VOLT: Table 21

My last visit to VOLT restaurant was a pleasant experience that I wanted to go back again. Also, not-so-good experience at The Dining Room by the other Voltaggio, I started wonder if I've missed anything from my last visit to VOLT. I was planning a special birthday dinner so I thought to make a visit. I've tried regular tasting menu last time so I wanted to try Table 21. Table 21 started last December to celebrate Chef Bryan's Birthday. It is 21 course menu with in-the-kitchen dining experience where Chef Bryan personally prepares dishes. When I called, the wait for the table is exactly one year from now. There used to be only four seats but they expanded to eight seats this spring. I was very fortunate to know couple people so I didn't have to wait for a year to try Table 21.

While we were waiting for the table, we waited at the bar and enjoyed creative drinks.

We got seated shortly after. Here is table setting:


Our first dish.

"nitro" mint lemonade
crown royal, strawberry foam
more like a cocktail, served in a martini glass with a whipped foam made from liquid nitrogen. It tastes strawberries with bitter undertone of crown royal. It was tasty, light, and refreshing.

Prosciutto
chips & dip
This is a signature of the Table21 menu. Freeze-dried prosciutto was very crispy like potato chips and a creamy dip tastes like sour cream and mashed potatoes. Salty flavor and light creamy potato tastes were harmonious. I wish I can have these for football season!

little glance of Chef while we wait for the next dish.

ruby beet
macaroon foie gras
It had light and subtle character with the foie gras burst forth as macaroon melts in the mouth. Best singular bite. Excellent.

yellowfin tuna tartare
cilantro, jasmine rice, soy, yuzu, avocado
This was another excellent dish. Tuna tartare is almost cliched today and it get's very boring these days at good restaurants. But this dish very very creative. The yellowfin is wrapping in jasmine rice gelee with wasabi roe and soy air all together with the avocado mousse. I think I can eat this everyday!

Another picture of Chef preparing our dish.

yellow corn chowder
crab, cucumber, coconut
I forgot to take a picture before but server pours cool corn soup before you. It was interesting to try cool corn soup with sweetness from crab meat. Little hints of coconut and hibiscus balance out rest of the ingredients.

Some bread. Don't forget to ask for the bread. They bake bread every 30 minutes and breads are so warm and fresh.

tomato tasting
mozzarella, frozen olive oil
Unlike typical tomato and mozzarella dish, this dish was very creative. Mozzarella was so soft that it almost didn't have that cheese texture. Frozen olive oil infused with cheese taste had very unique texture.

"chicken parmesan"
parmesan noodles, opal basil
Think of classic parmigiana, but without tomato sauce and parmesan "noodles" substituted for mozzarella. The chicken was so tender, savory and succulent. It was also crispy in a way like chicken nugget but very fancy version. Everything worked very well.

cherry glen farm ravioli
mitake mushroom, goat cheese
The goat cheese wasn't overwhelming as it was very savory and the flavors from the sage air balanced the heaviness of goat cheese. The mushrooms also added an earthy flavor to the dish.

lobster
butter, garlic, sunchoke, fennel
I really liked this dish. It might have to do with my love for crab/lobster but I thought this dish was very classic where Chef used sweet and briny Maine lobster with butter on the side. The sunchoke broth and fennel compensated the lobster very well.

black bass
english pea, yellow corn
The fish was firm and flaky fresh. The sweetness from yellow corn balanced out the salty fish while peas gave earthiness.

artic char
red onion, potato, cucumber, chive
This dish could have been better if fish was cooked little longer. Char is very similar to salmon where flesh is soft, salty, and succulent. So, it should've been cooked in a way to enjoy a delectably crisp, saporous skin.

skate
cauliflower, ver jus
Another favorite dish of mine. Skate was seared nicely to light brown with soft and moist inside. Mashed cauliflower was little to boring to me but good skate made everything better.

sweetbread
fennel, kalamata olive, caper, lemon
Sweetbread was just ok for me. It was interesting to see the use of kalamata olives which it gives meatlike taste with smooth texture. This blended well with smooth texture of sweetbread with giving earthy taste of olives.

tuscarora farm beets
upland cress, balamic
The organic beets are served sliced and the tangy goat cheese with the spicy flavor of the cress were well balanced.

whitmore farm 63 degree hen egg
crisp oyster root, summer truffle "ravigote"
An organic egg from local Maryland farm cooked in 63 degrees. No salt is needed as oyster root gave saltiness and truffle gave a distinct flavor to the dish. A fancy version of poached egg.

