Last night: birthday eve

Yesterday, according to Danielle, was my “birthday (observed),” so some co-workers and I went out to lunch at Jaleo in Bethesda, where I once again had the Visca el Barça (named for the Barcelona futbol team?), a great sandwich that consists of “fried chicken breast stuffed with Spanish ham and cheese, with red-pepper mayo, bacon, greens, and tomato.” Yum. Afterwards we went to Häagen-Dazs across the street, and I had a scoop of mango sorbet, perfect for a hot day.

After work I got off the Metro at Dupont, and met up with Thom at Best Cellars, where they were having a wine tasting and raffling off a pair of tickets to the opera. We entered our names into the drawing, and proceeded to taste some of the wines. It was hit or miss, but perusing the shelves we did see a lot of other interesting-sounding wines. It was also the first Friday of the month, which is when a consortium of Dupont art galleries coordinate opening night receptions, so after the quick browse at the wine store, we walked to R Street. One gallery, in particular, caught our attention (and not just because they were serving wine and other refreshments). Studio Gallery is showing an exhibit of Micheline Frank’s gorgeous series of mixed-media works inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, entitled “So she waited ’til the moon came full…” The title piece, which presents two very different representations of Medea, is amazing (a small detail of this piece is available on the gallery website). The exhibit runs through Sunday, May 16.

Thom and I rounded out the evening with dinner at Bistro du Coin. We arrived on the early side of the dinner rush; a good thing too, since the place was packed by the time we left. This was our first time there, and it was excellent. We sat upstairs with a nice view of the restaurant, and it wasn’t hard to imagine ourselves somewhere in Paris. I had the mesclun salade and the steak maison (their version of good old steak frites). Oh, it was tasty. The steak, thin and tender, comes with a creamy, buttery sauce that is pure pleasure. Seriously, it had me moaning for a little while. Oh, you saucy tease, you.