Dupont's edible esoterica

I'm proud to say ("proud" might be overstating it) that I've now lunched at Dupont Circle's two worst-kept secrets: The Well Dressed Burrito (1220 19th St. NW) and the Brookings Institution cafeteria (1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW). Both are vaguely hidden, a la the nightclubs featured in Swingers. The Well Dressed Burrito serves up its large, marinated beef burritos ($6.50), using actual pulled meat instead of cheap ground beef, in an alleyway; the Brookings Institution cafeteria is, you guessed it, inside the Brookings Institution.


Neither, however, is truly obscure. The Brookings lunch experience, for example, has been deconstructed on Yelp, where one reviewer judged its food to be "just like its politics," that is, "middle of the road." As for The Well Dressed Burrito, here's a Pipón tip: the staff must be used to regulars since they neglected to remind me that the burrito "platter" is just $1 extra and includes homemade enchilada sauce, beans, Southwestern rice and some greens; when I visited, I was so busy dissuading my friend Lauren Miller from ordering a salad that I missed the listing on the menu.

If you want to eat somewhere truly "off the beaten path," try my sister-in-law Marni's garden-level apartment, where I tried the turkey meatballs and Israeli couscous and roasted broccoli the other day.

Burrito photography by Lauren Miller.

Curried Ballston

Here's what I think my friend Anoop cooked up tonight in his Ballston high-rise: curried broccoli and potatoes with black mustard seeds and spiced basmati rice. We scooped it up by hand, the greatest of utensils.

Top secret microwave

I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Vail last week at a friend's elegantly appointed duplex, equipped not only with a mountain-view jacuzzi and passenger elevator but also with a giant, modern kitchen with a huge gas range, acres of counter space and a futuristic microwave hidden in a drawer in the kitchen island. As they say in Argentina, aprovechamos a full.




Friday night dinner, "Notisserie" chicken, seasoned and oven roasted, stuffed with garlic, thyme, rosemary and halved lemons and served with a mushroom risotto including porcinis lovingly reconstituted, by chef David Menon, with the hydrating aid of chicken broth and white wine.



For Saturday morning breakfast, I drenched and toasted up some grilled cheese in homemade schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) and served it with a medley of guacamole and spinach-blue cheese-pine nut dip. (Leftover "Notisserie" chicken also went to work in a crunchy chicken salad that we munched on at 10,000 feet.)

Chef David Steinvurzel, swineing around all weekend, skipped the après-ski hot tub on Saturday night to hunt (fruitlessly) for broccoli rabe and prepare (fruitfully) orecchiette (Italian for "little ears," a tiny disk-shaped pasta) with sweet broccolini (eats, shoots and leaves), spicy Italian sausage, shallots, Parmesan and thickly chopped garlic. (Admission: I dig broccolini, and I was kinda hoping he'd come up short on his broccoli rabe odyssey.) Speaking of Steinvurzel, he also shot all the photographs above.

Baby broccoli

Whole Foods labeled it "baby broccoli," but I'm pretty sure it was "Broccolini," a crunchy, skinny little hybrid that apparently must always be capitalized. Either way, I chopped it and sauteed it in Albert Cho's giant wok, then tossed in some heavy cream, crumbled blue cheese and crushed black pepper in a marginally healthy Alfredo sauce. (At least I kept out the Parmesan cheese and butter!)

Couscous

Photo by Jacob L. Silberberg, chicken, couscous with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted vegetables by Mr. Silberberg and Scott Mayerowitz.

Sweet potatoes, raw

Why didn't someone tell me sooner that you can eat sweet potatoes raw? Clearing out our fridge the other night, Keryn had me grate some (raw) sweet potatoes into the (raw) carrot and (raw) red cabbage slaw that she later served with lightly breaded tofu and broccoli. The sweet potatoes added a subtle and fresh sweetness to balance out the spicy spices and heavy sauces.