian restaurant. This bet was devised by our oh-so-clever 15 year old daughter who clearly likes both Mexican and Italian food. She came out a winner either way.

(It might amuse those who are reading this that the day after we made our bet, Jeff announced that the website would not be fixed by November 30 because they discovered additional bugs every time one bug was fixed.)

Onto more important matters: the food. We started with appetizers, of course. We selected the beef tartar & horseradish crema; the Maine lobster, artichoke & smoked faro; and the Prosciutto di Parma. All three were excellent. The beef tartar was well seasoned with capers and olive oil, with the horseradish cream adding just the right amount of tang. The lobster was perfectly cooked, and the artichoke added a crunch to give the dish a nice texture. And we have rarely had as good quality prosciutto as was served that evening.

For the main dishes (and we include pasta in that category even if the Italians don’t), our 12 year old son had the Fusilli Cacio e Pepe (fusilli served in a rich butter sauce topped with burrata cheese); our daughter had the Smoked Potato Gnocchi served with Bolognese sauce; Jim had the Monkfish Milanese served with lemon breadcrumbs, artichokes, dill and lemon; and I had the Bucatini alla Puttanesca, served with Mayan prawns, capers and olives.

All the entrees were excellent, beautifully prepared and delicious. Our son didn’t finish his fusilli, but that was more because he had gorged himself on the prosciutto than any deficiency in the dish.

For dessert, we shared the Piccola Pasticceria, a dish of house made Italian cookies and sweets. The almond cookies with powdered sugar were my personal favorite, although the chocolate lovers in the group spoke glowingly about the chocolate caramels.

It was a sign of how delicious the food was that Jim expressed his willingness to come back. Which we certainly will!

Casa Luca is located at 1099 New York Ave, NW in Washington, DC (the entrance to the restaurant is on 11th St, and there is valet parking for dinner).

Authentic Chinese Restaurants in Washington, DC

We travel fairly often to China and have enjoyed the food there very much, so we decided to start hunting for Chinese restaurants in the Washington, DC area that we thought produced authentic dishes that taste like the restaurants in Beijing.  (With the added advantage that the restaurants in DC are cleaner, and it’s safe to drink the water.)  We had several criteria for our search:

1)   Level of Spiciness – Chinese restaurants in the United States generally tone down the level of spice and hot peppers for American palates.  The restaurants on our list do not do so.  There are non-spicy dishes to be found, of course, but if you order a spicy dish from these restaurants, you are guaranteed a spicy dish.

2)   Authentic Dishes – there are many items that Chinese eat that sound alien or unappetizing to American tastes.  These dishes include items such as tripe, tendon, jellyfish, and sea cucumber.  Mind you, we don’t like tripe, tendon, or sea cucumber either (I do confess that I like jellyfish), but if you’re not offering those dishes, then you aren’t an authentic Chinese restaurant.

3)     Mapo tofu – this is a classic spicy dish with tofu and ground pork.  The Beijing version has an explosion of peppercorns with each mouthful, and a restaurant had to do this dish well in order to make our list.

This is only the beginning of our search, but we’ve come up with three restaurants that we think fit the criteria.  They are as follows (in order of discovery):

Sichuan Pavilion (1814 K St NW; 202-466-7790):  a friend of mine who works at the World Bank introduced me to this restaurant.  She told me it was where all of the Chinese who work at the World Bank go to eat.  (Branching out to other cuisines is not a Chinese strength—why sample other cuisines when your own is so clearly superior?)  The restaurant is better decorated than most Chinese restaurants, and the staff is knowledgeable and competent.  It gets very crowded at lunchtime, so make sure you go early or late if you want to avoid the lines.

Chalin’s, formerly Charlie Chiang’s (4250 Connecticut Ave NW; 202-966-1916):  the parents of a friend of our daughter’s introduced us to this restaurant.  They formerly worked at the Chinese Embassy, which is just down the street and told us that Chalin’s is a popular place for lunch for embassy employees.  In fact, the restaurant shut down during Hu Jintao’s visit so that the chef could cook for him while he was in the United States (note previous comment about branching out or the lack thereof.)  We’ve only been for dinner, and it’s never been crowded.  They have private rooms that you can reserve, which is a nice touch for large family gatherings.

Great Wall Szechuan House (1527 14th St NW; 202-797-8888):  some Japanese friends introduced us to this restaurant.  Mapo tofu is a favorite dish amongst the Japanese—go figure.  This is the most casual of the three restaurants (which is a pretty high (low?) bar when you’re talking about Chinese restaurants).  There is limited seating, but if you live close by, takeout is very doable.  Parking is VERY limited.  We are seriously thinking about using a car service next time we go.  Jim thinks the mapo tofu here is the best of the three because it is the least greasy, but the rest of us disagree.  The twice-cooked pork here is a must order.  Normally, it’s a very ordinary dish, but at the Great Wall, they use pork belly instead of ordinary pork.  Not to be missed!

We know there are more restaurants to be found, especially in Montgomery County and northern Virginia.  I’ll keep you posted on additional discoveries!