28. Vermilion
The girls and I made a stop in Old Town today at Vermilion for brunch. I am not a Virginia person - raised in Maryland and settled in the District after college, I have really just started to explore my neighbor to the South. Admittedly, I have never really given Virginia a chance (confusing roads! bad zoning! mcmansion city!), but days like today have started to open me up to all that Virginia has to offer. It was one of those great Alexandria days where every store had its door open and everyone seemed to be having a sale. There was no time for shopping though—we were 15 minutes late and I was determined not to loose our reservation.
**A side note about our reservation and the first of my complaints about OpenTable. Our 12:00pm reservation was for three people but at the last minute, the lovely and talented Lauren decided to join us. When I went to change the reservation on OpenTable, it said that the only reservation available for a table for four was 1:30pm. Now, I don’t know what they have going for them in Virginia—there are a lot of strange laws—but I find that most tables that seat three people also seat four. I don’t know of many restaurants with triangular tables. Luckily, the nice man who answered the phone at the restaurant was willing to change my reservation. Rant concluded (for now).**
To be honest, I hadn’t really researched this stop beforehand. I wish I had, because when we walked in, all four of us thought the restaurant was four different cuisines. Melanie was thinking Moroccan, Michelle thought French, and I thought it was Thai. It was like a baby nursery of a kid that the parents didn’t want to know the sex of before it was born—the restaurant was culturally-neutral. In the end it was French, but luckily for me it was not TOO French. We were seated in the upstairs dining room, which was much nicer than the downstairs one. When we walked out I realized that all the tables on the first floor were full of parents with stroller-bound children. Apparently the second floor was not handicap or baby-cap accessible. The upstairs was very nice—dark brick and black furniture with oil lamp sconces and a lovely view of King Street. The windows even seemed strategically placed so you were not staring directly at a Chipotle or a Ritz Camera.
The menu was basic but all the options seemed scrumptious. The Chicken and Dumplings was ordered for the table, which I thought was a strange choice but I went with it since it looked tasty. When it was plopped down in the middle of the table I realized my dining friends didn’t know that Chicken and Dumplings is soup. So now after I made fun of the waiter at Hank’s Oyster Bar last week, I can say that I’ve split soup. The soup was as tasty as the menu advertised—light gnocci-style dumpling in a thick but not heavy broth. I almost wished it was colder outside because it would have been the perfect thing to warm my belly. But it was almost 80 degrees today and my main course worked with the weather much better. I had the portobello mushroom sandwich, which I almost passed on for purely mechanical reasons. I find that mushroom sandwiches usually slip and slide and completely deconstruct as soon as you bite in to them. Luckily this one was anchored to ciabatta with pesto and goat cheese (!). I worried that I would be upset that I didn’t go for a breakfast option, but this sandwich was satisfying without leaving me with the feeling that I had to immediately take a nap. It was served with some heavily salted fries, which had I not added more salt to before tasting, would have been amazing. I still ate them though, no worries.
The girls had standard breakfast fare—eggs and toast and potatoes—where we discovered what will now forever be known as “Jewish Eggs Benedict”. How do you make such a a thing? 1. Latke instead of an English muffin 2. Eggs over easy 3. Applesauce and sour cream instead of hollendaise sauce. Genius, right? I’m thinking of going on the road with it.
Final thought about Vermilion: Yummy, girly and satisfying. It’s hard to judge something this high on the list by their brunch (even though Washingtonian did say it was one of the better brunches in the city), so I might have to go back for another run at dinner time. That is if I can figure my way to Virginia in the dark.
