Ly & Sly Lial are opening Sea Pearl Soon...get the insider view

Ly and Sly decided to open a restaurant on their own named Sea Pearl. It's big and it's beautiful. It was going to be named Blue Salt, but there was already another guy who had a place locally with Salt in the name...you know how that goes.
Anyhow, Sly was the Exec Chef at Sequoia on the waterfront. He knows about pumping out food. Ly is one of the famed sisters of Four Sisters. Four Sisters is a perennial Washingtonian Top 100 and Best Cheap Eats places. They closed the original in Falls Church and are opening a new one about a 9 iron from Sea Pearl. They still have the building in Falls Church but will be converting it to a bakery/qsr site if my memory serves me correctly.
Based on the care they took in selecting their furnishings, architecture and vendors, I'm sure Sea Pearl will be something to talk about. Let me take you on a pre-opening tour below.

Ly and Dave (one of my guys)

This is what a restaurant looks like about two weeks before it opens. This is a BIG place.

Large entry foyer. Note the mother of pearl tiles in the ceiling.

This is the lounge.
View from the lounge towards the foyer.
BIG Kitchen. The brackets on the ceiling will support the Kitchen Display Units.

It's great when people care enough about their technology to put tarps over it!

Until next time....which will be a review of The Electric Palm in Woodbridge.

Return to America, and Redwood

Redwood's "Soft Opening" dinner menu

H'ola. The Doctor is in. Back from Mexico and ready to start posting again. Just before I left I had lunch with a friend at Redwood. This was my first excursion to eat here and I was looking forward to it.

We started out with an assorted cheese plate and some country pate. I was starving and forgot to take a picture of the first course, so you'll just have to deal with your imagination for a few seconds.

Brian had the Tarragon Egg Salad with smoked salmon on Spring Mill organic white bread. Nicely done. The presentation was nice and the sandwich itself wasn't skimpy.

I had the Vande Rose Farm Flat Iron Steak with braised wild greens and house-made steak sauce.

This was excellent. The steaksauce and steak were great, but the surprise award winner of the lunch was the braised greens. Just crunchy, salty, meaty enough.

We shared a side of the Baked Macaroni & Cheese Gratin. It was nice. Not too heavy, not too light. The cheese was mild and the breadcrumbs were crunchy and buttery.
To finish things off, I had to try the Frozen Goat Cheese Souffle. This was an interesting dessert. The texture says souffle, but the taste and temperature have your mouth wondering if you got it right.



Two people who do have it right, (with a lot of help from others) are Jared and Eli, the owners. I think that once the opening kinks are smoothed out that you'll have a place that's very comfortable to eat in or just go for cocktails, and you'll always be able to find something local and fresh on the menu. Don't forget to check the wine list.



Until next time....