Brasserie Beck
So alright, here it is, the writeup of the lunch at Brasserie Beck. As we remember, our hero had scored reservations there pre-opening to sample the cuisine and help the chefs and waiters practice, because as you all know...I'm a giver.
I had tried going with my girlfriend on Monday, but the restaurant wasn't ready for service, and while they did call to let me know, they called my job, which I wasn't at since I took off the whole day. My girlfriend couldn't make it yesterday, so I took my friend
brotherdiesel, aka Jake with me instead, and we had a grand adventure.
So here we are on a photo tour of yesterday's lunch. We're starting it coming up on the building that Brasserie Beck is located in When I started working at LegalCo, this place was barely a hole in the ground and I got to watch the construction go up over time. Finally they finished the exterior construction and the BB people went into high gear on the bottom floor, while the other construction work on the remaining floors is taking its sweet time.
This first one is shot from about 12th and K coming towards the restaurant from 14th street. Fortunately it was a nice day outside and made for excellent pictures. The place actually has its entrance on the corner of 11th and K and its marked by a clock over the door.
Jake met me up at my job and we headed over there, not quite knowing what to expect. I was thining we may get a sampling of food, or maybe an entree and some soft drinks, but we didn't quite know. And lurking in the
back of our minds was "are you sure its free? It can't be free. Come on now,
nobody gives away free food."
The place was open and we walked in and I said that I had a reservation, which pleased me immensely since the person who came in before me just saw people eating and they were told "Sorry we aren't open to the public yet." Ha ha! That's funny to me! While one hostess turned away the first person, another lead us to our table.
While things ended up fantastically, they got off to a bit of a rocky start. We got a window seat (good) but it was a sort of corner table and I was worried we would feel a bit cramped, as Jake and I are not small fellows. Person comes over to pour water except that...he almost doesn't. The ice caught in the spigot of the fashionably steel pitcher and it trickled out...or gushed over the side. He spilled some outside of my chair and apologized and kinda filled my glass, but he realized that he couldn't do Jake's glass that way and took it back to their expo center, where he
returned with a full one. Later on, we saw waiters pouring from the sides
of the pitcher to refill glasses.
So we had the water guy, and then a beer guy came over and told us that draft beer and wines by the glass were free today and that of course our entrees were free as well. Alright, we can exhale He brings over this menu of drinks that could only be described as "Freekin Huuuge" It's easily desk calendar sized with large print not only listing the beers and wines available, but also providing descriptions. This is lifesaver since the only Belgian/French beer that I drink is Blue Moon...which doesn't really count in the same way that The Olive Garden doesn't quite count as italian cuisine. After scanning the menu, we each select different beers. I can't recall the name of mine (apologies to the Brasserie, I took pictures not notes) but it was smooth and somewhat citrusey. Jake had a Hoegarden beer, which paired well with everything. We manfully tasted the others drink to try new things, but we couldn't get too sloppy drunk as we had jobs
that were in theory missing us.
Our official waiter at this point comes out and his name was Chip, and he was oh so happy to serve us at this "Mock Lunch" (apparently that is the term for such a thing! Who knew!) and as everything was free "let's get silly shall we?" Oh man...it is now officially open season.
We scan the menu, which is well organized into sections of "Frutis de Mer", Entrees, Starters, Salads, a selection of cheeses for a cheese course, and a small thing of desserts. Apparently a Brasserie has a fixed menu at all times and serves the same thing for lunch and dinner, but apparently lunch is 15% cheaper. I don't know if the portions are 15% smaller...but I highly doubt it, Jake and I were well fed.
We tell Chip that we need some more time and he brings out some delicious sourdough bread for us to munch on while we review things. It's around this time that Jake and I start giggling. We just can't believe we're
her
e really. It bodes to be an epic lunch. We select our appetizers and Chip
comes back over to take our orders.
We each ordered an appetizer, and entree and a dessert. We were somwhat pressed for time, so we decided a cheese course would be bit silly, and we ordered a side for the table. More on those later. In the meantime we look around and gawk at the interior. Various magazines have described the interior better (I linked them in my last post about the place). But in my own words, it has a fun, busy vibe to it. There are clocks everywhere like a train station, but all of them are stopped at different times, which is a bit disorienting for me benig a Type A time person. But once you realize the clocks are just props and not working display pieces, you get to soak in the vibe. Unlike Acadiana, who claims to be New Orleans but it still feels like you're in big DC restaurant, you get a cool vibe that you really ARE somewhere else. Even the bathrooms are modeled differently. Acoustics are nice, as we watched people hustle and bustle around.
