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Welcome to The Receipt, a series documenting how Bon Appétit readers eat and what they spend doing it. Each food diary follows one anonymous reader’s week of expenses related to groceries, restaurant meals, coffee runs, and every bite in between. In this time of rising food costs, The Receipt reveals how folks—from different cities, with different incomes, on different schedules—are figuring out their food budgets. Think Refinery29’s Money Diaries but only food or The Grub Street Diet but regular people.
In today’s Receipt a 27-year-old consultant making $225,000 a year balances daily work meetings with nightly restaurant meals in Washington, D.C. Keep reading for her receipts.
Jump ahead:
The finances
What are your pronouns? She/her
What is your occupation? I work in the consulting arm of a large technology company. I’m something in between an “engagement manager” in consulting parlance and “engineering manager” in tech speak. I studied physics and computer science in college.
How old are you? 27
What city and state do you live in? Washington, D.C.
What is your annual salary, if you have one? My base salary is $225,000 with variable bonuses annually that may come as cash or stock.
How much is one paycheck, after taxes? Each paycheck is $5,000 after taxes, 401(k) contributions, and health insurance payments are taken out.
How often are you paid? (e.g., weekly) I get paid twice a month (on the 15th and 30th).
How much money do you have in savings? I have approximately $400,000 in savings across my home equity, 401(k), Roth IRA, and brokerage accounts. I started working when I was in college (as a teaching assistant, as a tutor, in a stockroom, and through summer internships), started investing young, and have ridden the stock market returns for a few years. I’m very grateful that my parents paid for college and I do not have any debt.
What are your approximate fixed monthly expenses beyond food? (i.e., rent, subscriptions, bills)
- My largest monthly expense is my mortgage, which is $3,200.
- I also pay a monthly Homeowners Association fee ($450, which includes water and gas), utilities (approximately $200 for internet, TV, electricity, and homeowners insurance).
- I belong to the University Club of Washington, D.C., and my monthly membership is $200.
- Other monthly expenses include subscriptions to the New Yorker ($13.25), Spotify ($10.59), Netflix ($15.49), and Apple iCloud ($2.99). I get Hulu and HBO Max from friends who have added me to their family plans. I am on my family’s phone plan, since my parents claim “it is cheaper that way.”
- Total: $4092.32
The diet
Do you follow a certain diet or have dietary restrictions? I have some undiagnosed digestion issues that make eating hard sometimes, but my gastroenterologist recommends, “You could try to figure out what is causing issues and cut it out, but you’d probably be sad about it, so it’s likely best just to have a little bit of everything.” I have to be judicious about how much and how often I consume things like gluten and dairy, so I try to make sure it’s extra delicious when I do.
What are the grocery staples you always buy, if any?
- I do most of my grocery shopping at the Sunday farmers market. I am always sure to pick up spinach and whatever the seasonal fruit is (right now, it’s berries, peaches, and canary melons).
- I also love the free-range eggs—you can really tell the difference
- Every few weeks, I’ll pick up a loaf of bread, milk, or yogurt (no rhyme or reason, it’s just what I feel like that week).
- I also usually try to stock avocados, lemons, and coconut water.
How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home? I love cooking, but I haven’t done it much recently. Packed work days don’t leave much time to eat, let alone cook.
When I do cook, it’s usually a large ordeal. I once made boeuf bourguignon for a date night that took seven and a half hours to cook, and I accidentally served dinner at 9 p.m. And I once famously threw a brûlée party in honor of my favorite kitchen appliance, where everyone had to bring something to brûlée–grapefruits, Brie, s’mores, bananas–and I made crême brûlée (heavy on the Grand Marnier, as the Barefoot Contessa insists).
Dining out is the cornerstone of my social life. I aggressively chase seasonal produce when I eat out (corn and chanterelle season has brought me to The Dabney, a restaurant that highlights mid-Atlantic food, and DBGB, Daniel Boulud’s bistro) and whimsical interpretations (the lobster French toast at Kinship, a Michelin-starred New American restaurant, is a tried and true favorite of mine).
How often in a week did you dine out while growing up? We almost never ate out, but did take the occasional trip to a steakhouse. My favorite meal as a child was Caesar salad, a filet mignon with béarnaise sauce, and crème brûlée!
How often in a week did your parents or guardians cook at home? My parents always cooked at home. I ate a lot of pasta growing up. I know Roger Federer is a brand ambassador for Barilla now, but that could have been me based on how much I ate that—and Prego tomato sauce. I’m not sure my parents knew how to cook much else back then. They have recently decided they need to elevate their food game; their mini bernedoodle now eats avocado toast and berries from the farmers market for breakfast.
