The Capital Grille
Look, don't even bother arguing with me here: no matter what you had for dinner last night, our dinner was better. This statement is non-negotiable.
As a wedding gift, the Simpsons gave us dinner at the Capital Grille Tysons Corner, over which Sue apparently wields an inordinate amount of power. This became clear when we walked in, and the folks at the host desk all but kowtowed when we introduced ourselves as the Clark party. The poor girl who tried to show us to a normal table was stopped by another host who explained, "Jocelyn is coming to greet them."
Marketing manager Jocelyn Fox took us through the restaurant into the kitchen and introduced us to chef Jeff Surma, a man who loves his job. We suited up with chefs' jackets as our server Walter poured champagne, and we began picking at the four appetizers waiting for us: bacon-wrapped scallops, asparagus wrapped in thinly-sliced beef with a very mild horseradish cream sauce, new potatoes with creme fraiche and caviar, and pastry pouches full of brie and almonds. We quickly realized the futility of trying to pace ourselves.
Jeff explained the restaurant's signature food, dry-aged beef. The beef is aged about two weeks in a locker kept at 32 degrees and 85% humidity; it reduces in size about 35% as the meat's own enzymes tenderize it and the flavors intensify with loss of water. We peeked into the locker, where "only" $35,000 worth of beef was waiting for butchering (as opposed to the $100,000 the New York restaurant normally stocks, since this smaller location "only" does about $7.5 million business annually).
Our first assignment was to make a citrus salsa for our first course. Greg and I were the first to try cutting the fruit as Jeff had shown us, slicing off the ends to make a flat surface for it to stand on, then running the knife just under the rind, then cutting out each section and discarding the seeds. What took Jeff maybe 90 seconds to demonstrate was taking us about five minutes per fruit. Luckily Walter was keeping the champagne glasses full. Greg surrendered his place at the cutting board to Jenn so he could get back to the appetizers, and Jeff immediately noticed she was a little more skilled than the rest of us. I think she did two or three oranges in the time it took me to cut one lime. I gave up and returned to the brie pockets while Jeff demonstrated dicing techniques and Greg struggled to follow. With three cuts, Jeff reduced a bell pepper to a flat rectangle, which he chopped into regular strips, perfect eighth-inch cubes, and decorative diamonds. He started mixing his salsa (mild, by request of Jenn and Brian) as Greg carefully removed the seeds from a Thai chili for his hotter version.
Meanwhile, since the four appetizers were nearly gone, Jeff had Walter bring us pan-fried calamari with hot cherry peppers, officially described as "Calamari sautéed in garlic butter until golden crisp. Then tossed with a house blend of peppers and scallions for a nice, fiery finish." Clearly this was too spicy for the champagne, so we opened a fun California wine called Conundrum.
Jeff heated olive oil in a small skillet over a little portable burner that had been set up for the occasion, and sprinkled black pepper and sea salt on some massive hand-harvested sea scallops, which Jenn loaded into the pan to sear. Once both sides had carmelized, Jeff put them in a 400-degree oven for a few minutes. When they were done, he brought over some huge onion rings which he set on plates, settling a scallop on each one. He added the citrus salsa, a cilantro cream sauce, and greens, and Walter brought a New Zealand sauvignon blanc called Tohu (he caught Jocelyn trying to drink the previous wine with this course, took the glass from her and poured it into the sink).
When we had finished our scallops, Jocelyn led us into the dining room where gift baskets were waiting on our table, along with our personalized menu for the evening, topped by a haiku from Sue:
Fine food, superb wine,
Newlywed celebration,
A gift sent with love.
We were now a wine ahead, so I don't know what it was that Walter brought with the "second" course (fourth, by my count), but of course it nicely balanced with the mild food, a perfectly round tower of grilled portabella mushroom and roasted red pepper layered with goat cheese, topped with a sprig of basil. When Jenn told the server she was allergic to portabellos, they scanned her brain and determined what she wanted most of all was a tomato and mozzarella salad. Okay, maybe there wasn't a brain scan, but that's the first thing they suggested, and it's certainly a Jenn favorite.
Jocelyn appeared with prints of some photos she'd taken earlier in the kitchen. By this time, we were already amazed by how great the experience was. Every one of us had a plastered-on smile (my face was starting to hurt, actually), and we were repeatedly rendered speechless by the food, the service, everything. When we were able to speak, it was generally pithy stuff like "Oh my God!" and "This is so great!" and "Oh my God!" again. At first I said I wanted the lifestyle where you eat like this at least once a week, but eventually we decided that even once a year would be fine. Fantastic, actually.