I saw Chef Weidmaier shake hands with the people at a table near to us, and I think I saw some other chefs around from their pictures in the Post. The place has an open kitchen, which is unusual for me, as most places I go have it closed off. We saw loaves of bread and people bustling about trying to find their groove in a still new kitchen. I saw older gentlemen in suits, who I took for investors, going around and making sure that everything was ok. Everyone had their game face on, and yet everyone seemed to be doing alright. I didn't hear dishes drop, or profanities spew from the kitchen, or anything really bad happen. Jake and I sipped our beer, looked around, continued to remark on the day and other fun things going on in our lives, and soon enough the appetizers arrived.
When I've gone out for lunch with my law firm picking up the tab, we go to nice places like McCormick and Schmicks, or the Oceanaire, or even Acadiana where appetizers are really intended for one. Not so here at the brasserie! We ordered Mussels cooked in wine sauce with Pomme Frites and a dish called a Croullade (apologies for my poor spellings and poorer notes) which was a plate of cured meats. Both were...gigantic. I know we were eating on the restauran't tab, but I think that had Chip pointed out the size of these things beforehand, we would have probably ordered just one.
But oh man, I am so glad we didnt! First up here we have the mussels which were incredibly done. The plate there is easily 14 inches around. They were served with Pomme Frites (french fries) and 3 types of mayonaise dip, which is apparently the belgian style and was incredible. They had mustard dip, curry, and a straight mayonaise. We cracked and shucked and spilled
and threw the empty shells into a catch bowl, which
became full all to quickly, forcing us to precariously balance the shells in the bowl.
To the left of that was the meat platter we had ordered, competing for our attention. This had proscuitto, italian salami, and numerous other meats that we coudln't quite identify immediately but were all very delicious. Jake said the dish in the middle of the platter was pate, of which I think it was (the menu did not have descriptions of the contents and is alas not available online yet). I thought it was alright, and Jake enjoyed it immensely. Off to the side were a little tray of sweet onions, orange marmalade and pickles to pair with the meat slices. They also had harboiled eggs to pair with the meat.
Every piece of food there was phenonmenal. The slices of meat were pefectly marbled and set up, the mussels were spectacular, the french fries were even great (I know, how can you be impressed by french fries,
but these guys did wonders. You can see the wreckage here as we polished off all the mussels, removed every piece of meat from the platter, and put a hurting on the friest. Jake finished his beer and ordered another, but I stuck to water for the rest of the meal. I dont know if you can fully appreciate the pile of shells there but it was a very precarious tower there, and our waiter team (there were a lot of eager busboys and waiters in addition to Chip helping us out) struggled a bit picking up everything but only one shell hit the ground as they swept things away. Our one regret was asking for more bread to be served at the meal and not with the appetizers, as it would have paired up nicely with the meat and it would have been fun to dip in the sauce left over.
It's about 2:30 now, my "lunch hour" is officially over..Jake took 20 minutes t get to my office and his hour was used up before that. Now having consumed all those wonderful things...it was time for lunch.
I ordered the Coq Au Vin, which I had heard about on an episode of Good Eats but I am frankly afraid to prepare it myself. Wikipedia describes it as a French fricassee of chicken cooked with wine, lardons, mushrooms, and garlic. It came out and I was a bit nervous, I did not expect the full chicken, and I am traditionally not a fan of dark meat. But this is why we try new things right? So I sink a fork into a section and slice off some chicken...and very nearly die at the table. The chicken was incredibly done, with a crispy outside of the breast and inside it was very juicy. I sliced off a breast piece to share with Jake and began devouring my chicken.
Now, when I ordered the Coq au Vin, Chip said "Ah the Coq au Vin, an excellent choice" and he paused for a moment. "You know what else I like, this dish here. What we do is we take the chicken and we cook it so it is nice and tender, and then get it crispy, whereupon we take that along with a lamb sausage and put it all into puff pastry and bake that and then cut it open and put some sauce on it. Chip described it better and made it sound incredible.
No, it's not the thing featured in the Taco Time video from SNL but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. Chip is sitting there describing this dish, which we realized later had nothing to do with the Coq Au Vin that we had ordered and I am thinking "Aw man, that sounds incredible...I should switch out...but maybe Jake will order it, and we'll have the same thing...and that won't do! But what if he DOESNT get it! Then I may be missing out even more! But I've wanted to try Coq Au Vin forever! What-to-do, what-to-do? Chip finishes his narrative, and Jake looks at him and goes "You make an excellent argument sir, I'll have that!"