The expenses
- Week’s total: $1,033.17
- Restaurant and café totals: $996.42
- Groceries total: $36.75
- Most expensive meal or purchase: Dinner for two at Shōtō, $459.54
- Least expensive meal or purchase: Pistachio croissant at Tatte, $4.50 before tax and tip counts
- Number of restaurant and café meals: 12
- Number of grocery trips: 1
The diary
6:22 a.m. I’m up early for a 7 a.m. squash match. These mornings are scheduled down to the minute to maximize sleep and caffeine. Coffee is a double shot Americano made from the 1812 Espresso blend ($16, previously bought) from Zeke’s Coffee, a local roastery that makes the best espresso that has come out of my Breville Barista Express machine. People are obsessed with this machine because of me—my manager at work bought one based on my recommendation and often starts our 1:1 meetings talking about how much he loves it, and my parents once held mine hostage at their home for months and kept “forgetting” to return it to me.
I always make my morning Americano. It’s mainly for the caffeine kick, but also partially out of superstition: I once had an Americano and a piece of cake before a match I thought I had no chance of winning, and ended up with a victory. This early morning routine is usually complemented by music blasting at full volume. Today, I only get through two songs (“Ocean Avenue” by Yellowcard followed by “All My Favorite People” by Maren Morris featuring Brothers Osborne) before I have to head out. I don’t finish my coffee, so it gets thrown in the fridge to become its iced version for when I return.
9:16 a.m. I start my work day and drink what is remaining of my Americano, now iced. I work remotely, so I’m at home.
12:00 p.m. Today’s lunch is leftovers from last Saturday’s date night at Lupo Verde, an Italian spot. The short rib tagliatelle with truffle jus is a little rich for this early in the day, but I heat it up in the microwave.
12:30 p.m. I crave dessert at the end of every meal. My working hypothesis is that this is genetic, since my dad also requires dessert at the end of every meal. Today, lunch is followed by an assortment of berries from the farmers market. These days, my weekly trips to the market require a big flat box for the cartons of berries I know are coming back with me (in June and July, it’s about 8–12 cartons each week). This week’s lineup includes strawberries and black, red, and white raspberries.
3:40 p.m. I’m in the middle of afternoon meetings, and my eyes are wandering around for a snack. I glance at my cake stand—this week’s baked goods are blueberry lavender scones that I made for a Wimbledon watch party the day before. I grab one to get me through the next few hours. I’ve found that 10 seconds in the microwave gets it to the perfect level of heat and moisture, and it tastes as good as it did coming out of the oven.
6:30 p.m. My friend and I have a monthly dinner tradition. We like to try new places and have eaten our way through the Washingtonian 100 Very Best list and dined at Michelin-starred restaurants, but sometimes we like to switch it up and get takeout from Shake Shack or the like.
For tonight, my friend has stumbled upon El Chucho’s 10th birthday bash, offering unlimited tacos and elote, and five drink tickets, all for $40, including tax and tip. “Five drinks!! We will be on the literal floor!” she texted earlier this week. I alternate between tacos and servings of elote, and work through four of my drink tickets (two mezcal palomas, one habanero paloma, and a flight of mezcal samples). After my sixth taco (two each of chicken, vegetable, and chorizo), I think I’m done, but the chorizo tacos are a sleeper hit for me and I go for my seventh taco of the night. Near the end of the event, my friend and I think we have reached our limit. It’s our last monthly meal for a while, since she’s leaving D.C. for business school, but even though we’re dragging our feet, it’s time to head home. Maybe with enough time to catch the end of tonight’s season premiere of The Bachelorette.
10:48 a.m. I get to sleep in a little this morning, so my Americano comes a little later than usual. It’s still creamy, frothy, and every positive adjective that can be used to describe espresso, and I get to enjoy it a little more today since I’m not dependent on the caffeine rush to wake me up.
1:45 p.m. Lunch, although maybe more appropriately a snack, is another vestige from the Wimbledon party. Today it is smoked salmon ($20.00 for a ½ pound, previously bought) from Call Your Mother, a self-described “Jew-ish” deli and local favorite for bagels, and cream cheese on everything “like the bagel” crackers from Firehook Crackers ($8.00 for a box, previously bought). I call this combination “fish and chips.”
