Hi friends! We had so many weekend adventures that I’m splitting my normal weekend in review post into two posts. Here’s part 1: our DC adventures! Part 2, our Charlottesville adventures, will be shared tomorrow. 🙂
As I mentioned on Friday, this weekend was all about celebrating Matt and his completion of grad school! On Friday night, his parents came into town, and we met up with my parents to enjoy a fancy dinner out in Matt’s honor at Plume, the restaurant inside the beautiful Jefferson Hotel in DC.
I’ve been there with my family before but not in quite awhile, so I was really excited to return. The first thing I noticed was how attentive the staff was – I was really impressed with the service.
And I was also really impressed with the menu – it’s so creative! For my starter, I ordered the “Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Tea.” I assumed it would just be a regular crab appetizer (delicious, but nothing out of the ordinary) – until this arrived at the table:
Um, what the heck was that, we all asked our waiter?! Apparently it was my appetizer in the making! In order to infuse the liquid that would be poured over my appetizer with flavor, they use this cool contraption. Fascinating! Matt’s dad, who is quite the foodie, was particularly impressed.
Our waiter lit the fire underneath the pot, and then we watched as the liquid started to evaporate, which allowed it to pass through to the pot in the top, where it turned back into liquid and was infused with the flavors of the items in the top. Whoa! Once the liquid had been in the top and sufficiently infused, he turned off the heat and it all return to the pot at the bottom. SO cool. Clearly I made the right appetizer choice!
I was then brought a bowl of Jumbo Lump Crab, Asparagus Lettuce, Sesame Seed White Beech Mushroom, and Orange – and the infused liquid was poured on top.
Delicious!
I thought that that was officially the most creative thing I’d ever had at a restaurant, until my mother in law and I ordered the “Beeswax Poached King Salmon” entrée. Wait, beeswax poached?! Yep – they pour really hot (I think they said it was 200 degrees) melted beeswax on top of raw salmon, then let it harden as it cooks the salmon.
Coolest restaurant meal ever, right?!
A little while later and it had hardened into this:
To get out the salmon, they can remove the bottom of the box. This is what’s left!
Hello, beeswax poached salmon:
It was served with Carrot Gelée, Bee Pollen Roe, Yellow Carrot, and a Pollen Reduction. So fancy! It was also the most amazing salmon I’ve ever had – so tender and moist, and with a slight sweet hint.
With our meal, we all enjoyed this fabulous Perata Vineyards wine. Definitely want to try to find this again – it was great!
For “dessert,” the others went sweet, but I was in the mood for savory! Cheese plate it was – and boy, was it incredible. Probably among the best cheese I’ve ever had.
It came with an amazing nut cranberry bread, too!
I was raving about it so much that they gave me a little note with what all the cheeses were so I could look for them later. I was especially obsessed with the truffle cheese (the Sottocenere)!
Anyway, in case it wasn’t obvious, we all loved Plume. Highly recommend it if you are looking for a special occasion restaurant in the DC area (and don’t mind dropping some cash – it’s not cheap). The Jefferson hotel is absolutely wonderful, too, though again quite pricey.
After a couple glasses of wine and some really good food, getting up early on Saturday to get in a run before we left town wasn’t the easiest, but I made it happen! It was a beautiful morning and Sokphal and I met up at 7 a.m. to get in some miles along the Capital Crescent Trail/C&O Canal.
Sokphal is running the Reykjavik Marathon (how cool is that?!) on this coming Saturday, so she was knocking out her last long run – 18 miles. Oof! I told her I’d do 7 of those miles with her. 🙂
We started on the Capital Crescent Trail and then hopped up on the C&O Canal to enjoy the softer surface for most of our miles, and did 3.5 miles out and 3.5 back. Sweaty selfie:
We stopped at the 3.5 mile turnaround for a gel snack break (for her), a selfie (as seen above), and a random margarita Shot Blok (for me) that I found in my Nathan hydration vest and ate because I felt like I could use it.
Then we ran back! It was a hot morning but the sun wasn’t blasting us much on the trail so it felt pretty good out there! The miles flew by thanks to great conversation, too.
7 miles at an 8:51 pace, done! Good luck in Iceland, Sokphal – can’t wait to hear all about it!
On my way home, I grabbed some supplies for breakfast and Matt, his parents, and I had a feast. Scrambled eggs with spinach, green pepper, and onion, bacon, and fruit salad! Plus an unpictured latte, obviously.
Matt and his dad got wrapped up in a project (putting on a screen door – one of those “easy install!” things that actually takes ages), so we decided to leave for Charlottesville a little later than planned. When lunchtime rolled around, I went and grabbed all of us salads from Sweetgreen to enjoy before hitting the road! I made myself a big creation with arugula, cabbage, tomatoes, feta, almonds, avocado, chicken, cucumber, basil, and peppers, topped with a squeeze of lemon and some balsamic vinaigrette. Delicious!
By the way – for my friends that go to Sweetgreen as much as I do, do you have the Sweetgreen rewards app? It’s free and the benefit is that you load your credit card info into it so paying is really quick and easy (you just scan the app at the register and you’re done) – AND you accrue cash rewards every time you pay with it, too. It’s saved me a lot of money over the past year I’ve had it! If you’re into it, download the sweetgreen rewards app with my link and get $3 towards a tasty salad to get you started (and I’ll get $3, too – win/win)!
What’s the most creative restaurant meal you’ve ever had?
I’ll be back tomorrow to share part 2 of our weekend adventures: Charlottesville and hiking in the Shenandoahs!
