TenPenh (www.tenpenh.com) is located at 1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington D.C. It is one of my favorite "fusion" restaurants, combining Asian and western flavors. I last went to TenPenh on a Tuesday night in mid-October and had dinner at the bar. I didn't make reservations and the place was packed, but there were seats at the bar.

I started with a Kirin draft beer while I read the menu. They had several beers on tap besides the Kirin, including Sierra Nevada, Sapporo, and a couple of the domestic tasteless beers. They also offer a good selection of sake.

There were a lot of interesting options on the menu and I would have liked to try several of the dishes. One of the advantages of eating with a group of friends is that you can share and try a lot more dishes. Anyway, I ordered the Applewood Smoked Bacon and Kaffir Lime Topped Scallops with Nishiki rice, Spicy Asparagus, Green Curry Sauce for $24. I wanted to order dessert so I skipped the appetizer.

Once I placed my order I was presented with an amuse bousche which was a shot glass filled with a butternut squash/kaffir lime soup. I was surprised that the soup didn't have the sweetness that I've come to expect from a butternut squash soup. I also found that the kaffir lime taste was a little too heavy for the soup and overwhelmed the butternut squash flavor. It wasn't bad, but I would not order it again.

I ordered a glass of nice Alsacian pinot gris to accompany the main course, as recommended by the bar tender.

The four large scallops were cooked to perfection, resting on a light green curry sauce. They were seared on the bottom and just barely cooked through, as I like them. They were supposed to be topped a kaffir lime/bacon topping. To me, the topping looked like panko (Japanese bread crumbs) with tiny flecks of green (kaffir lime). I didn't see or taste the bacon. The kaffir lime taste was very subtle, at least when eaten with the curry sauce. The curry sauce had a coconut milk base, as most south east Asian curries have. The accompanying asparagus was perfectly cooked and seasoned, but I didn't notice that the dish was spicy. Nevertheless, they were very good. The Nishiki rice was properly cooked and seasoned. Overall, the dish was very good.

The dessert menu was very interesting. All desserts were priced at $8. The bartender recommended Warm Coconut Dusted DonutsCoconut-Caramel Pudding & Toasted Coconut Ice Cream but I love to bake crème brulees so I had to try TenPenh's version. It is shown on the menu as Trio of Crème Brulee (Kaffir Lime, Star Anise, Passion Fruit Tea). The brulees were served in separate sake cups for each flavor. I tried the kaffir lime first. I was surprised by the texture when I broke through the crisp burnt sugar topping. The texture was more like a creamy pudding than the more dense custard that I'm familiar with. The flavor of the kaffir lime was very nice, but by this time I was getting a little tired of kaffir lime. I love passion fruit so I expected the passion fruit version to be my favorite. If passion fruit/tea flavor was very delicate and almost undetectable, at least after eating the kaffir lime brulee. Perhaps I should have started with the passion fruit brulee. Finally, I tried the star anise brulee. Wow! I was completely surprised. I like to use star anise when I cook some Chinese foods but I never thought of using it in a dessert. It was fantastic. I'll have to try to make my own version of this dish.

The bartender was very knowledgeable of the menu and which beverages would complement the meal. The food runners and bus staff were quick, efficient and did their jobs well.

Overall, a very satisfying experience, in spite of the abundance of kaffir lime.


Hours of Operation:
Monday -
Lunch: 11:30 am - 2:30 pm
Thursday
Dinner: 5:30 pm - 10:30 pm
Friday
Lunch: 11:30 am - 2:30 pm

Dinner: 5:30 pm - 11:00 pm
Saturday
Dinner: 5:30 pm - 11:00 pm

Zebra's Bistro and Wine Bar (http://www.zebrasbistro.com/) is a great place to eat in Medfield, Mass. While visiting my sister in Massachusetts, she made the suggestion that we try Zebra's in Medfield. We went there on a Saturday night and had a very enjoyable meal.
For starters, the wife and I had the James River oysters. Six fresh oysters were served with a side of cocktail sauce. The oysters were plump and delicious. Since I'm not a fan of cocktail sauce with oysters I ate the oysters sans sauce. I think that it masks their taste too much. I did taste the sauce just to see how it tasted and it was a traditional cocktail sauce... nothing special, but still prepared well.

For dinner, I had a sautéed duck breast accompanied by chestnut ravioli and a Calvados based sauce. The duck breast was served medium rare, well seasoned with crispy skin. The duck didn't taste fatty like a lot of duck. The chestnut ravioli was fantastic. The dinner included two large ravioli stuffed with a chestnut, duck, sage filling. While the duck was great, the ravioli was star of the show.

The wife order coq au vin. The flavor was very good, but the chicken was a bit dry. A good dish but not memorable dish.