6:30 p.m. I’m a member of the University Club in D.C., a city club that I first joined for its squash program and its Michelin-starred in-house chef (Franck Loquet), but I’ve started to frequent for drinks with friends in the in-house pub and club events. Tonight I am at the Club for its yearly Supreme Court Review, where a panel of Club members opine on the year’s prominent cases. Many of the panel members have served as lead counsel on these cases; the closest I have gotten to the legal profession is interacting with my patent attorneys at work. At $28.60 (paid prior to this week), this event comes with “lite fare.” While I’m waiting to meet two friends who are also attending, a tray of mini crab cakes passes by me. I go to hunt it down, and quickly have two crab cakes before the event starts. They’re quite good as canapés go and I would eat more, but I feel like stuffing myself with more than two crab cakes at once is not within the Club’s standard of decorum.
8:30 p.m. A large group of other friends are in the Club’s pub for a birthday celebration and we join after Supreme Court Review. The pub is extra boisterous tonight from the invigorated crowd leaving the event. I am poured a glass of red wine and steal some fries from a friend’s dinner plate. A few others follow suit with more fry theft.
9 p.m. Dinner is at Shōtō, a glitzy Japanese izakaya right next to the Club. My boyfriend joins us and we all make our way over. The menu is extensive, and has both sushi and grill options. I order my drink before I even look at the food: it’s the rei mizuna, Shōtō’s take on the pornstar martini. This one has passionfruit and a sparkling sake shooter. I had it at Shōtō right when it opened a few months ago, and I still think about it.
I ask if I can get a double shooter. Our waiter checks (I cannot). My food order goes in: a wagyu taco ($19.00); the gin-dara no saikyo miso yaki ($44.00), or black cod; gyuhire sumibiyaki karami zuke ($59.00), or robata tenderloin from the grill; shitake to wafu bata ($12.00), or robata mushrooms with wafu butter from the grill; yasai no tempura moriawase ($18.00), or tempura vegetables; and a roll of ebi tempura maki ($16.00). Yes, this is all for me. After our waiter leaves, my friend tells the table, “My favorite part of the meal is when her food comes. Waiters are like, five entrées, tiny girl! You can’t eat that!” I do make it through most of my order, in addition to the spicy yellowtail that I trade a piece of my maki for. The wagyu taco is a precisely constructed bite of tender beef sitting atop a potato crisp. The black cod is marinated in miso, which adds a nice caramelly tone. Caramelization also shines in the robata mushrooms, which perfectly pair the char on the robata tenderloin. Our table wants to order two desserts and leaves me with the ultimate decision. My yuzu obsession calls me toward the yuzu cheesecake, which we order in addition to the coconut chawan mushi. My boyfriend has been paying for the majority of our dates recently, so I take the bill for both of us in the spirit of relationship equity. Dinner is $459.54 after tax and tip for the two of us.
6:29 a.m. Another 7 a.m. squash match, another early morning Americano. I’m on the cusp of running late, so I gulp the espresso and forgo the music this morning in the hopes of getting a few minutes of warm-up before my match starts.
8:30 a.m. I have the remainder of my now-iced Americano with my first client meeting of the day. I’m apparently lagging in the caffeine race—my second line manager is already on her second cup of coffee for the day.
11:22 a.m. I don’t have much food ready for lunch, but I do spot a gluten-free chocolate scone I got from the Impasta Gluten-Free stand at the farmers market last week. I cut it in half and warm it up in the microwave. It’s shockingly good for a pastry made with no gluten.
1:14 p.m. My half scone hasn’t quite served as a meal, so I supplement my midday eating with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and crackers.
2:07 p.m. At the start of strawberry season, I bought a box of strawberries from each vendor selling them at the farmers market. I wanted to do a taste test and identify the best vendor, but what really ended up happening was that I accumulated a quantity of strawberries that could easily be mistaken for the fruit aisle at the grocery store. I have a bowl of these strawberries as my afternoon snack.
6 p.m. University Club operates on Committees, and they cover the entire breadth of its operation (House Committee, 401(k) Committee, Squash Committee, you name it). I’m back at the Club for a Restaurant Committee meeting today, and we are reviewing our wine list to see what’s selling well in the Club restaurants and pub and discussing ideas for our next event. We get wine gratis in exchange for serving on Restaurant Committee, and I get asked which glass of wine I want upon arrival (rosé). My great contribution to this month’s meeting is an idea to host events inspired by seasonal produce and featuring partnerships with local farms and vendors. The Committee chair writes this down in the meeting notes as “farm to table,” underlines it twice, and also circles it. I reward myself with another glass (red this time) on my way out.
