Fried green tomatoes at the Chesapeake Room.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended Newton Vineyard’s Eco Chic Media Tour at (the relatively new) Chesapeake Room (501 8th Street Southeast) near Eastern Market. Michael Wisner was present; he is a contemporary American artist and designer of the new 2011 Newton Limited bottle chiller and an official partner of Newton Vineyards eco – conscious initiatives. I got to meet Chris Millard as well; he is the winemaker for Newton Vineyards. I’ve never had unfiltered wine before, and was expecting something like unfiltered grape juice (which is basically juice with pulp). No. there was no grit or pulp because wine sits longer and settles into sediment that does not wind up in your glass. Was it good? Yes, definitely better than expected.
Cheese & fig compote. The (delicious) seafood salad is to the right.
How was the food at Chesapeake Room? I had a variety of appetizers including fried green tomatoes with goat cheese tomato creme, seafood salad on cucumber slices, Appalachian cheese with (their house made) fig compote, shrimp & zucchini skewers with chimmichurri (I’ll go with their spelling), and smoked duck breast with Pomeranian sauce. My favorites were the seafood salad and the shrimp skewers, but i enjoyed all the dishes except the duck, which I felt was too tough. The fig compote was good. The chef is new to this area and is originally from North Carolina.
I attended Biagio’s sample day a couple of weeks ago. They had many great chocolate samples out (like a 100% bar, and one with pink peppercorns). They also had the list of winners from a British chocolate show and were selling the chocolates that won awards. First Vines was the guest vintner and had some great French wines at the tasting; they can actually deliver to DC or ship to Virginia (sorry Maryland). Biagio’s sample days are monthly, and while they announce the dates a few days in advance, they are (at my request) sending me the dates a couple of weeks in advance.
One nice thing about the Biagio tastings is that two wine stores on the same street have wine tastings on Saturdays. So, we hit 3 tastings in one shot. The other two shops we hit were A.M. Wineshop (which only carries French wines), and Ansonia (which has prepared foods as well). De Vinos might have tastings as well.
-JAY
