L'Auberge Chez Francois

For my dear friend's 42.8th birthday, he made reservations at one of his favorite destination restaurants.  I couldn't even spell opulence before the night began, but afterwards, I knew what it tasted like.  The enjoyment of L'Auberge starts before you even get there... It's located in Great Falls... out in the woods, down these beautiful and fun-to-drive winding country roads lined with McMansions decked out last night with Christmas lights.  You just drive and drive and drive, twisting and turning until you come up to a french country house in the middle of no where.  literally.  Even though it was only a half hour drive from DC, it felt like Alice in Wonderland.  The meal started with 2 bottles of bubbles called in from California and 2 bottles of French country wine... Course 1 was a quiche that melted on my tongue.  My appetizer was a tuna tartar with endive and a bit of caviar, perfectly flavored.  My salad, I chose the special, which was a duck.  The duck was very sweet, complemented by candied pears and citrus fruits.  It might have very well been the best salad I've ever had.  With a sorbet between dishes, my entree was the veal scaloppini.  The sauce was rich.  The spaetzle perfectly cooked.  The meat coupled with the mushrooms and the sauce complemented each other perfectly.  My last course, I pre-ordered a grand marnier souffle... nobody at the table was excited to try it... but everybody agreed it was the BEST desert choice of the 6 of us... although the chocolate souffle (If I liked chocolate) was the richest, most decadent desert I've ever tasted.  My friend said the service was "off" last night... but I gotta say, if that was "off" for this restaurant, just about any DC establishment could learn something from the staff there on such an off night.  The only drawback... I really had to restrain myself from imbibing too much wine because of the location and knowing my on-call DD would have never found me in the woods.  5 stars!

Ba-bye Bebo

I never understood the allure of Bebo... a trendy Italian restaurant in Crystal City.  People either LOVED it, in all caps... or hated it.  It was not the kind of place you'd just go to because you needed food.  The one thing both groups had in common was to expect to be there for a very long time.  I suppose if you're enjoying your evening there, that's not a bad thing.  I've never had a great experience and tonight was no different.  Not by my choosing, there was a work dinner thing there with about 12 people.  The place had 2 large parties and the party room was packed.  Nobody else was in the restaurant.  On a Friday night.  That should have been clue 1.  Since we were all work-chatty, I didn't notice the exceptionally long time it took to order and get our food.  The entire ordeal took about 3.5 hours give or take.  My food portion was far too small for the price... I ordered swordfish.  I don't remember if I asked for it with no flavor, but that's how it came out.  On a plate so hot that it must have been sitting under a serious heat lamp for at least 10 minutes.  I imagine had I ordered a meal of courses as is tradition in a good Italian place, my portion was the right size.  But... I don't think that's why it was small.  I think it was small because the place is going out of business and the chef didn't care.  Not only was it small, but it was a bad cut of fish, bruised and previously frozen.  That's not how I want to enjoy my fish... I truly think the chef didn't care.  My coworker's salmon was dry.  The pasta dish was unappetizing and the pizza that came out was described as ketchup on wonderbread smashed thin with some cheese.  Now that last description also came from an Alabama guy who thinks McDonalds is fine dining.  Not an insult to him... he'd probably agree.  When we discovered discrepancies on the bill and couldn't decipher it because it was in Italian, I sought our server... turns out our server didn't even work there and the place was self imploding!  Nobody came to work... if anybody was even scheduled.  The restaurant is closing.  Well, I say good riddance.  It is too good a space and location for it to be occupied by a restaurant like that.  At the end of the meal, everybody was talking about going to Chipotle across the street.