Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Sustainable Celebrating

Last night we went to Hook, one of the new 'it' restaurants in DC, to celebrate Alex's birthday. It definitely lived up to all its hype.

I was worried that we would lose our reservations because we were over half an hour late thanks to district traffic. However, when we finally arrived, they enthusiastically greeted us and escorted us to our table among all the DC hob-nobbers. The place was packed with men in power suits, women with pearls, everyone with blackberries, diplomats speaking all different languages, and people talking politics. Not our usual dining crowd, but it was fun pretending that we fit in for one night.

Onto the food. Hook is famous for serving sustainable seafood, locally grown produce, humane meat, and generally being upscale eco-friendly. Very bourgie, very limousine liberal, very DC, I know. However, I give the young, cute, and already famous chef, Barton Seaver, credit for raising consciousness taking ordinary or unknown fish and cooking it really well. Really really well.

For dinner we started off with crudos, which is an Italian version of sashimi, and an amazing beet salad. For dinner I had bluefish and Alex had snapper. Finally, for dessert, we shared a ligonberry tart and a little goat-cheesecake. We usually do not go through all the courses when we go out, but it was a birthday. I was just happy when Alex put this dinner as one of the top five meals he's ever had.

After going out for a really nice meal, I can finally see what they are talking about on Top Chef and also why other countries look down on American food as a whole (we choose quantity over quality). Unfortunately sustainable seafood restaurants are not as sustainable to my bank account- at least not yet. But I bet I could make simpler versions of some of the food tonight. Like that beet salad, yum.

Anyway, I am no food critic but if you have a special occasion, go to Hook.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Very cool stuff. I'll try to remember it next chance I get to visit DC. :)

Your mentioning conscientious restaurants made me think of Chipotle. They seem to pride themselves on being, if not eco-friendly, then at the very least food-quality oriented. If you haven't checked it out, you should. It's a fast food Mexican place, but, at least out here, the quality is lightyears beyond any place like Taco Bell (though, really, how hard is that?).