Arlington, VA (DC Metro Area) - Eleventh Street

Robyn, her friend and myself all ate at 11th Street last night for dinner. Holy hell was it good.

I started the evening with a shot of GM & a Delirium. It had been a long day. Robyn had a french martini and her friend had a mojito. Both too sugary for me. Thats just my taste though. Staff inside was very nice.

So we ordered:

Robyn's Friend- Fried Green beans and Sweet Potato Fries- you know for a girl about 5' even she can really put away the fried food. I tasted both and both were good, though not quite my personal favorites.

Robyn had the beet salad which was gorgeous and I didn't get to taste because she was hoarding it. She said it was excellent.

I had the tartere which was perfectly flavored and the mustard has a serious horseradish kick to it. It's a large portion for 8 or 9 bucks. I was laughing because the girl sitting at the bar said "This is America, we don't serve our meat raw." and all I could think was, "This is America, try something besides the burger you order here all the time."

I also had the duck confit with soft egg. This comes with a frise salad, but if you've ever eaten with me you know that if I want a salad, which I regularly do, I'll order a salad. In this case it got knocked to the side. It looked pretty, but not what I was interested in. Soft egg makes the world go round, especially in the world of confit. The flavor meshing here was truly astounding. This is a go to dish. It reminds me a lot of what 11 Madison Park was doing with their confit a few years ago.

We then had a selection of 7 cheeses, including a few killer blues and a Garroxta, which you don't see too much of right now. Very good.

The chef then brought out some samplers for us- one was a flatbread with goat cheese, some chive and smoked salmon. Wonderful. I love these flavors. Though it did strangely remind Robyn of Lox and Bagels, which to some extent it is.

We also tried the quail over bacon polenta. Again, excellent, if not a touch too sweet for my tastes, but the qual was cooked with some honey as well.

A truly fabulous meal, and if this sounds like bar food to you we need to take you to a bar to eat