Tuesday, December 21 2010 at 11 AM

That's a great idea.

I know a lot of people think fondue is a cheesy (ha!) relic of the '70s, of a piece with shag carpeting, psychedelic colors and AMC Pacers *, but I like it. I think a chocolate fondue is one of the best ways to eat chocolate, and a cheese fondue can be a great thing with a group of friends on a cold night. … A pot of fondue, some good wine, and some board games for later.

(The beef fondue, to me, is always the weakest of the three; boiled beef is just not that appealing to me. And even if you underboil the hunks of meat to give it a pink or red-pink center, it's still boiled beef.)

Thanks for the reminder. It might just be what we trot out for dinner on the 31st …

Any other suggestions for NYE eating-in with friends and family? I'm open to trying something new this year …

* We had a Pacer when I was young, and I loved it — initially, anyway, before it began to break down and lose the tightness of its steering and the smoothness of its ride. It was a wide car, and sitting inside, with all those windows all around you, you felt like you were sitting in a tank. What a feeling! There were better cars, to be sure — slicker cars, cars with superior engineering and superior styling … and I'll always remember the convertible I took with me to grad school … but the feeling of sitting in a Pacer for the first time — nothing compares to that … 

I think that 2941 at its very best is a better experience than Cedar.

But the operative phrase is — at its very best. My most recent meal at that gaudy cathedral of NoVa's nouveau riche was pretty ordinary by 2941's standards. And very, very expensive.

Cedar, by contrast, is never going to be able to deliver the kind of meal that 2941 can when it's really clicking. But I can see why you might have enjoyed it more. It's not trying nearly as hard, and not charging nearly as much. I think the food is sometimes heavier than it ought to be, and the flavors can get a little muddied from time to time, but there are also dishes I'd return for; the oyster pan roast is one of them.

I like their brunch as well; again, it doesn't strain for effect, and mostly delivers what it promises.

Birch & Barley's a great call.

I really enjoyed my most recent meal there, and I mean — I enjoyed it from start to finish. Doesn't sound like such a remarkable thing on the surface, does it? After all, shouldn't good restaurants deliver a good time from the moment you walk through the door to the moment you leave? They should. But I haven't found many of late that can sustain my interest and excitement over the course of 2 1/2 hours.

There's a lot of thought and detail that goes into this place. It's justly revered for Greg Engert's astonishing beer list — 500 + artisanal beers by bottle and 50 beers on tap — but Kyle Bailey's cooking has some very fine moments, and Tiffany MacIsaac's desserts are killer.

MacIsaac's the rare sort of pastry chef who can assemble a plate of eight different, sometimes disparate, elements and somehow unite them into a brilliant whole. Eating them, you don't sense an ego that needs to be satisfied; you sense a kindred spirit who wants to please you, who would rather you not stand back and admire the craftsmanship but dig in and savor.

Don't miss the figgy toffee pudding or the apple beignet.

The thing is, I don't have a recipe. That's one reason I like making this so much, because I can just feel free at the stove and play.

It's not complicated, and if you're comfortable in the kitchen, I have no doubt you can make something really, really tasty.

Here's what you do:

Start by making the caramel sauce. Find a recipe that feels comfortable to you if you've never made one before. It's not that hard to do; it just requires a lot of patience at the stove — you simply cannot leave the burner while you're making a caramel. If you want a richer caramel sauce, use milk. But water and sugar will make a fine caramel. The key, here, is to bring the boiling mixture to the point of burning, but not quite. That will take practice. But the rewards are great; that almost-but-not-quite burnt-ness gives the caramel a real depth of flavor.

Use a big pan to cook it down, and make a lot of it — you're going to need it for all those layers.

Next order of business: making the crepes. I make a sweet crepe batter, since it's a cake I'm making, and aim for the thinnest crepes I can. Make about 36-40 of them.

Assembly is easy: stacking and drizzling, stacking and drizzling, until you've got a good height to the cake.

I like to have enough caramel left to make the finishing sauce — aim for about a 1/2 cup or so remaining. Then, pour that into a saucepan, turn the heat to medium low, pour in about a 1/4 cup of OJ and some grated orange peel and a few shots of Cointreau and let it all come together. You're going for something of a much thinner consistency than the caramel "mortar."

When it's still warm, drizzle the sauce over the top of the crepe cake.

For what it's worth — I've been to the new Bardeo, and enjoyed it.

Good, soulful bowl of pasta Bolognese, a dish of sweet, head-on prawns, a well-composed plate of charred octopus and potato, and a mushroom and cheese flatbread.

And the space is more breathable and more cozy than before.

It's a really, really interesting question.

The first place that pops to mind is Plume, which has been garnering very, very high ratings on Open Table since it opened at the Jefferson Hotel in August of '09. 