border spring farm lamb tasting
ratatouille
Lamb loin, roasted and braised, with spinach, kalamata olive, squash, and a ratatouille of fennel, red pepper, and eggplant gelees. Lamb loin was tender but it was little hard to cut into due lack of proper cutting knife. The braised preparation was so tender that it barely requiring any chewing.

pineland farm strip loin
chantrelle mushrooms
beef was delectably salty with dark flavors of the chantrelle mushrooms aiding the dish. small portion of mashed potatoes moderated the interaction of other flavors.

point reyes blue cheese
almond, apple, balsamic
It was good to see that Chef is constantly experimenting with different ingredients. The cheese was shaved in angles to present its pungent disposition. I thought of Jordan Kahn's creations when I saw this. Blue cheese is my least favorite cheese due to its strong flavor but green apple sponge gave a subtle tartness along with marcona almond butter in the middle. The balsamic added tangy counterpoint. This would be a perfect cheese course if you are a blue cheese lover.

goat cheese cake
blueberry, macona almond
I loved this! A goat cheesecake, paired with almond crumble, stewed sour blueberries, and blueberry sorbet. The cheesecake was very savory with the sour-sweetness of the blueberries, and a little touch of nuttiness by almond.

apricot bavarian
blackberry sorbet, lemon balm
Similar dish as previous one. The sweet apricot flavor is followed by sour-sweet blackberry sorbet.

Kona Coffee
VOLT serves different types of coffee and I ordered Kona for next dish.

texture of chocolate
caramel, chocolate ice cream
Here is Voltaggios's signature chocolate ganache, which he showed off during Top Chef. It was sweet but not overly sweet and the bits of raw cacao adds little bitterness to the dessert. Also it was pleasure to find a creamy texture in the mouth. The chocolate ice cream also worked well with the ganache.

chocolates, candies, and macaroons
a quartet of mignardises: milk chocolate with powder cacao, almond macaroon, madeleine, and raspberry pate de fruits.

We were also provided with poppy seed pound cake to take home.

From start to finish, Table 21 proved to be an amazing gastronomic experience. It was very nice to see how Votlaggio transformed contemporary classic American cooking to sophisticated dishes. He experimented with different methods and flavor combination, yet his cooking showed traditional and fundamental technique. I really hope I don't have to wait a year to try Table21 again.
I had a chance to talk to Voltaggio during the meal and after. It was nice to know that he remembered me from my last visit in January. I told him about my experience at The Dining Room in California where his brother(Top Chef winner), Michael is the head chef. I informed Bryan that I didn't really enjoy my dining experience there and he wanted to take a picture with me and send it to his bother to say, "hey, you remember this guy?". Haha.. what a funny guy! =) He gave me his personal business card to contact him for any questions. I can't wait to go back.

Founding Farmers

It's been awhile since I've posted anything here. I've been busy with personal things and I haven't really going out to eat at different places. Also, I found out that taking camera with me is a good idea at times... =p

I've heard about this restaurant in DC that offers true-American food. Apparently, they use fresh ingredients that offers homemade-like food. My friend was also interested in dining there so we decided to give it a try. Founding Farmers is located in DC, near The White House. There were plenty of street parking nearby so it wasn't hard to find a parking space: Just make sure to bring lots of coins(I mean ALOT!).

We were little late for our reservation but they were nice enough to patiently wait for us and saved our seat. The middle of the restaurant is a bar and there are a ground floor and a second floor. The layout and decors were comforting and nice to look around. I've also noticed that there was a birthday event for kids(probably between ages of 7~11). So it must be very relaxed and family-oriented environment even though there is a bar in the middle.

We started look through the menu and there were tons of things that I wanted to try. Also, they have huge selection of tasty mixed drinks on the drink menu. Some were very original, such as Farmer's Fizz, Clover Club, and Organic Cucumber Delight. I know this is silly but we start out with main meals and then ordered small plates later. But I'll start with small plate first.

Oysters on the Half Shell

Can't never go wrong with fresh oysters! But the server made it wrong. I had to ask him several times to bring hot sauce.

Farmer's Salad

Baby lettuces were fresh and red grapes and dates were just enough to give sweet taste. It was a good idea to have Parmesan cheese in champagne vinaigrette on the side. Or else, it would overwhelm the salad.

La Quercia Prosciutto, Fig & Mascarpone Flatbread

This was good! There were good balance of saltiness from prosciutto and sweetness from fig and Mascarpone. Fig could have been little too sweet and little too sticky in texture but butter like spread of Mascarpone made flatbread even taste better.

