ZooFari 2010

Christina and I got hooked up with some free tickets to go to National Zoo's ZooFari on Thursday. Basically, the deal is simple: 100+ restaurants from the DC area set up booths and hand out free tasty morsels. People such as Christina and me wander down the paths of the zoo grabbing as much succulent goodness as possible. By the time you get to the bottom, you curse that you ate the entire chicken parmesan at the first booth when you could have taken a couple of bites to sample more more more!

The real question of the night. What did I eat. Seeing how I basically went into a meat coma after we got home, I might leave some of the samples out, but I'll try and list everything. (I'll try and put the restaurant and whether it was good or bad).

Chicken Parmesan: no idea the restaurant. It was good, not great.

Weird sushi goo on bread: Pretty good

Some sushi roll: Pretty good

Raw tuna on a cracker (or something): It was ok. Not incredibly awesome

Thai food: Spicy tofu ulam and spinachy meat ulam: Asia nine Lounge and Something: Awesome

Chicken aloo (or something like it): Indique Nights: Off the charts awesome

Roasted pig: Rocklands BBQ: Eh, okay. I had better pig later.

Braised pork belly: Bastille: Awesomely awesome. Perhaps the best pork I've ever had.

Braised pork shoulder: ?: Just awesome.

Truffles: Et Voila!: Best cocoa powder dusted truffle of all time

Sausage pizza: Armand's pizzeria: Regularly good pizza, too heavy too early

Poached rockfish: Redwoods: Slimy, good, not great

Filet Mignon sandwich: Morton's: Good steak, too much bread in the sandwich. Not the best.

Lamb: Lebanese Taverna Restaurants: Surprisingly tasteless. Very disappointing

Three types of grilled meats (steak, ground beef, chicken): Kababji grill: Blow your mind incredible. Best food of the night.

Chicken leg: Don't know (Christina grabbed this one for me): Pretty good. Too full on other meat to truly enjoy

Goat cheese gaufre and chocolate/whipped cream gaufre: Can't remember: Goat cheese gaufre was pretty bad, the other one was really good.

Chocolate ice cream: Ben and Jerrys: boring, because I've had it before

Salty chocolate, chocolate panda: Edward Marc Chocolatier: The salty chocolate was too salty, the panda was good.

Beef Kebab: Can't remember: Really good! Too bad I can't remember where it came from.

Sadly, this means I only sampled about 20 percent of the restaurants. Some were serving soups or breads which are terrible for such an event, but there were about 10-15 restaurants that we missed because, alas, I just didn't have a big enough stomach. First time that I wished I was fatter.

We also saw Duff Goldman judge three cakes and Christina got her toe stepped on by some teacher at the International Culinary Arts School. That's how close we were to the judging.