The third course was "oven baked barramundi with grilled asparagus, fennel, roasted tomatoes with lemon butter," and it was served with the first red of the evening, a tremendously fragrant pinot noir by Acacia. Definitely my favorite wine of the night. It was around this time that we noticed that each course was substantial enough to constitute a meal, and we hadn't even gotten to the dry aged beef yet! Now on the fifth wine, the rampant smiling was moving more toward giggling.
Next, "Kona rubbed dry aged sirloin with shallot butter and Sam's mashed potatoes" with a Beringer cabernet sauvignon. The potatoes were absolutely wonderful; according to the website, "We blend Red Bliss potatoes with sweet cream, butter and salt for a blissfully good side dish." We couldn't figure out what the steak had been rubbed with--Brian guessed cinnamon--until we looked at the menu; for a bunch of non-coffee-drinkers, we sure made some serious dents in the coffee-rubbed sirloin. Greg was the only one to finish his; the rest of us surrendered fairly early, and Walter neatly packed the leftovers.
I didn't really care what the "assorted homemade desserts" were, since I knew from the menu that they'd come with Canadian icewine. It turned out to be all of the desserts: eight full-size desserts for four people who had already been eating for two and a half hours. Jeff personally delivered one of the two trays, and I'm afraid we might have ignored him slightly, having been distracted by cheesecake, berries in creme Anglaise, coconut cream pie, double chocolate brownies with homemade mint ice cream, flourless chocolate espresso cake, key lime pie with pistachios, creme brulee, and chocolate hazelnut cake. It killed me how much we left on the plates! I, Sarah, was too full! We had hit Food Coma at least two courses ago, and were looking for a place to lie down for a few minutes. Greg only finished the creme brulee because he was shoveling it mindlessly into his mouth as though in a trance. Walter packed up anything that was likely to travel at all well, then brought a second icewine, presumably because I had literally applauded the first.
Jenn had been drinking sparkling water all along, and it became clear that she'd be the one driving home, bless her. We were on our eighth wine (some of which I for one had gotten refills on), and between that and the fact that our bodies were now wholly devoted to the task of digestion, we weren't useful for anything other than giggling. When we noticed we were the only customers left, we left a relatively paltry tip on the table despite Walter's protestation that it wasn't necessary ("we want to," explained Brian), gathered up our leftovers and gift baskets, and headed out.
As a wedding gift, the Simpsons gave us dinner at the Capital Grille Tysons Corner, over which Sue apparently wields an inordinate amount of power. This became clear when we walked in, and the folks at the host desk all but kowtowed when we introduced ourselves as the Clark party. The poor girl who tried to show us to a normal table was stopped by another host who explained, "Jocelyn is coming to greet them."
Marketing manager Jocelyn Fox took us through the restaurant into the kitchen and introduced us to chef Jeff Surma, a man who loves his job. We suited up with chefs' jackets as our server Walter poured champagne, and we began picking at the four appetizers waiting for us: bacon-wrapped scallops, asparagus wrapped in thinly-sliced beef with a very mild horseradish cream sauce, new potatoes with creme fraiche and caviar, and pastry pouches full of brie and almonds. We quickly realized the futility of trying to pace ourselves.
Jeff explained the restaurant's signature food, dry-aged beef. The beef is aged about two weeks in a locker kept at 32 degrees and 85% humidity; it reduces in size about 35% as the meat's own enzymes tenderize it and the flavors intensify with loss of water. We peeked into the locker, where "only" $35,000 worth of beef was waiting for butchering (as opposed to the $100,000 the New York restaurant normally stocks, since this smaller location "only" does about $7.5 million business annually).
Our first assignment was to make a citrus salsa for our first course. Greg and I were the first to try cutting the fruit as Jeff had shown us, slicing off the ends to make a flat surface for it to stand on, then running the knife just under the rind, then cutting out each section and discarding the seeds. What took Jeff maybe 90 seconds to demonstrate was taking us about five minutes per fruit. Luckily Walter was keeping the champagne glasses full. Greg surrendered his place at the cutting board to Jenn so he could get back to the appetizers, and Jeff immediately noticed she was a little more skilled than the rest of us. I think she did two or three oranges in the time it took me to cut one lime. I gave up and returned to the brie pockets while Jeff demonstrated dicing techniques and Greg struggled to follow. With three cuts, Jeff reduced a bell pepper to a flat rectangle, which he chopped into regular strips, perfect eighth-inch cubes, and decorative diamonds. He started mixing his salsa (mild, by request of Jenn and Brian) as Greg carefully removed the seeds from a Thai chili for his hotter version.
