Vidalia

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So Washington, D.C. is where KB lives, so I go there a lot. She recently took me to a restaurant that was so frustratingly District in terms of decor (see their hotel basement, empty of people entirely marketing strategy on their web site), but so impressive, food-wise, that I'm now obliged to reconsider every jab, insult and curse I've ever fired off at the nation's capital. That restaurant was Vidalia, in Dupont Circle.

Chef Jeffrey Buben's mom is from North Carolina, and so's his wife (who cutely answers the phone to take reservations with her belle-ish accent), so the restaurant's Dixie cooking is roughly the chef's equivalent of "write what you know," except it's more like, write what the women in your life know. Maybe that's a better plan? Who knows. Whatever the story behind it, his cooking is outstanding.

We're talking about onions, here. Lots of onions. And maybe you think naming your restaurant after the chi-chi foodie word for "onion," and also making onions the main ingredient in most dishes is an off-putting idea -- hell, I did, at first -- but I assure you there's nothing to worry about, and nothing on the menu that isn't worth celebrating, as far as I could tell.

The de facto starter is a sweet onion-and-apple tatin in which you dip this pillowy onion bread that reminds you of those rolls you used to get in the lunch line in elementary school, only sweet (but just so) and foamy and delicate. Amazing. I quenched my inordinate, burning, desirous urges for booze with an honest-to-goodness Sazerac, which was cool and delicious, but a little puncy on the rye, if you know what I mean. The perfect apertif.

We got a rabbit starter as well, that I unfortunately don't have a picture of, but again, Damn.

The real coup, however, was the goat-n-garlic plate. Goat is a difficult meat to work with, like skirt steak or venison or something. You've got this gamey, disgusting animal, and you've got to make him tender, juicy, and delicious by dinner. For the goat plate, Bubes got out his grinder and served us up two very tender meatballs with a scallion cream sauce, and threw in two mini-slices of roasted goat and goat sausage, both in a tart barbecue-ish sauce for good measure. KB and I agreed that the roasted was great, but not the best thing on the plate. She liked the 'balls, I the sausage.

Then, scan your eyes to the center of the plate in the photo above, and you'll see the roasted full bulb of garlic. Now, I'd never had roasted garlic before, and I was afraid. What will this do to my breath? Is garlic complex enough that I can just eat the whole thing? Will this just be like spooning minced garlic into my mouth?

The answers are not much, yes, and no. When roasted, especially in broth like this one was, garlic because incredibly soft and juicy and takes on this robust flavor that you just can't stop eating. And the meaty parts of it just come right out of the flaky skin with each jab of the fork. Mmmm.

Mains included a juicy ribeye that was just on the mark, paired with a Malbec that was just dry enough, and far too expensive (was this a special occasion? I forget...), and dessert was so good that we ate it before I could take a photo. It was made of pecans, I think.

FOOD: A
You could tell this place spends a lot of time on their meat, which is just one of the ways it's very Southern in character, but putting the onion at the forefront of everything was just so new to me (even though this place has been open since at least the mid-90s) and worked so unexpectedly well. Admittedly, I'm a sucker for strange game (goat, rabbit, etc) but this was the best goat I've had since Mallorca, a Pittsburgh Spanish restaurant that makes a mean goat stew. Vidalia's pricey (we went during DC Restaurant Week -- probably no chance for their regular menu), but scrumptious.

AMBIENCE: C-
I'm 24. I'm not ready to resign myself to eating all the time at restaurants that look like they're in strip malls filled with couples who look like they met on "companionship" match-up sites. Y'know, give me a hipster bar with tater tots and a few scumbags who look like they met on Nerve.com, like, every once in a while? Vidalia's just very stuffy -- all done in beige nylon upholstery and mirrored walls and while tablecloths. It's like being sucked through a vacuum of drabness into the most colorless hole of the 1960s.

LIQUOR: B+
I've actually made a better Sazerac than the one I had here, but they get props for even putting it on the menu. Plus a lot of tasty South American reds on the list, which really gets my goat (tee hee).