While Paris is my favorite place for culture, sometimes our nation's capitol comes damn close.
Colette and I decided to spend most of the day in DC and then dine in Baltimore.
The National Gallery, open again after the Tea Party's Temper Tantrum exhausted itself, has three wonderful shows on right now; Ellsworth Kelly's glorious, almost sloppy-looking 1970's works on paper; Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris's photographs (works largely from the Carnavalet showing the pre and post Haussmann city); and an exhibition honoring the Civil War (aka the War of Northern Aggression) all-Black soldiers and all-white officers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, culminating in the monumental and very moving Saint Gaudens sculpture you've seen in the Boston Common. 3 Wows apiece!
We then repaired to Jose Andes' Zaytinya, the best of his current stable since the Cafe Atlantico closed, and both had the 4-course $25 "menu" which resulted in 8 terrific dishes with ingredients, spices and herbs (some of which he grows outside on the terrace) that caused our palates to tingle and expand and our hearts to soar. What a guy! With a bottle of Lebanese wine, two coffees and a raki, before tip our bill was $105.60.
Then off to the Van Gogh "Repetitions" exhibition at the Phillips. Why it took the art world so long to put such a thing together, after the exhibitions of multiple Monet haystacks, Munch Screams and so forth, I do not know, but despite my boycott of one more show of everything from Fragonard to Basquiat, not forgetting (as Figaroscope famously says) Matisse, Sisley, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, etc., etc., etc., I found Van Gogh to be refreshing, new and exciting, even though I think I've seen them all or their clones before, somewhere, from Buffalo's Albright Knox in 1961 or 1962 thru Amsterdam to this year's at the Pinacothèque.
Finalmente, a Bottega Ristorante a Baltimora, a small (20 covers, BYO wine and bread) eatery in the booming Station North section of town, a block west of the culinary center of the next President of Afghanistan at Tapas Teatro, the Chesapeake and the Charles. We went expecting not much, despite our town's only critical food guy, Richard Gorelick, and were pleasantly astonished.
The starters of goose slices with salad greens and green tomatoes with mozzarella and pesto were appreciated by all 7 members of our extended family (7-77 years of age). Then the wee ones had the papparadelle with tomato sauce - the older ones the same with duck, one squash tortellini and a pork chop with mushrooms that exceeded the other dishes tastiness.
For dessert we shared portions of pannacotta with a cherry (butter) on top.
The bill, for 7, was $95.40, thus $27.24 a couple without wine - that cannot be correct. But it is.
Comments