Meanwhile, since the four appetizers were nearly gone, Jeff had Walter bring us pan-fried calamari with hot cherry peppers, officially described as "Calamari sautéed in garlic butter until golden crisp. Then tossed with a house blend of peppers and scallions for a nice, fiery finish." Clearly this was too spicy for the champagne, so we opened a fun California wine called Conundrum.
Jeff heated olive oil in a small skillet over a little portable burner that had been set up for the occasion, and sprinkled black pepper and sea salt on some massive hand-harvested sea scallops, which Jenn loaded into the pan to sear. Once both sides had carmelized, Jeff put them in a 400-degree oven for a few minutes. When they were done, he brought over some huge onion rings which he set on plates, settling a scallop on each one. He added the citrus salsa, a cilantro cream sauce, and greens, and Walter brought a New Zealand sauvignon blanc called Tohu (he caught Jocelyn trying to drink the previous wine with this course, took the glass from her and poured it into the sink).
When we had finished our scallops, Jocelyn led us into the dining room where gift baskets were waiting on our table, along with our personalized menu for the evening, topped by a haiku from Sue:
Fine food, superb wine,
Newlywed celebration,
A gift sent with love.
We were now a wine ahead, so I don't know what it was that Walter brought with the "second" course (fourth, by my count), but of course it nicely balanced with the mild food, a perfectly round tower of grilled portabella mushroom and roasted red pepper layered with goat cheese, topped with a sprig of basil. When Jenn told the server she was allergic to portabellos, they scanned her brain and determined what she wanted most of all was a tomato and mozzarella salad. Okay, maybe there wasn't a brain scan, but that's the first thing they suggested, and it's certainly a Jenn favorite.
Jocelyn appeared with prints of some photos she'd taken earlier in the kitchen. By this time, we were already amazed by how great the experience was. Every one of us had a plastered-on smile (my face was starting to hurt, actually), and we were repeatedly rendered speechless by the food, the service, everything. When we were able to speak, it was generally pithy stuff like "Oh my God!" and "This is so great!" and "Oh my God!" again. At first I said I wanted the lifestyle where you eat like this at least once a week, but eventually we decided that even once a year would be fine. Fantastic, actually.
The third course was "oven baked barramundi with grilled asparagus, fennel, roasted tomatoes with lemon butter," and it was served with the first red of the evening, a tremendously fragrant pinot noir by Acacia. Definitely my favorite wine of the night. It was around this time that we noticed that each course was substantial enough to constitute a meal, and we hadn't even gotten to the dry aged beef yet! Now on the fifth wine, the rampant smiling was moving more toward giggling.
Next, "Kona rubbed dry aged sirloin with shallot butter and Sam's mashed potatoes" with a Beringer cabernet sauvignon. The potatoes were absolutely wonderful; according to the website, "We blend Red Bliss potatoes with sweet cream, butter and salt for a blissfully good side dish." We couldn't figure out what the steak had been rubbed with--Brian guessed cinnamon--until we looked at the menu; for a bunch of non-coffee-drinkers, we sure made some serious dents in the coffee-rubbed sirloin. Greg was the only one to finish his; the rest of us surrendered fairly early, and Walter neatly packed the leftovers.
I didn't really care what the "assorted homemade desserts" were, since I knew from the menu that they'd come with Canadian icewine. It turned out to be all of the desserts: eight full-size desserts for four people who had already been eating for two and a half hours. Jeff personally delivered one of the two trays, and I'm afraid we might have ignored him slightly, having been distracted by cheesecake, berries in creme Anglaise, coconut cream pie, double chocolate brownies with homemade mint ice cream, flourless chocolate espresso cake, key lime pie with pistachios, creme brulee, and chocolate hazelnut cake. It killed me how much we left on the plates! I, Sarah, was too full! We had hit Food Coma at least two courses ago, and were looking for a place to lie down for a few minutes. Greg only finished the creme brulee because he was shoveling it mindlessly into his mouth as though in a trance. Walter packed up anything that was likely to travel at all well, then brought a second icewine, presumably because I had literally applauded the first.
Jenn had been drinking sparkling water all along, and it became clear that she'd be the one driving home, bless her. We were on our eighth wine (some of which I for one had gotten refills on), and between that and the fact that our bodies were now wholly devoted to the task of digestion, we weren't useful for anything other than giggling. When we noticed we were the only customers left, we left a relatively paltry tip on the table despite Walter's protestation that it wasn't necessary ("we want to," explained Brian), gathered up our leftovers and gift baskets, and headed out.