Lemon Meunière Diver Scallops

Seared scallops are well balanced with lemon brown butter sauce. Pumpkin risotto was cooked to firm inside but not hard which is how risotto should be. However, I think risotto was little to overpowering the taste of fresh scallops. This would have been better if risotto was served on the side with smaller portion.

Fresh Blue Crab Ravioli

An idea of using local ingredient was nice. And the portion of real crab meat inside the ravioli was very generous. But, the old bay seasoning was too salty due to generous portion of crab meat and tomato basil butter was salty as well. The entire dish was salty. It would've been nice if they still use the same amount of crab meat with less seasoning, and use unsalted butter for tomato basil butter sauce. The salt from goat cheese would have been just enough to enjoy the dish.

I think I should revisit and try different dishes. Their macarroni and cheese and farmer's meatloaf were pretty decent when I visited before. There are just so many choices in the menu that you really have know what you might like. So far, I only like mixed drinks and flatbreads. Other than that, most dishes were pretty salty. Oh also, try to reserve a table on the second floor as the first floor almost always have slow and bad service. I don't know how many times I had to look for our waiter and ask for few things. Maybe it was just our waiter but it seems that all the waiters on first floor are tardy and forgetful. Just my two cents. ;)

Restaurant Eve

I was always interested to visit a petit restaurant called "Restaurant Eve" in Alexandria, VA. Recently I was checking the nominees for James Beard Foundation Awards and I was glad to see Bryan Voltaggio from "Volt" and Cathal Armstrong from "Restaurant Eve" on the list for "Best Chef:Mid-Atlantic". I visited "Volt" back in January and need to revisit for Table 21 soon. Well, that will be another blog post later on. I've heard lots of good things about "Restaurant Eve" so I decided to make a visit and taste chef's creations.

Chef Cathal Armstrong is a Dublin native who is inspired by his parent's passion for food and began to develop his own culinary skills at an early age in Ireland. He always thought of fresh ingredients, usually growing his own fruits and vegetables from his garden. He also developed an appreciation of gastronomy, which I could tell from his wonderful dishes.

The Restaurant is in oldtown Alexandria, near busy section of King St. It's close to the waterfront so it's nice to take a walk for couple blocks and enjoy the view after the meal.


The restaurant has two distinct dining experiences, "The Chef's Tasting Room" and "The Bistro". "The Chef's Tasting Room" is Chef Armstrong's culinary showcase where he features, a five, seven , and nice course tasting menu. "The Bistro" is less formal than the Tasting room and it has its own entrees. Nine course menu has one more dessert and one extra palate cleanser so I decided that it is better to get seven course menu. The seven course menu is very much like Omakase. There is no definite list of menu but chef uses his imagination and creates his own dishes, using that day's fresh ingredients. So it is own of kind meal, which I very much appreciated and was very excited to try.

They had this dishes in the tasting room tables that are beautiful to look at. The designs are all different and they are made by an Italian dish maker. Very unique!

Tasting Room

The Bistro

Trio of canapes - foie gras with fig jame, salmon mousse, deviled quail egg with caviar.
Foie gras was well infused with fig jam. Salmon mousse is very smooth. I wanted this for my bagels every morning instead of using salmon cream cheese. Deviled quail egg with caviar was just okay for me. I can make this at home and touch it with caviar.

Tempura eel served in an eel sauce.
This was good. The outer layer was very crunch without being soaked by eel sauce. Soft eel inside and crunch outside layer was perfectly balance together.

Strawberry sorbet served over a lemongrass & champagne jelly
Very good flavor. It was good for a palate cleanser.

Sashimi of bigeye tuna with green almonds, grilled almond emulsion, argan oil.
This is where Chef Armstrong's gastronomy came in. I never though of tasting bigeye tuna with almond argan oil. Almond sauce brought out tuna flavor from within(bigeye tuna has more fat thus making it more flavorful) and argan oil added a nice aroma to the aftertaste.

Sashimi of yellowfin tuna with a citrus emulsion, citrus salt, compressed ginger.
Another brilliant idea of using compressed ginger to tuna. Yellowfin tuna has a mild taste that using an ingredients like ginger and citrus will intensify the mild taste and bring out more flavor from the fish. This was a very good idea.

Bread.
Very very good. I felt like I was in a cafe in Paris and biting into a good loaf of bread. Outer layer is just crunch enough to not cut inside your mouth and inner part was very soft.

Virginia asparagus with baby white asparagus panna cotta, asparagus ice cream, bliss elixir.
It was interesting to taste asparagus ice cream. It went very well with panna cotta. Asparagus was cooked perfectly: soft throughout the inside and moist. I can turn into a vegetarian if I can duplicate this all the time.