It's undeniably a grand night out, from the top-hatted, white-gloved gentleman who opens the door to the hotel to the upholstered purse pedestals that are brought to the table (so Madam's bag will not have to touch the floor) to the elaborate, swan-like wine decanters to the formally outfitted, French-speaking waiters (and I'm not being gender-casual; they're all waiters).

The cooking is classically French and reflects years of training and drilling. The sauces are beautifully strained, the vegetables are delicately carved, the arrangements all look beautiful.

So what's wrong?

A lot.

For all the work that goes into them, the dishes are often really dull. It's as if, in all the processing they've been put through, the flavors have been leeched out. Luxury ingredients abound, but you can't help thinking that the kitchen just squanders these wonderful resources by employing them in such flat-tasting dishes.

When a place is this expensive — and Plume is among the most exorbitant dinners in the city — and the flavors just aren't there, and your palate has been neither challenged nor pleased … well, you begin to view everything around you differently.

All these little luxe touches, for instance. They don't seem like gilding the lily; they seem ridiculous.

The staff is very, very pro — but it also seems incapable of sharing its enthusiasm for food and drink with you. It's a very rote experience. 

Lydia,

What a wonderful thank-you note. I'm going to hold onto this one for a while. Thank you so much for writing and sharing your experiences with us.

It sure sounds as though you've had some great times this year — or, if not always great, then always memorable. You also somehow managed to tell us the story of your life these past 12 months in just a few quick strokes, and for a few minutes I felt I was there with you through all of it.

You've got me thinking — it'd be great to hear more summations like this one, more short stories of the year in food.

Would anyone care to follow Lydia's lead, and tell us about their year in meal-sketches like this? I'd love to hear them. 

Thanks again, Lydia. And Merry X-mas to you and yours … 

I like raclette, too.

Like fondue, it's a great thing to ring in NYE with. Thanks for the suggestion.

From the sound of it, many of you have hit upon the formula for a great night. Keep it simple, keep it hearty, keep it communal — and keep it coming. 

And with lots of friends and family gathered round, and lots of laughs, who needs to be out and partying? 

Of those four, the one that intrigues me the most is Fiola.

Remember that Fabio Trabocchi, when he left the DC area in 2007, left at the top of his game. He was running what was arguably the best restaurant in the area: the sumptuous (if pretentiously named) Maestro, in the Ritz-Carlton Tysons.

From the sound of it, the menu will not be nearly as luxe as that he was serving at Maestro, and I think that's potentially a good thing. Some chefs are flummoxed by the challenge of cooking more simply, of streamlining their signature dishes and/or contriving less intricate, less elaborate means of communicating their ideas.

I'm thinking in particular of Gerard Pangaud, late of Gerard's Place (which never succeeded in transforming itself into a bistro) and Yannick Cam, whose Bistro Provence makes a somewhat uneasy truce with the bistro concept.

I don't think Trabocchi is going to have that problem. He knows how to gild the lily, but he's not dependent on lily gilding to be good. His best dishes — his pastas, his preparations of fish — have always had a surprising directness about them. Clear in conception, precise in execution.

This is going to be THE opening to watch in the first half of 2011 in DC.

I guess the true dog lovers are going to be in their element with something like this. But wow — that's a lot of doggyness to have around.

I guess I must not be a dyed-in-the-wool, true-blood dog lover … 

If it makes you feel any better, I'd probably feel the same way about a party with a bunch of children running around. Fun for a while, then overwhelming.

And I say that as someone who has a kid, so please — I don't want to open my inbox later to find that someone thinks I hate kids. I don't. I hate groups. 

As far as the Mountain Dew Shrimp recipe, which we have now heard about on this chat for, oh, at least three times that I know of — would someone please whip up a batch this weekend and report back? If not, I'm going to try it on NYE …

And Clifton, bud — merry X-mas to you and yours. I hope it's a good one … 

I know that the new RW was announced, but I haven't yet gone over the list and made a proper study of the possibilities. But stay tuned …

I'm glad to hear you had the lucuma mousse at La Limeña. I love it, too. That and the alfajores. Great endings to a great, cheap meal.

And people should know that La Limeña is good for more than sweets; I think it's one of the best restaurants in Montgomery County. And that's for a place that serves up its often excellent cooking on black plastic plates.

I love the anticuchos, the ceviche, the chupe de camarones, the whole fried trout with a side of pesto spaghetti. There's also a Cubano that's pretty darn good, too.

Go.

And speaking of going … I'm in danger of missing my lunch date …

Have a great X-mas, everyone. Please savor this time off with your family and your friends. Don't take it for granted. And to all you MOT * out there, who will be descending en masse on Chinese joints across the region on the evening of the 24th ** before heading off to a movie, you do the same please.

Be well, eat well, and let's do it again next week at 11 … our final chat of 2011 …

* Members of the Tribe

** You may see me at a table near you

[missing you, TEK … ]