The first thing I noticed when the plate of food hit my table was the aroma. Damn, was this going to be good. And it was.
This is going to be a quick report because I only ordered one item, recommended by the inestimable Marty L. on donrockwell.com. I always like getting specific recs, and I got lucky it was still on the seasonal menu. I ordered the rigatoni with spicy octopus. It features al dente rigatoni, tiny olives and tiny chickpeas with great texture, and bits of octopus in a clingy tomato reduction. The dish was indeed spicy and had a lot of great flavors going on. Usually an intense tomato flavor masks the other ingredients, but not in this case.
I could have done without the shower of breadcrumbs on top, but I don’t mean to quibble with deliciousness.
This place is a sea of tranquility in the otherwise boisterous Adams Morgan.
What’s the name of the restaurant? Lived in Adams Morgan a long long time ago on Kalorama and 18th. Used to imbibe at Millie and Al’s, have brunch at the New Orleans cafe, eat at a couple of good Ethiopian and Central American places and celebrated the arrival of Mexican food at Lauriol Plaza.
In a way, Adams Morgan hasn’t changed much. There are probably more places that are an odd mix of trashy/upscale that look like they are run down and closed but open up late at night. Millie and Al’s space is now a place called Code Red, representative of the genre. For all I know the food is awesome, but it’s not my scene. In May I am going to see three one act plays by WB Yeats at DCAC, right next door.
Revelers Hour and Tail Up Goat are two very serious restaurants that attract folks from outside the neighborhood. Both are quiet and informally elegant and you’d have no idea that just outside are a throngs of young people looking for loud music and jumbo pizza by the slice.
We stayed at The Line 4 or 5 years ago and wandered our old streets. There was a coffee place on 18th and I think we ate at the hotel which had a good restaurant.
You were there in The Before Times when everything was hopping, particularly that hotel. The restaurant there was called Spoken English, which made a splash at the time. Now closed.
