Looking for the freshest seafood this side of Crete? Try Kellari

Stavros Aktipis is the man from Manhattan with his eye on the prize of having the freshest seafood in DC.
He took over the old Restaurant K by Allison Swope at 1700K St. N.W.
His crew got the place finished very tastefully in record time. Nice fixtures and warm, cozy touches abound.
Stavros himself is a family man who loves to have kids in his restaurant. He says kids make him feel lucky and invulnerable, like nothing bad can happen when his family is around. Nice guy.
Anyhow, on to the food! I only tasted a couple of dishes as I already had plans that night, but what I had and saw was good. This is a view of the fish display. You choose what fish you want, order it by the pound, tell them how you want it prepared, and it's done family-style. You can order a couple of whole fish or shellfish for the family.

The light was a little dim, but as you can tell here it's very cozy. I like the cut-outs with the Greek words that are back-lit. Not sure what they mean, but it's nice looking.

Stavros and me. I deal with a lot of restaurant owners in my line of work and I have to say that he is one of the nicer guys I've met. He's above-board and does what he says he's going to do. At the end of the day that's what you're left with. Did you keep your committments or not?

This is the flaming cheese. Pretty fuzzy picture, but the waiter was about to dowse it with lemon juice to put it out so I was in a hurry.

These are the sardines, grilled simply and quickly with lemon, olive oil, and parsley. Crispy on the outside, tender and flaky on this inside.

Bottom line, it's worth the trip to DC. Bring your family. It's that kind of place. Tell Stavros, or the General Manager, Yacine, that I sent you!

Thanks for reading folks.

Restaurant week at Vidalia

Boy am I behind on my posts...it's not that I haven't been eating, I promise you. It's that I've been way buys at work. People keep opening restaurants, people are re-opening closed restaurants, and my competition is responding by cutting staff and reducing service personnel...Bad for them. Good for me.
Anyhow, enough about work. Let's talk about passion. Let's talk about Jeff Buben and R.J. Cooper. The owner and Exec Chef, respectively, of Vidalia. One of my favorite places in DC. My friend Matt and I went to Vidalia last year and had a Truffle Extravaganza

This year, we were not so fortunate, but what we did get was restaurant week pricing. Jeff has the distinction of being one of the few owners that actually let you choose from their regular menu. There is surcharge, natch, for the lobster or the steak entree, but it's still one of the best values in town. Reservations go QUICK. As soon as I saw the advertisement for Restaurant Week in my inbox I booked a table. I was blessed with the preceding Gumbo, shown above, and the following items, below, all for a very reasonable price.
It's been so long, I'm not sure if this was the pork loin or not.
I believe this was Matt's Monkfish.
I thought this dish was the winner. Lobster Tail with Lobster Foam with Braised Pork Belly. This was done perfectly and tasty as you could want.
Frog Legs. Never had them before, but I figured if I was going to try them I might as well have R.J. Cooper cooking them for me.

A favorite of mine: Country Pate. Yum.

This one you'd have to fight me for. Peanut Butter and Chocolate. Kind of like Michel Richard's Kit-kat. In any event, it sounded good enough to make me stray from my usual Lemon Chess Pie here, which is one of the best desserts on the planet. This was pretty good too. Jeff, whenever you're ready to give me the REAL recipe for the Chess Pie I'll take it... This was the Bourbon Pecan Pie. Matt seemed to like his better than mine, so I'd say we did well.

Until next time....thanks for reading.

Please feel free to hit me with comments, suggestions, and rude remarks.