la fourchette: un petit morceau de merde

Ass juice. Pronounce those two words slowly in your mind. Pronounce them out loud if you're alone, or, well, if you're in the kind of company that wouldn't projectile vomit upon hearing the word "ass" buttressed by the word "juice."

I don't often ask for reader participation, but for the harrowing and terrifying tale that's about to unfold, I want you to get yourself into that gruesomely disgusting mindset that only the visualization of ass juice can allow; to appreciate as tangibly as possible that which befell upon me that fateful day. Aaaaaaaassssssssss juuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiicccccccccce.

And now, I recount for you my Sunday brunch at Adams Morgan's La Fourchette.

It's hard to believe now, but when I went to La Fourchette, it was a planned event. Someone, somewhere had recommended it. They said the cooking was "endearingly authentic and sometimes wonderful" over at washingtonpost.com. However, if by "authentic," the Post meant some hairy Frenchman sweat all over my omelette, and by "sometimes wonderful," it meant "always gnarly," then yes, that review is spot on.

But I'll give the Post a break. Phyllis C. Richman wrote that review in 1996, before I even graduated from high school in Minnesota; before I spent my college years frolicking through the prairies and cornfields of Iowa; before I whittled away my good, wrinkle-free years in the love-hate purgatory known as Moscow, Russia; before I wasted two more years going to grad school and reacclimating to a relatively mayonnaise-free society in Boston; before I managed to spend my entire savings in five months while living in lower Manhattan; before I finally decided it was time to work both legally and for a yearly salary in DC... *sigh*

For your benefit and mine, I'll cease recapping my life that's now agonizingly flashing before my eyes to just summarize -- times change.

And so it seems time has taken its ugly toll on La Fourchette, which, I prefer to call The Fork, since I contemplated stabbing one into my own jugular to save myself from choking down the slimy, ass juicy, flat, greasy jaundiced pile of merde this establishment tried to pass off as an omelette.

Now, you may be wondering why I didn't just send it back to la cuisine and aller (oui, j'aime the usage of annoying and often grammatically incorrect foreign languages, c'est la vie! ...désolé). Well, like my experience at Reef, I had been waiting roughly 120 minutes to receive my food. I choked that sh*t down not only out of sheer hunger, but also out of principle -- the principle of being tired, lazy and slightly hungover.

But despite my post-Saturday-night state, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Honestly, it was physically impossible. That sh*t was just so, so, SO not tight.

In fact, it tips the scales of not-tightness so much that I really can't even talk about it anymore without feeling like I need to turn off all my lights, crank up Celine Dion's "All By Myself" and rock back-and-forth in the fetal position. La Fourchette is dead to me.

Time I'll Never Get Back: 3 hours

Money I'd Have Rather Spent Buying Gerard Depardieu Croque Monsieurs: $14.00

la comida entre desayuno y almuerzo

Aye carumba. I apologize for my español just now. See, I don't know that language beyond words like burrito, taco and enchilada. Oh, and cerveza, tequila and mezcal. OK, and el baño. Well, you get the idea, mi amigos. But let's just en el meollo de la cuestion (apparently that means "cut to the chase" according to wikipedia...so it's probably wrong...anyway): the meal between breakfast and lunch, a.k.a. brunch, a word my Googled English-Spanish dictionary could not provide.

I realize I wrote about this yesterday, but I thought it only fitting that I write a kind of counterpoint to the nightmare that was the Reef. So, today, I bring you Rumba Cafe, a.k.a. el cielo (I promise that will be my last retarded effort at Spanish).

We actually came upon this lovely establishment by accident one Sunday morning. We had wanted to try La Fourchette (a très mal morceau de merde located just a few doors south of Rumba on 18th Street in Adams Morgan), but, merci dieu, "The Fork" was overflowing (why? I have no idea, La Fourchette will be Bad Brunch Saga #2 next week). So, because nous avions très faims (all right, I promise that will be my last retarded effort at French...ok...and all other foreign languages I have to rely on Google to speak), we moved on to the emptiest place we could find. And for some unknown reason, that place was Rumba Cafe, my little slice of heaven.