7:30 p.m. The kitchen at the Club closes at 8:30 p.m. This sounds late enough, but when you’re usually on the squash courts until 7:30 p.m. need time for your weekly gossip session in the sauna, and then have to shower and change into business casual per Club dress code, you end up with a “panic order.” Your panic order is your trusted, default food lineup when you’re running to the dining room right as the kitchen is closing. It must be reliable, it must taste good, and it must be made without a large amount of cooking (this usually means a salad). My panic order is the chopped Cobb (no bacon) with salmon ($24.00) and truffle Parmesan fries ($10.00). I can recite it in my sleep. I’m meeting a friend at the Club for dinner tonight, but we have some time before the kitchen closes, so my panic order goes in along with a cup of corn and crab chowder and the apricot oat crumble. Half my items end up on my friend’s check (I will get him back next time), and dinner is $44.20.
10:14 p.m. I’m in my building’s elevator when I get an incoming video call from my “Puzzle Pals” group, a crew of friends with a love of The New York Times crossword. I forgot we’re doing a puzzle tonight, but I join the video call back in my apartment and grab a cup of tea before I sit down. I usually gravitate toward Mariage Frères or Kusmi for tea, but tonight I want something that I can make quickly and is not going to keep me up, so I opt for a bag of Celestial Seasonings’ caffeine-free peppermint tea. I’m particularly proud of getting the “Group for women who drive” clue in tonight’s crossword. (Answer: LPGA.)
7 a.m. I have a 7:30 a.m. squash match, so it’s a quick Americano before I head out the door.
8:40 a.m. Today is my favorite holiday, Bastille Day. I have been a Francophile since age 4. I have some time before my first work meeting of the day, and it feels appropriate to celebrate by picking up breakfast on the way home. I drop by Tatte, one of my favorite cafés and bakeries in the city. I pick up a pistachio croissant ($4.75), which is my usual, along with the matcha rhubarb sparkling lemonade ($5.50), my favorite summer drink. It is $13.33 after tax and tip. Tatte has been my staple bakery from my college days in Boston, and when it opened in D.C., I was in line at 7 a.m. and surrounded by a sea of ex-Bostonians, their identities exposed with Dunkin’ laptop stickers and Red Sox hats.
2 p.m. I am in the midst of work meetings, and lunch is a hodgepodge of cheese, smoked salmon, and crackers. It’s nothing to write home about, but it gets me through the afternoon.
5:45 p.m. You probably have that trusty jaunt you always go to when you want a meal with no reservation required, where you’ve tried every plate on the menu and know exactly what you are getting. Mine happens to be Le Diplomate, a local French restaurant, partially because it is minutes from my apartment and partially because it has one of my favorite dishes in the city, the warm shrimp salad, which I have already had three times this month. My family likes this place so much, we have instituted a mandatory monthly family dinner at Le Diplomate.
Every Bastille Day, I try to have dinner at Le Diplomate. It’s not necessarily the most authentic menu, but powerhouse restaurateur Stephen Starr’s interpretation of the French bistro always hits its mark. Tonight I go with two friends who went to Paris with me in the last year. Le Diplomate is a hot spot for Presidents and other notable guests, so we’re not surprised when we see Secret Service on our way in. I start with the usual, a romarin with vodka, grapefruit juice, St-Germain, and rosemary on the rocks ($13.00). It is followed by two of the Bastille Day specials: tartine aux tomates, an open-face baguette with chèvre and summer tomatoes ($15.00), and the Dover sole meunière ($54.00), which also happens to be the typical Thursday plat du jour. Obviously, I also get the warm shrimp salad ($23.00). As always, the shrimp is butter-poached and the chives are plentiful. Dessert is the crème l’orange ($13.00), which I had last week but order again since it’s essentially the summer version of crème brûlée, my favorite dessert, and it’s generous on the vanilla bean. One of my friends takes out her phone and exclaims, “I put this dessert in portrait mode and it is stunning, do you guys ever do that?” My other friend says, “I do that with my dog! Dessert, not yet.” Dinner is $160.00 after tax and tip.
8:20 a.m. I have what feels like my billionth Americano of the week.
10:48 a.m. This work week has been a drudge, and the first two espresso shots are not keeping pace. Time for the billionth and first Americano of the week.
1:21 p.m. I am once again scavenging in my refrigerator for lunch. Today I come up with leftover dover sole from Le Diplomate and leftover Greek fries with spiced feta dip from Souvlaki, a fast-casual Greek spot I had gotten takeout from last week. I throw the fries into my air fryer to revert them to their crispy state.
1:45 p.m. My sweet tooth is cured by a peach from the farmers market.
