7. Vidalia
Of all the many restaurants on the Washingtonian list, there was only one that my mom had dibs on. And just to make sure she wouldn’t bail on all the random restaurants I forced her to go to, I held out until the very end to try Vidalia. She loved the previous incarnation of Vidalia from back in the day when it was the restaurant, and so she was psyched to try it out now that it had been rehabbed and refurbished.
I never saw the before picture of Vidalia, but this subterranean space was anything but dark and dreary. Light colors and glass partitions gave it that lofty feel but without the picture windows looking out on the McDonalds and Jos. A. Banks of M St. outside. It was like a little escape from the hoards of office drones fighting their way in to the newest chic salad restaurant. I fully expected the clientele to be the standard expense account types, but there were quite a few tables of younger worker bees mixed in. I thought maybe the restaurant week menu had been extended, but no, they just came for the onions.
Since it was a serious southern restaurant, Mom and I went for some southern favs—shrimp and grits for me and fried chicken for her. My shrimp and grits were great, though there were a few shells on my shrimp, tsk tsk. The base for the sauce was rich and had a lot of depth and the grits were divine. I also appreciated that it was a true lunch portion—enough to fill me up but not enough to leave me effectively paralyzed for the rest of the day. My mom’s fried chicken was great too, with a wonderful crust and some really tender meat. It was served with some kale or some other kind of winter green that had an odd flavor we couldn’t quite place. Lucky for us we both hate winter greens, so the mystery flavor stayed a mystery.
So all in all, a very good meal and not terribly expensive. Was it worth of a number seven ranking? It would be tough for me to give it that, but maybe the dinner menu is a little more groundbreaking than the lunch menu. They did get a few points off in my book though because they didn’t have Sweet ‘n Low. What’s the deal, D.C. restaurants? Got something against the pink stuff? I wouldn’t expect that from a nice southern restaurant like Vidalia, I was just trying to sweeten up my tea for gosh sakes!
