Oh, last night we had a wonderful, WONDERFUL dinner at James on 8th Street. (http://www.jameson8th.com/). The crispy sweebreads served with soft egg priovided just the right amount of crunch to offset the rich velvet texture of the sweetbreads. The homemade tagliatelle topped with duck ragu and bitter shaved chocolate was dee-lish, the pasta light as tissue, the duck ragu thick with earthy flavor. For a main dish, the potato-encrusted halibut was a solid triple, topped by an out-of-the-park pink snapper in a teriyaki sauce. It ws exactly what you'd expect from a place headed by a guy named by Food and Wine as one of the 20 Best New Chefs of 2008 (http://www.foodandwine.com/bestnewchefs/)
But as always, the atmosphere is what makes James really shine. The talented bartender is a great source of the building's history, providing us with an outline of previous tenants. The place has always housed a restaurant, beginning in the '20s with The Wine Barrel, which turned over into DiTourino's. It then transformed into DeMedici's (anyone see a theme here?) and was last known as Michael's, a restaurant decorated in everyone's favorite suburban-banquet-hall style.
Go, get the Hendricks and Honeydew, relax in the lounge and ALWAYS order the pasta.
Next it was on to Chick's Wine Bar (corner of 7th and Kater), a great local place with an impressive wine list and a more impressive bartender, the only lady who can get the ladies to drink the evil brown liquors. She hides them in delicious girly drinks! (http://www.chickscafe.com/)
These two destinations combined make for a great night out, with flowy drinks, edible flowers - an evening worth the headache the next day!
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