My sister’s fiancé ordered the grilled sirloin with a green peppercorn “au poivre” sauce, with garlic mashed potatoes and crispy parmesan asparagus. The 14 oz cut was properly cooked to the doness requested. It was well seasoned and the flavor was complimented, not overwhelmed, by the “au poivre” sauce. The asparagus (about 3 or 4 spears) was wrapped in a parmesan crisp, with a very pleasing result.

I don’t remember what my sister ordered, but I believe that it was the duck. (Cathey, if you read this, please add you comments about the meal.)

The dessert was a little disappointing. I ordered the chocolate lava cake because I used to prepare this dessert when I worked Peter Pratt’s Inn in NY. At Zebra’s it is served with a goat cheese ice cream. A chocolate lava cake is called such because it oozes melted chocolate when it is cut open. At Zebra’s the dessert was clearly overcooked because the chocolate center was dry. I asked the waiter about this and he made an excuse that with Zebra’s chocolate lava, the goat cheese ice cream is the lava. Up until that point, I was completely satisfied with the service at the restaurant. I made no further comments to him about the dessert but felt very disappointed by his comment. By the way, the flavor of the cake was very good, it just wasn’t property prepared. I’ve also had this dessert at Vong’s and other establishments and it has always had a liquid chocolate lava flow when cut.

We ordered a Chateauneuf du Pape (two bottle actually) that went very well with the meal. The producer was Domaine Chante Perdrix, but I didn’t write down the vintage. The price of the wine was $47 per bottle. It was a medium to full bodied wine with cherry, plum, currant and tobacco flavors.

Except for the chocolate lava cake episode, the service was very good. The staff was knowledgeable of the food and wine offerings (except for the lava cake).

Zebra's Bistro and Wine Bar21 North St. Medfield, MA 02052(508) 359 4100

The waiter informed us that the chef graduated from the Culinary Institute of America.

Café Gray. (http://www.cafegray.com/) The wife and I ate at Café Gray on September 19th for a very special occasion. I stress that it was a special occasion because of the cost of the meal. We usually don’t have meals in the $200 per person range, but we wanted a memorable dinner. We opted for the dinner prix fixe with the accompanying wine selection. The dinner was $105 per person with the wine another $50 per person. The four courses consisted of:
· Seared fois gras and sautéed quail with sweet and sour tomatillo and ramps
· Indian summer ragout consisting of a rice flour crepe stuffed with carrots, beets and artichokes
· Chilled grape soup with an ice wine granite
· Pear and hazelnut soufflé with poire Williams ice cream.
All four courses were well prepared, but the seared fois gras course and the soufflé course was absolutely stunning. My wife likes to rate restaurant foods on her “wow” factor. These two courses were definitely “wows”. The fois gras appeared to be sautéed in duck fat which gave it a wonderfully richer taste than fois gras sautéed in oil. The quail was grilled perfectly and the tomatillo/ramp mixture was tender, well seasoned and complimented the the fois gras and quail. Dots of a fig sauces were placed around the edge of the plate and gave the dish a bit of sweetness that always accentuates the taste quail and fois gras. The wine selection for this course was a 2004 Mas De Daumas Gassa, “Vin de Pays” from Herault, France. The crispness, hint of tropical flavors, and long finish were a perfect match.
The next course, summer ragout, was good but I didn’t feel that it was up to the same standard as the previous course. The “wow” factor was missing. The course was basically a vegetarian dosa (Indian pancake) stuffed with perfectly roasted beets, carrots and artichoke hearts, in a very lightly curried sauce. Unfortunately, I didn’t make notes of the wine that was served with this course or the final course. The wines were served by the glass so the bottle didn’t remain at the table.
The grape soup course was interesting, but also lacked the “wow” factor. The soup had five or six extremely thin slices of grapes floating in it with a small portion of ice wine granite in the center. There was also a small crispy tuile among the grape slices. The soup was not overly sweet as I expected, but was only slightly sweet.
The final course, the soufflé was a definite “wow”. The hot, still steaming soufflé was presented along with the ice cream on long rectangular plate. A small container of with a hot pear/caramel sauce accompanied the dessert. Fantastic!!!. The combination of pear and hazelnut was the perfect touch. We also ordered coffee with the meal (for an additional $4.00 per person).
The service was absolutely outstanding. The wait staff was always in the background but not obtrusive. Water glasses were always kept full. Dinner ware was changed at the appropriate times. The servers were very helpful when I asked them if I could get Chef Kunz to autograph my copy of “The Elements of Taste”.
The restaurant must have costs a large fortune to design and furnish. The open kitchen extends completely across the back of the restaurant with the grill/sauté stations at one end, the garde manger station in the middle and the pastry station at the other end.
In the end, the meal was excellent but not worth the price. I stopped by a couple of days later and noticed that the prix fixe lunch only cost $46 and consisted of the same courses except for the chilled grape soup. $46 is a bargain for the meal, and $105 is just too much.

Café Gray is located in the Time Warner Center at 10 Columbus Circle, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10019. The telephone number is 212-823-6338. Reservations are recommended and accepted 28 days in advance.