Easter 2013

In between snowstorms and rain falling from sullen grey skies, the sky became clear enough on Wednesday evening for me to see the full moon, meaning that Easter was just around the corner. I had thought about it a little bit about a month ago when Ann first brought up doing lamb again for Easter. I thought about it for about five minutes, long enough to scratch out a menu on my clipboard—yes, in this digital world, this particular dinosaur's personal assistant is a clipboard—and then promptly forgot about it until I saw the full moon.

I don't know why, but it somehow seemed fitting to do a little Greek food for Easter this year. I just had a hankering for some honest, home-cooked Greek food with no shortcuts. So I set about this menu on Good Friday by getting my pita dough started and then prepped most of the dinner on Saturday during the day, and what little was left over à la minute on Sunday.

Tom and Ann Matthes joined us for dinner. We had expected Ann's parents but her dad, Bob, was not feeling well. We missed them.

Mezés

Olives

Pita

Taramosalata

Marinated Cucumbers

Dolmades

Dinner

Arni Lemonato (Slow-Roasted Lamb)

Roasted Potatoes

Horta: Spinach Braised with Onions and Dill

Dessert

Orange Salad with Pistachios, Candied Pine Nuts, Feta, Mint, and Olive Oil
Cheeses

Dolmades and Marinated Cucumbers

Top to Bottom: Tzatziki, Olives, Taramosalata

I made tzatziki from really awesome goat milk yogurt and traditional taramosalata from bread, tarama, olive oil, grated onion, and lemon juice. I wish that my tarama (mullet roe, bottarga) had a more pronounced fishy flavor, but it was still good.

Ed-Made Pita

As I mentioned earlier, I started pita dough on Friday to let it ferment through several rises to develop flavor. Then I baked several sheet trays of it on Saturday and rewarmed it in the oven on Sunday. I make pita from the exact same dough that I make focaccia and pizza dough. And I make naan from the same dough, substituting yogurt for the olive oil.

Arni Lemonato me Patates, Horta

For the lamb this year, I decided to go with shanks because they are my favorite cut, but I decided to do something different: slow roast them. For whatever reason, I have always braised them in the past. I cut 5-6 slits in each shank and inserted a sliver of garlic, rubbed them with olive oil, and gave them a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper, then roasted them in a very hot oven for about 20 minutes, turning once, until they were browned all the way around. I squeezed a couple lemons over the shanks and sprinkled them with oregano, then added about four ounces of water to the bottom of the roasting pan and double-wrapped it in foil. The shanks cooked in a slow oven for an additional two and a half hours.

I scored some pretty Kennebec potatoes at the farmers market and they got roasted in a very hot convection oven until crispy done. The star of the plate was the horta, the greens, which I only wilted instead of braising. I only used spinach this time because Ann is a bit iffy on other greens and I wanted her to enjoy them. I sweated a finely diced onion in olive oil with several slivered cloves of garlic, then added the spinach and just wilted it. Into the pan next went a little feta cheese, fresh dill, and the first tiny mint leaves of the year from the garden. A quick season with salt and pepper and we had a fabulous side dish.

Tom's Cheeses: Gouda, Detroit Street Brick, Gorgonzola, Cabot Cheddar

Tom and Ann brought cheese for dessert. The orange gouda and the goat brick, I've already discussed in a prior post. The cheese in the front right is Cabot's (yes, the same people who make so-so block grocery store cheese) Clothbound Cheddar, that has been aged by affineurs in Vermont for a minimum of 13 months. Really, really delicious Cheddar that even the Brits would be forced, albeit most grudgingly, to admit is worthy. The hit of the day for me though was the Gorgonzola Naturale, just above the Cheddar in the photo. The texture is just so damned creamy and perfect on this particular wheel of cheese. Splendid!

Blood Orange Salad

No doubt we all know by now that I just don't care for sweets for dessert, though I do have a fondness for fruit. So I made a salad of sliced blood oranges and then tossed chunks of blood oranges with olives and feta and put that over the sliced oranges. I drizzled this with honey and extra virgin olive oil then sprinkled it with salt, pistachios, candied pine nuts, and the cutest, tiniest baby mint leaves from the garden.

The Greek Taverna, McLean VA

Ann and I traveled to a food service show at FedEx Field in Prince George's County on Monday night and on the way over, stopped in McLean to have dinner with her parents Bob and Mary at The Greek Taverna. Ann used to eat here frequently when she lived in Northern Virginia.

Never having eaten there, I wasn't sure what style of food they serve. Once I took a look at the menu though, I could see that it is basically the canonical list of Greek standards that I have come to expect, very simple and very traditional dishes. This is not the place for creative food. Given their longevity in business, they are clearly serving a product year in and year out that their customers want.

On a Monday night, there really wasn't much of a crowd and so we had the service team mostly to ourselves and they certainly took great care of us. I tipped them well for their attentiveness.

Good Xinomavro from Boutari

The first order of business was to find a bottle of wine and with a tiny list, half red and half white, it took no time at all. When I eat at a Greek restaurant, I want a Greek wine, but not only Greek in origin, but made from indigenous grapes. There were only two (of about 8) reds from indigenous grapes: an Agiorgitiko (St. George) and a Xinomavro. The particular Xinomavro was from Naoussa and I have had good luck with that appellation, so I ordered the wine. Clearly the Boutari Naoussa has seen a lot of time in oak, but the oak harmonizes well with the abundant, but fine tannins. I got notes of blackberry, leather, and spice on the nose. It was a fine example of modern Greek red.