We promptly received water, bread and our menus, at which time our friendly waiter took our drink orders. Five minutes later, our selection of mimosas, coffees, bloody marys, grapefruit juices and teas arrived. Fifteen minutes later, our food arrived. I ordered the Rumba omelette ($7.00!), which featured ingredients like chorizo and plaintains, while my companions ordered the huevos rancheros (I think that was $8.00, maybe). Anyway, it was dirt cheap.

Regarding the omelette, I can tell you it was one of the best omelette's I've ever consumed. Everything was cooked perfectly. The eggs were fluffy and non-greasy. The chorizo wasn't too chewy and the other ingredients lent the perfect amount of spice and flavor to make the meal just plain satisfying. I was full, but not sickly full. If Rumba were part of the Wu-Tang Clan, it'd be RZA, the most solid, all-around damn good artist. Like RZA, Rumba's sh*t is tight.

Honestly, it is nice to find a go-to place in this town of ours, especially a go-to place that also happens to be the seemingly cheapest place on the block. *Sigh.*

The final tally:

Time I'm Glad I Don't Want to Ask for Back: 1.5 hours (a very leisurely hour-and-a-half, I might add).
Money I'm So, SO Glad I'd Rather Not Spend on F*ing Zima: $12 (including drinks...good, solid drinks).

Olé!

debacle on 18th street: bad brunch saga #1

Brunch is a magical meal. For one, it doesn't demand you set your alarm clock. Two, it saves you from eating both breakfast and lunch, hence saving you cold hard cash. Abracadabra!

Also, brunch has prescriptive benefits. Hungover? Brunch will cure it. Heartbroken? Brunch can fix that too. Tired, stomach ache, depressed, bored, headache, anorexic, whatever it is -- Brunch. Will. Fix. It. Unless, of course, you stumble upon a bad brunch. A bad brunch will ruin your day, just as it did mine roughly two weeks ago. It was a brunch so horrendous that I couldn't bring myself to blog it until now.

The Venue: Reef
Time I'll Never Get Back: 2.5-3 hours
Money I'd Have Rather Spent On F*ing Zima: $15.00

This story is so heartbreaking because Reef has so much promise. It's located pretty conveniently for those of us in the Mt. Pleasant/Adams Morgan neighborhoods. Additionally, Reef boasts a lovely heated roof deck and a pretty solid menu. Alas, however, none of that can be properly enjoyed when: 1) The hostess-cum-waitress makes you wait an hour while you stare longingly at the two empty tables in the corner; 2) Said hostess/waitress makes you wait another 30 minutes to order...your drinks; 3) Said hostess/waitress spills your drink on you; 4) They're mysteriously out of breakfast burritos; 5) The poached eggs come, well, not poached, but half-hard-boiled, half-soft-boiled and fully gnarly; and 6) You feel the need to projectile vomit directly after you finish the dish you didn't even want in the first place.

Now, prior to this experience, I'd only been to Reef two other times, both at night, er, early morning, and the only ordering I'd ever done was at the bar, which turned out fine. Although, come to think of it, besides either forgetting to add vodka and/or soda, there's really nothing you can do to muck up a vodka-soda (seriously, a toddler could do it). But childhood alcoholism aside, the point is, I thought Reef's brunch would be solid, especially considering the list of potential pluses. Alas, however, Reef sucked some major ass (sorry, but now is not a time for eloquence, my friends). Simply put, that sh*t just wasn't tight.

I'm hoping that maybe we just hit Reef on a bad morning. But fluke or not (and, please, let me know your opinion if you have one), brunch is sacrosanct to me. A restaurant gets one chance and one chance only to impress me at brunch time. So, if it chooses to desecrate upon my most sacred of meals, it's a sin pretty much impossible for me to absolve. And to drive this point home, I really did mean it when I indicated I'd rather spend $15 on Zima than another meal at Reef. Like this baby who showed up in a Google image search for "Zima."*

*Wow. I managed to get two zingers in connecting children and alcohol. It's a good day.