Jake cut me a piece of his, complete with chicken and sausage and pastry and sauce. It was just incredible. Each ingredient added something else to the dish and yet worked with all the others to create something truly unique. I don't eat much fine food in the city because living in Northern Virginia, I have so many other options. Why should I go all the way into
DC to
eat a Ruby Tuesdays in Chinatown? Or get sushi in 50 minutes at
30% more when my girlfriend and I love our own local sushi guy? I've eaten Frnech Bistro at La Madeline, and even ultra expensive cuisine at La Bourgerie in Old Town Alexandria, this one put them all to shame with its style, its taste and its uniqueness.
Oh yeah, and we ordered a side for the table as well. We ordered Au Gratin potatoes and Chip asked us "Would you like the pork bellies on top of that?" We paused for a moment and Chip added "They are incredible..."
So we got them added on, and man, I wonder why I ever doubted him. That's Jake's second beer to the right and the potatoes were just heavenly. I may have to add pork bellies (or at least a couple strips of bacon) to au gratin potatoes when I make them.
With our huge appetizers, massive entrees and delicious side, Jake and I only finished about half of entrees and the potatoes. We split up the potatoes as we boxed up the meal. I have a feeling we both could have
finished had we felt required to, but we wanted dessert.
This is Jake's bread pudding, which I never grew up with so I was never (before yesterday) the biggest of fans. Of course, another manly sampling was in order and it was delightful. It was creamy and held together pefectly, with what Jake described as a stream of chocolate going through it. It was in some sort of sauce that Jake identified only as "Delicious"
Meanwhile, I had ordered a chocolate dessert, out of homage to my girlfriend who couldn't make it, and I knew what she would order if she were there. I normally pick someting with fruit or something more on the vanilla side, but today's adventure called for a chocolate finish. Also I had seen the dish I wanted pass to another table, and knew that this dish was the proper way to finish a meal at the Brasserie.
Behold! Chocolate lovers! I give you your new god! As Jake was tasting
his dessert mine hit my lips and we both muttered "Oh my god!"--albiet with our mouths full. This was a chocolate fudgy cake coated in chocolate ganache or something similar with a strip of chocolate on top as a fun garnish.The swirl around is raspberry which paired nicely with it, but I really lack proper vocabulary to describe this dish. Jake and I made delicious omigod noises all through dessert, constantly remarking on the dishes we had. We both preffered the ones we had each ordered, but remarked that the other ones are tasty too. I took pictures of our empty plates, but we've kinda had enough pictures and besides...it just makes me a little sad to see.
We had asked Chip to bring over a manager so I could properly thank him for the invitation. I could have sworn the woman who took our reservation said that "Paulie" was the general manager, but Chip didn't know anyone by that name, but he did send over a manager named Clay, who accepted our gushing over the food graciously and answered our questions. The restaurant was scheduled to be open to the public the 25th, but the chef wanted to push things back, so they would see when they are open. He shook our hands, and thanked us, thanked us for our time and for coming out. Oh no my friend, the pleasure was all ours.
It's about 3:00 by the time we're done with dessert and our mock check is delivered. Jake and I calculated our lunch would have run us about $110 or so including beer, appetizers, entrees and desserts. That is... a bit high for lunch for us Legal Assistants to eat regularly, and definitely not a "quick stop and then on your way" kind of experience. But an incredible one never the less I'm a half hour past my lunch hour, and Jake is just glad no one is looking for him at his job. We tipped Chip in real money, not mock funds and we waddled out of the restaurant.
On our way out, we saw Chef Wiedmaier talking to a group of chefs at one of the tables and he nodded at us. I thanked him for his food and got to shake his hand. He smiled and thanked us for coming (again, him thanking us...just a capstone) and introduced himself. It was an awesome way to finish the day.
It was an incredible lunch and a great opportunity, and while I'm sad I couldn't go with my girlfriend (we had planned to make a day of it) it all worked out in the end and I now I know what to order when we go back. It looked like, but I didn't have time to investigate that they do multicourse tastings as well. I can't say enough good things about the place, everyone who is able should go!
I made it back to the office, where I gushed to the attorneys I work for about the experience and the food there. They are all excited about going since its so close to our building. Thanks go to everyone there at Brasserie Beck from the top on down, especially for letting me be all touristy and take pictures (unlike the snobs at Bobby Van's on Monday, who were commenting loudly at my expense) and for letting us try their new restaurant. It was a great experience, thank you.