How did I end up on the business end of a ten-ounce gorgonzola filet in a high-priced steak house when I had been salivating for weeks over the prospect of a plateful of spicy Malaysian rendang, tender beef slow cooked with a paste of ground onions, lemongrass and chili, simmered in rich coconut curry gravy? I’ll tell you how. A few weeks before I arrived in our nation’s capital for a little rest, rejuvenation, and culinary spelunking, a smoky two-alarm fire gutted the kitchen of Penang, one of my most favored destinations in Washington DC for Asian fare. I remembered the rendang being fiery, but it appears the folks at Penang had “kicked it up a notch” since my last visit.
So there we stood at the corner of 19th and M Street – thwarted, rudderless, and surrounded by a gaggle of late night noodle shops, strip clubs, and liquor stores. Defenses down, we let the churlish winds and our gnawing hunger sweep us past the heavy brass-handled wooden doors of Smith and Wollensky, one of the nation’s premiere steak houses, and spent our evening in the company of a grim gathering of pin-striped dinosaurs who are just now realizing that their era has come to an end. The recession has been hard on all Americans and nowhere is the collapse of the financial markets more evident than the main dining room of S&W, located mere blocks from the White House.
The interior of Smith and Wollensky is impressive, in a cigar smoking, ascot wearing, private club sort of way. Acres of gleaming brass, creaky wide plank wood floors, throne-like leather booths, and apron-clad waiters (with names like Big Guy and Bobby C) tag-teaming the smattering of tables filled with joyless suits, clearly not the volume of activity to which the establishment has become accustomed.
“Two firms in the neighborhood have closed,” explained Bobby C, when I inquired about the sparsely populated and somber dining room. Even the chef’s table is hushed – at most locations, a convivial gathering of foodies but, in this kitchen in this capital city, more akin to a wake (and not an Irish one, mind you). “I don’t see any of my regulars anymore.”
Apparently he doesn’t see many irregulars either. With corporations clamping down on travel and discretionary spending, Bobby C finds himself on this chilly evening tending two 40-something ladies in the heart of the quintessential old boys club. “It’s rough,” he says as he covers our laps in carefully pressed green and white linen napkins. I’m sure it is, Bobby. I don’t suppose the $199 bottles of port and $95 glasses of Johnnie Walker Blue Label are flying off the shelves in this economy.
We start with a couple of glasses of Grey Goose on the rocks (I almost order a Cosmo or a strawberry daiquiri simply to watch the boys slip into a state of apoplexy) as we peruse the menu, a single sheet of paper in a worn wooden frame. It’s hard for me to concentrate as I’m surrounded by engraved brass plaques bearing the names of Smith and Wollensky’s most frequent patrons. Here’s Dr. Robert Finkel, Wosenyelesh T. Ebba, and Thomas Vecchlo, Esq. And there on a really big plaque, Erika and Amin Tarzi, because (I kid you not, the Big Guy really said this) “they understand the concept of tipping.” I could hear them hissing over my shoulder all evening – “Excuse me, you’re in our seats.”
If the Tipping Tarzis weren’t enough to make me feel as if I had crashed a private party, there’s the menu itself – secretive, cliquish, totally devoid of descriptions. Crab Cake. Our Shrimp Cocktail. Wollensky Salad. I felt like a teacher taking attendance at a school for starters. If you are accustomed to a slow seduction by suggestions of deliciousness, by colorful adjectives and mouth-watering verbs, Smith and Wollensky won’t be cooking your breakfast in the morning. If you can tolerate receiving every bit of information you need to make an informed decision about your meal from a peevish waiter with an ego the size of his ample midsection, then you’ve made a love match.
I choose the Big Guy’s favorite, the aforementioned gorgonzola crusted filet mignon and, reluctant as I am to admit it, I’m not disappointed. The creamy blue cheese is draped over my perfectly grilled filet like a pashmina over bare shoulders. Smith and Wollensky also serves lobster, lamb chops, chicken, and fish; but the beef – butchered and dry aged on site – is clearly the wisest chose. The sesame teriyaki tuna steak, billed as sushi grade, was bland and a bit recalcitrant, requiring a knife with a serrated blade. The sides (ample enough for two) are as straightforward and unadorned as the entrees. We shared a puritanical plate of steamed broccoli and truffled (that’s as exotic as Smith and Wollensky gets) macaroni and cheese.
When S&W opened in DC ten years ago, Alan Stillman, founder and CEO of the high-priced steak house chain, waved off suggestions that perhaps the market was saturated with upper end restaurants. “60 dollars is less than it costs for a good tie,” he said. I’m not sure where he buys his ties and when he last ate at one of his restaurants, but I left three hundred and twelve of my hard earned dollars on the table before we thanked Big Guy and Bobby C for their company. Granted, we let the Big Guy talk us into a $10 slice of celestial coconut cake and a $69 bottle of dessert wine, but even without that strong finish we still topped $200. You can buy more than a dozen Isaac Mizrahi silk ties at Target for that much smack.
I’m not averse to dining opulence. I once bought a bottle of Penfolds Grange Hermitage at a wine auction for $350 and had to be talked out of drinking it in the car on the way home with three Krystal cheeseburgers and an order of fries. And last fall, I powered my way through a 22-course meal at Dwarika's in Kathmandu. But after exiting those heavy wooden doors into the windy DC night, I felt irresponsible. My meal left an aftertaste – a bad finish, as they say in wine circles, like all the mortgages Americans couldn’t afford, the eye-popping executive bonuses that could no longer be justified, the double-digit stock returns that couldn’t be sustained. I ordered (and enjoyed) the gorgonzola filet but, with a pinch of perspective, it began to taste like Oscar style steak – another of S&W’s offerings – a meal long out of fashion.
Smith and Wollensky’s new neighbors, the Obamas, have altered the palate of Washington DC and the appetite of the nation. Hope doesn’t taste like a $45 bone-in porterhouse. It tastes like a plate of pork carnitas from a taco truck in Chico, California. It tastes like a bubbling bowl of oxtail soup at Big Mama’s Soul Food in Augusta, Georgia. It tastes like fiery beef rendang made by Malaysian immigrants in cramped basement kitchens.
I loosen my belt, tighten my scarf, and slip into the foot traffic on 19th Street – my fellow Americans from here and afar, bundled up and bustling by the anachronism that is Smith and Wollensky, on their way to the noodle shops, the harshly lit falafel joints, the late night Mexican walk-ups, and the other culinary gems of our nation’s capital.
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This year, the letter O was the star of our quiet "ring in the new year" tradition. Despite our difficulties last year with the letter E (see Alphabet Dinner 2008), we once again procrastinated and rolled the Scattergories die a few mere days before New Year's Eve. But just like all our previous celebrations, it all came together.