Baby asparagus with poached quail egg.
A steamed version of soft asparagus.

Espellette crusted(panko bread flavored with chili flake) skate wing with sunchokes and garli-almond cream.
Oh boy! This was the best dish for me during the dinner. I've never had a skate quite like this dish. At first, I thought this was more like crab meat than skate. It broke into pieces like crab meat and very moist without being dry. Crusted bread was just enough without being killing the skate and chili flakes gave little kick to the taste buds. Garlic-almond cream also went well with bring out the flavor of skate. I was craving for this dish the very next day!

Pan roasted skate served over fresh chickpeas, spring onions and sea beans with an oyster vinaigrette.
Another excellent dish with well balanced vegetables. It was interesting to use an oyster vinaigrette which it brought sea-flavor to pan roasted skate.

Crisp veal sweetbreads with spring onions, sunflower puree and veal glace.
My second favorite of the night. Veal Sweetbread is battered just enough with condiments without being salty. Sunflower puree added a delicately mild taste to the dish.

Crisp veal sweetbreads with preserved Meyer lemon risotto, fresh garbanzo beans, veal glace.
Lemon risotto was cooked al dente and citrus flavor intensified the tasted of sweetbread.

Loin of Broken Arrow Ranch venison with baby carrots, spring onions and truffle au jus.
This dish was good but I wish there are few changes. First, the knife at the table was not a good enough to cut though the meat. Second, the meat could've been little bit more tender through tendering process before cooking it. Other than these two, the meat was cooked to medium rare, which I like on meats, and truffle au jus added good flavor.

Set of crumb scrapers.
While waiting for the next meal, I started a conversation with my waiter and we talked about different crumb scrapers at different restaurants. And then he brought out antique set of crumb scrapers at the restaurant. It was interesting to see different types and also there are collectors out there for these.

"Pipe Dreams Ash log" ( goat cheese from Pipe Dreams Farm, Pennsylvania) with bourbon cherry compote and almond-tellicherry pepper tuile.
The cheese is wrapped with ashes from burnt logs thus it has distinct look and flavor. Te bourbon cherry compote added just enough sweetness and crunch almond-tellichery ppper tuile added another characteristic to the dish.

"Bayley Hazen" (cow milk blue cheese from Jasper Hill Farm, Vermont) with deconstructed percan pie & nutmeg cream.
I wasn't sure what ched's intention was on this dish. Maybe his Irish background played a role in this dish but the blue cheese was quite strong and it over-killed other flavors.

Eclair filled with a mousse of cardamom, coffee and caramel.
Small bite size pre-dessert sweeter. Eclair was baked well with wonderful flavor of coffee, hints of caramel and creamy mousse upon first bite.

Bananas Foster - bananas cooked in rum served with a charred cinnamon stick, bananas Milanese(crisp layers between bananas cream), cinnamon ice cream.
Warm rum add sweetness to bananas without adding lots of sugar and it had a nice flavor of cinnamon. Banana cream was very cream without being too sweet. Cinnamon ice cream was very interesting as well. I thought it would be more sweeter side of cinnamon but it reminded me the spiciness of cinnamon. An interesting idea of blending bananas and cinnamon.

Strawberry Shortcake - shortcake filled with strawberries served with strawberry buttercream, tarragon sauce & whipped cream.
For me, this dessert was too plain. Shortcake itself was flavorful and baked well but there was just too much strawberry-ness and nothing striking.

Finale dessert tower: Birthday & orange macarons, white chocolate and nut candies, lemon tartlets, arlets.
Well I shouldn't expect anything of macarons unless if they are from Laduree. White chocolate and nut candies are somewhat usual as one might expect from Christmas dessert gifts. Lemon tartlets are good but average. However, arlets were very good. They are almost like a battered, sweetened jumbo size cornflakes.

So I finished my meal with coffee. It was good coffee and I loved it even more when they served me with natural sugar crystals and a piece of cookie. I think using natural sugar crystal makes coffee more flavorful. Also it's more healthy too.

Overall, the dining experience was very enjoyably and the dishes were fantastic and tasteful. I see why they have received Four out of Four Stars from the Washington Post and nominated for James Beard Foundation Award. The ingredients were very fresh and well balanced. I would definitely want to come back again, perhaps bring a date next time.

The Tasting room opens Monday through Saturday between 5:30pm~9:30pm. It's little difficult to make a reservation for the weekend so give yourself plenty of time for weekend reservation. The Bistro dinner opens Monday through Saturday between 5:30pm~10pm. There is strict dress code: It is advisable for gentlemen to wear jackets and ladies to dress in fine garments for dinner.