82. La Chaumiere
Tonight I channeled Julia Child. Admittedly, it was a little bit on purpose. I decided to knock off yet another French restaurant on my own, so I grabbed a book and headed down to Georgetown to try La Chaumiere. Not only was I eating at a country French restaurant, I parked on Olive Street (where Julia and her husband had a house while living in D.C.), and happened to grab “My Life in France” a biography of -you guessed it- Julia Child. I think if she was still alive, still lived in Washington and could still stand to eat French food, this place would have been her Peach Pit.
I never quite felt transported to France, but that wasn’t the restaurant’s fault. On account of their location, it seemed like most of the diners were tourists. Either the business trip kind from the Four Seasons across the street, or families that had wandered to the end of M St. and just had to sit down. I sat next to an especially stupid family of tourists who explained to their college-age daughter that the term “POTUS” was invented by Aaron Sorkin, because on the West Wing, President Bartlett liked to run by the Potomac River in the morning. Their stupidity actually ruined the end of my meal. I finished quickly just in case the dad was about to launch in to an explanation of how Friends invented rent-controlled apartments.
My meal was very yummy, and very French. On account of the Julia Child moment that I was in the midst of, I was hoping for a very Julia dish of roast chicken or chicken potpie. The closest thing I could find to that was the marinated salmon in puff pastry. The sauce was the best part—how very French. It was that magic flavor combination where I couldn’t really decipher the individual ingredients, but I do know the main ingredient was yum. I’m so used to salmon being almost undercooked these days that the fish seemed a little over done at first. But the more I ate; I realized that if the fish wasn’t so cooked it wouldn’t have gone as well with the nice buttery flakey crust. It was served with veggies and mashed potatoes, which would have been a throwaway if it wasn’t such a great way to soak up the extra sauce.
Though the menu is “French country kitchen”, the prices are definitely in American dollars. I was planning on getting the special—Dover sole—until the waiter told me that it was $49. I usually think it’s pretty tacky when waiters tell you the price of the special up front, but tacky or not I was glad he did it. You do get a lot of food for your money. I had planned to get the soup du jour (French to English translation: soup of the day, I took French), Mushroom Soup, but balked at the last minute. I definitely didn’t need it, since I almost didn’t even finish my main course. But I did finish, I’m no wuss.
I have a friend whose former boss is a regular diner at La Chaumiere, and since the boss is an old cranky man I thought that this restaurant would not really fit my idea of a fun dinner. It was a great place to eat on my own. The wait staff were very attentive and very French (oxymoron alert!), and the ambiance was so warm and cozy on this rainy night that I couldn’t pass up a cappuccino to end my meal. And channeling the queen of klutziness, Julia Child, I burned my tongue.
