B Too, Washington DC – style over substance
Around the government buildings and office blocks, Washington DC at night can be a little, well, quiet. There are a few livelier districts – down by the river, parts of Georgetown and the restaurant and bar strip on 14th Street NW.
That’s where we found ourselves on a Saturday night, looking for something a bit different, having consumed enough burgers, pasta and tacos to last a lifetime. We decided to give Belgian cuisine a try at B Too.
It’s an attractive looking place with lots of timber and some interesting art. As you’d expect for a Saturday, it was quite noisy. We were shown to a table on the far wall and gluttonous husband immediately looked uncomfortable. Some places just don’t sit well with him. Ne’er mind – we tried to settle in with some beer and a glass of Côtes du Rhone and perused the menu.
The chef here is Bart Vandaele, who has experience of Michelin-starred cookery and is apparently known around DC as ‘the Belgian guy’. The menu read well and there seemed to be enough variety for us to be interested in quite a few dishes.
At home, Greedy Girl and gluttonous husband rarely go out on Saturday nights. In a high pressure environment, things just don’t seem to go as well – either service isn’t up to scratch or the food just seems not to be executed as well. Of course, we only had one try at this and we have to say, it wasn’t outrageously successful.
Generally, the dishes were plated with considerable skill. They even managed to make the green pea soup (pictured at the top of this post) look good. But the taste didn’t correspond; most dishes were unremarkable or executed poorly.
As is our custom, we shared each plate. The green pea soup seemed an interesting concoction – with chorizo, frog legs and Ricard. It didn’t have any real depth of flavour though, so was a bit underwhelming.
Next up were ‘grey shrimp’ croquettes, served with a whiskey sauce, leaves and lemon. As you can see from the photo (above) they were, ahem, rather well cooked. Again, unremarkable.
Greedy Girl has a bit of a thing about waffles. She chose one with a selection of wild mushrooms, including porcini and baby shiitake, served with parsley and a mushroom sauce. This was probably the best dish of the night but the flavour of the mushrooms didn’t have the oomph Greedy Girl likes.
Gluttonous husband opted for one of his favourite dishes – beef tartare. This was listed on the menu as ‘The Best Steak Tartare in DC”. Now Greedy Girl has a theory about any such proclamations – in the main, whatever is described as the best (insert item here) should generally be avoided. She is always, however, happy to be proved wrong.
There’s a lot going on here and, even accounting for the way the camera might actually skew the proportions of the plate, the meat didn’t really seem to be the star of the show. It was topped by cornichons and a quail egg – which was cooked through. It was a bit sad. The profusion of salad and crispy onions didn’t add anything to the dish and the meat itself? Well, the texture was a tad rubbery. Sigh.
By this point, we’d had enough of the noise and decided to decamp. The wait staff brought us a little meringue/tart treat to send us on our way, but it took a fair while to actually get our check.
This is an enormously popular venue and is open for brunch into the late evening. It would be perhaps, worth trying again at a less busy time.
B Too
1324 14th Street NW, Washington DC (Logan Circle)
btoo.com
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