Vidalia

Vidalia
1990 M St., NW
About .4 miles from Dupont Circle Metro
About a half mile walk from Farragut West Metro

Cuisine: Southern Influence

My final restaurant week endeavor was for a lunch at Vidalia. The only better time to get a good deal on a meal than a restaurant week dinner is a restaurant week lunch. A three course meal (not usually the same menu) for $20.08 is a fantastic way to try a new place. On top of that, it lets you cook for dinner, and save even more money! Vidalia came as a recommendation and it was quite good. I met one friend for a nice late lunch. The place was still pretty crowded, even at 1:30 and people were still coming in at 3. Vidalia put out a lot of their full menu for restaurant week, but half of the menu had relatively hefty surcharges. In looking at Vidalia's lunch menu, they normally do a $28.00 prix fix tasting menu, which could be a decent deal, especially if you can use the whole menu with no upcharges. The friend I went with keeps kosher so that basically means no meat or seafood but fish at a restaurant, particularly no pig products.

Menu:
Appetizers:
Me - Vidalia's seasonal lettuce blend - with roulade of hazelnuts, brad’s goat cheese, dried apricots, fines herbes and champagne vinaigrette ($10.50)
Friend - wild mushroom soupcreamy purée with red wine-truffle emulsion and house cured shoat pancetta (not on regular menu)

Entrees:
Me - roasted briar hollow farm rabbit legwith ginger-carrot purée, heirloom onions, herbedspaetzle and amish mustard-rabbit emulsion (not on regular menu)
Friend - roasted chatham bay codwith whipped brandade, smoked vegetable gelée and meyer lemon-soft clam vinaigrette

Dessert:
Split - vidalia’s lemon chess pie: buttery crust filled with rich lemon custard garnished with berry compote and chantilly cream ($10.25)
georgia pecan tart: served warm with butterscotch sauce, cocoa nib ice cream, praline and chocolate tuile ($10.75)

Sweet:
The Cornbread! - The cornbread is worth the price of admission. You should totally go to Vidalia and get cornbread and soda. It would be pretty cheap because the soda was only $2.95 (average in DC) and the cornbread was free. The cornbread was among the top two cornbreads I've ever had (the other is my mother's). It is perfectly granular and has a nice sweetness to it. You'll notice a trend, but it has a slight hint of onion in it and a lot of butter (the only downfall of the cornbread). At the same time, I think that's how cornbread is supposed to be. It's not a healthy place folks. It's southern cuisine. The cornbread is served with a delightful sweet onion marmelade.

The Set Up - The tables were well spread out with plenty of space. Conversation was very easy because there was very little background noise. Added onto that, the waiters (I didn't see any female servers) put the trays down at the entrance to the room and just carry plates into the room and to the table. It's a nice touch that helps the set up and increases space while reducing noise. The little things do count.

My Salad - My salad was delicious and it wasn't for the normal reason. Normally I like a salad because it's well put together, there's the right amount of dressing and the dressing is good. I can also like a salad because they do a very good job with the tomatoes and other vegetables, but this salad was good because the lettuce was fantastically fresh (that's right, alliteration folks). There was, of course, a hint of onion in the salad greens, a springy mesclun mix of sorts. The flavor of the lettuce and oniony aftertaste actually took over the salad. The vinaigrette was a subtle complement.

Cod - I only had a small bite of the cod, but it was a very flavorful fish. There was a hint of onion and a little too much butter in the flavor, but that was a very small problem when compared to the use of the flavor of the fish. The chef didn't try to mask the flavor of the fish, instead, it also chose to complement it (I'm big on bringing out the natural flavor of foods). It had a slightly crispy outside, and a very southern flavor.


Bland:
Rabbit - The rabbit was pretty good, but it didn't have the same appeal as the rest of the meal. It was a pretty small amount of rabit (much different than the rest of the meal) and the rabbit didn't really augment the flavor of the rabbit. Once again, there was a clear taste of onion in the entree (mixed in with the heirloom onions). This time, however, the onion was a complement to the mustard seed, not to the rabbit which is a shame because it was a good cut of rabbit. Rabbit has such a distinct flavor that it wasn't great to lose. The mustard sauce was good, but not as good as it could have been. There was also a good amount of butter in it.

Desserts - I think the desserts would probably be stellar if you just went to the restaurant for dessert, but they were a little too much after that meal. The first bite was better than the last for the lemon chess. The lemon chess part was delicious, but the crust was far too much butter in flavor and feel. It was a very substantial pie, so if you're hungry after your meal, you won't be after the pie. The pecan tart was a very good item with a definite southern feel to it, but it was also very heavy, sweet and butter was the overpowering flavor. The ice cream, however, was a fantastic complement to the pecan flavor. Don't go in expecting a good pecan pie, because this tart is a little more chocolatey than tradition would dictate. The main problem with both desserts is that they are VERY heavy.

Decor - The decor was very minimalist. It tried to be creative, but it pretty much comes down as simple. I don't think the decor particularly matched the cuisine. It was very square (plates and light fixtures). The tables were large and round, which was kind of a nice contrast. There were very few wall decorations and it was kind of an off white look. All in all, it was a very simple look, which is definitely better than distraction, but it certainly didn't wow me.

Service - The service was very varied. I think my description would be professional, but a little standoffish. As I stated earlier, they carry plates in from the edge of the room, which I really liked. The waiter was knowledgeable, but not particularly willing to share that knowledge when he knew it was necessary. My friend told the waiter he couldn't eat meat and ordered the soup. The server recommended the cod, but didn't mention that there was ham in the soup. He did, however, take the soup back and bring my friend a new soup with no ham in it. I was impressed by that, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. He kept the drinks filled pretty well (although we had water) and was very efficient. He left us plenty of time to eat, which was good, even though it was lunch and I would have liked to eat a little faster. He wouldn't have known that though. His demeanor was very professional the whole time.

Bitter:
Mushroom Soup - Aside from the obvious problem of not telling my friend that there was ham in it...who puts ham in a wild mushroom soup? Then it would be ham soup with wild mushrooms! I never heard anything good about the soup, I heard it was again, oniony and buttery, which doesn't seem to get along well with mushrooms. I heard the soup was pretty heavy, which is also a problem with an appetizer course. So the soup gets a bad rating.

Menu - The menu is exhorbitantly too confusing. They put a lot of words in four or five different languages on the menu, and with the standoffish nature of the staff, they are not particularly the type of place to explain a lot of the menu to you. I feel that when you put together a menu, you need to make sure that you pick a language or two.

Feeling Afterwards - The food is very heavy, it definitely weighed me down when I was done.

Recommendations:
Quality: ***.5
Value: $$

Three and a half stars. The Cornbread really may be that good. If you like onions and you're in the mood for a HEAVY meal, Vidalia is a good place to go. If you're looking to impress someone, you can pretend that you understand the menu and it's a good place to acknowledge knowing about. Watch out for that after feeling because it's a heavy meal.

I give it a 2 $ value rating. It's not an amazing value, but the food is pretty good. It is relatively highly priced for southern cuisine, particularly the desserts. You won't get out of there for less than $60 a person for a three course dinner. It's worth trying once, but I don't see southern cuisine as the ideal special occassion meal, but it is a special occassion price.