Excuses, excuses

Monday's announcement has kind of thrown our whole schedule into wack, hence the lack of cooking. Miraculously, we landed ourselves reservations at Citronelle to celebrate. Now, Citronelle is and has been for years the #1 restaurant in Washington D.C. I've been saving up for a dinner since September, and was planning on making a night of it sometime next month. Well, between the acceptance and our upcoming 2.5 year anniversary (inconveniently on Easter Sunday), and them having a free slot, last night was the night. Since this is a blog about cooking and not restaurant reviews, I'll only say that it was incredible, some of the dishes were truly fantastic (a foie gras and canard confit soup paired with 10 year madeira was out of this world). Michel Richard was even there, standing out in a black chef's shirt, watching the head chef and sous-chefs working fervently in the pristine open kitchen. That was pretty cool, as he is the top celebrity chef in the area. However, we have had more exciting food at Alinea and better service at Tru (both in Chicago). The Citronelle Grand tasting menu was not perfectly balanced: too many fish and/or lobster dishes, some less than inspiring numbers, and a blue cheese cabbage salad right before the deserts that was truly atrocious. All this to say, it was a fantastic night, but D.C. still hasn't stolen my heart away from Chicago. :)

Tonight D. is making a clam pasta and I'm going to finally ice that chocolate cake, so there should be some more posts. But then we'll be out of commission again until Monday, because we're going to NYC to visit fam, friends, and see Patrick Stewart in Macbeth at BAM.