Halloumi: Who Doesn't Love it?

Spreads for our Pita

Ann ordered halloumi and spreads (skordalia, tzatziki, taramosalata, and melitzanosalata) as appetizers for the table. She also ordered a plate of grilled cuttlefish for us. This was either an off-menu thing or a special; I was never clear on that. The cuttlefish was tasty and well cooked; of the spreads, the skordalia was the best of the bunch. Some of the other spreads were lacking oomph to my taste: more oregano and garlic for the tzatziki, more tarama for the taramosalata, and salt for the melitzanosalata. The pita were perfunctory and the olive flatbread that appeared on the table was cold. I have a thing for warm bread; maybe they don't.

Mary ordered broiled trout and Bob ordered stuffed salmon. I was in a fish mood, but Mondays and fish in restaurants are a no-no in my book and they didn't have any other fish. Sorry, but I'm not going out to eat rainbow trout or salmon at a Greek restaurant. Branzino, orata, octopus, squid, or mullet, sure. But trout or salmon, no thanks. So, meat it was.

Arni Yiouvetsi

Ann apparently knew that they do lamb yiouvetsi as a regular off-menu dish, so she ordered it. This is one of my all-time go-to comfort foods in winter. We sometimes put lamb yiouvetsi on the menu at the restaurant, but most recently, I have been doing seafood yiouvetsi, especially with octopus. The yiouvetsi is the earthenware casserole that you see above; the cooked dish has taken its name from the dish that it is cooked in, just like casserole, cazuela, and terrine. Her yiouvetsi was good but I wanted more lemon juice, more garlic, and more oregano. I didn't get a good hit of lamb flavor in the orzo: they may have been cooked separately. Of course, the kitchen may have been scrambling to fill an order for something they weren't really prepared to make.

Arni Lemonato

I ordered the lamb special, the lemonato, a dish that I haven't made in years. I have got to say that my lamb shoulder was falling apart tender and was the best dish of the night. I wanted more garlic, oregano, and lemon, but still, falling apart braised lamb can hardly be beat!

After dinner, we chatted with one of the owners about the restaurant business, something restaurant owners can never seem to avoid. She very kindly sent out a couple of individually wrapped galaktoboureko to the table for dessert. I love galaktoboureko, but it doesn't love me, so I only had a taste. I appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

I liked the experience and certainly the service was excellent, but the food was a touch soulless to me, however. It just didn't have that spark: nothing stood out as being terrific. It pains me to say that it feels like the kitchen is on autopilot, turning out decent product but not putting their hearts in it. Ann may disagree.

Opa! Mezze Grill, Ashburn

Jealousy. Yep. Jealousy. Vice or virtue, I cannot say, but I had it last week as Amanda and Dimitri were posting to Facebook from Opa! Mezze Grill in Ashburn. Ann took the beast by the horns this weekend and insisted that we trek in to Ashburn to check it out. The restaurant has very good reviews on the internet and deservedly so. The owners are a hard working family putting out honest food at reasonable prices.

On the drive in from Winchester to Ashburn, I noticed something I hadn't seen before. Even though it is only mid-August, already the sumacs and some of the dogwoods are changing color to a vibrant red and a deep purple respectively. Fall is on the way, inexorably, as ever. Good or bad depends on your worldview I suppose, but for me, right now, I have done quite enough sweating in our brutal hell hole of a restaurant kitchen and am looking forward to more amenable temperatures and humidity. And a good bottle of red while rocking a pullover sitting out on the back patio with my best girl!

Kotsifali: a New Grape for Us

The big camera's battery crapped out so Ann shot these on her phone. First up, what to drink? Not much of a selection: we got a choice of two bottles, one a Greek Merlot and the other this Kotsifali from Lyrakakis of Crete. I don't believe I've ever had either a wine from Crete or Kotsifali before. It's a pleasant enough medium-bodied red that most people would like.

We started with some mezze: grilled octopus, saganaki, and a trio of dips: taramosalata, melitzanosalata, and tyrokafteri, a feta and jalapeno dip. Stars: grilled octopus and the taramosalata, both awesome! I could have bathed in both of them and the ladolemono sauce on the octopus was perfect for dipping the pita.

The eggplant salad was heavy-handed with garlic (thank you!!) to keep the haters away, but was desperately seeking salt, as was the tyrokafteri. I was expecting the tyrokafteri to be the most interesting of the mezze; it was the least. Good, but needed a flavor injection.

Opa! Gyro

After this, we ordered a pork gyro and zucchini fritters. It seems that everyone on the web is raving about the gyro. It was good, but I'm not going to rave about it. You see that it has fries in it. They're good fries, but I'd rather have them on the side, which I will ask for next time. On a scale from meh to bravo, this gyro was right in the middle. The meat was very tasty, but a bit dried out.

I ordered the zucchini fritters because I wanted to compare them to our squash cakes at the restaurant. They were flavored just about like ours and were delicious, not to mention screaming hot right out of the fryer. The accompanying tzatziki was made from a good quality yogurt, but not much else. I wanted more flavor from it, a little red wine, a touch of oregano, and a hint of garlic.




Selection of Dips

Bottom line: solid, honest food, at reasonable prices. There is no reason why we won't be back and if we lived closer, we'd be more frequent guests.