6:47 p.m. I am back at Squash on Fire, my local squash center, to both watch a few friends play matches and celebrate one of the coaches’ last week teaching. I start with a lychee fizz from Squash on Fire’s bar. It’s a drink I am notorious for here—I once had a lychee fizz and accidentally FaceTimed a large group chat we have for coordinating playing times. One of the bartenders is mixing up shooters of his nightly special, today named “Blue Ivy.” All I know is that it has both vodka and tequila, is electric blue, and, as one of my friends reassures me, “If there’s ice in it, then it is a tiny cocktail, not a shot.” My drink(s?) came out to $8.00.
8:15 p.m. I have a reservation for three at Causa / Bar Amazonia, a new Peruvian “concept” in Blagden Alley. I’ve had several friends go recently, and it’s been on my “to eat” list for a few weeks now. I am running habitually late, but join my friends in drinking pisco sours ($15.00) when I arrive. These are named “de AMAZONIA” and have roasted watermelon, Key lime, and egg white. My friends are a course ahead of me and recommend the inguiri nigiri ($12.00), which has plantain, pork tallow, cecina, and chimichurri. They are right, as it is probably the best thing I have all dinner. An order of the cebiche Amazonia ($24.00) sparks a discussion on our favorite ceviche in the city—theirs is from Pisco y Nazca, another Peruvian spot; mine sits on a bed of purple sweet potato and crispy quinoa at Seven Reasons, a Venezuelan restaurant. I also get the a lo pobre ($31.00) with strips of wagyu on top of a fried egg. We split the chazuta ($15.00), made from macambo (a cousin of cacao) and passionfruit, for dessert. My portion of the bill comes out to $116.35 after tax and tip.
11:55 p.m. On the way home from a friend’s going away party, I am summoned to Aslin, a brewery based out of Reston, Virginia, that has recently opened an outpost a few blocks from my home. I show up just in time for closing, and get handed a beer to finish. While I would normally rally for the next spot, I am exhausted and head to bed.
7:50 a.m. I have a bike booked for an early SoulCycle class today. I’m barely awake, but I never miss class, so another morning Americano will have to do.
11:22 a.m. I usually try to eat something that will restore my energy after class, and I really want to make a green juice and a three-egg vegetable omelet, but work meetings make me settle for the remaining half of a gluten-free chocolate scone.
1:36 p.m. I am still in work meetings, and my options for lunch are not looking great. I grab a bowl of farmers market strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries from my refrigerator to get me through the next few hours. Someone makes a joke in a meeting that my manager should buy me a year’s worth of avocado toast for all the hours I’ve been putting in lately. I could go for some avocado toast with a poached egg right about now.
7:58 p.m. Magpie and the Tiger, a new restaurant serving Korean American food, is at the top of both my and my boyfriend’s “to eat” list, so we book our Saturday date night reservation there. I haven’t eaten a proper meal all day, and we end up ordering the majority of the menu. For drinks, I order the Matcha Sunset, a cocktail with grapefruit, yuzu, habanero, and matcha that comes virgin off the menu, but is no longer that when I add soju to it ($9.00 virgin, $16.00 with alcohol). My boyfriend orders a bottle of Hana Makgeolli Takju ($48.00), a Korean rice wine, for us to split. Starters include the focaccia di recco ($13.00), which is reminiscent of a scallion pancake, and the mala tteokbokki ($16), a particularly spicy version of the Korean rice-cake snack. These are followed by the yachae bokkum ($15.00), made of bok choy, mushrooms, and a 63-degree egg, and the lobster ginger-scallion guksu ($47.00). The noodles have a softly chewy bite and are not doused in a heavy sauce, which really allows them to shine; they are some of the best noodles I have had in recent memory.
The star of the show is the whole rib kalbi ($68.00), which serves the beef sliced off the bone and comes with umami rice, ssamjang, and red-leaf lettuce. I grew up eating ssäm at home, but this is the tastiest Korean barbecue lettuce wrap that I’ve encountered. I must’ve stopped engaging in conversation, because my boyfriend tells me “you just entered a different world” after my third wrap. I know this dish is a winner because my boyfriend, whom I have never seen take leftovers from a meal, asked for this to be wrapped (no pun intended). Dessert is the ube hotteok ($9), an ube ice cream on top of a warm doughnut. Our check comes with two shortbread cookies in the shape of magpie birds, and is $306.24, $20.00 of which I have already paid for when I made our reservation, and the remainder of which is covered by my boyfriend. Again, relationship equity.
11 p.m. Our final stop of the night is at L’Annexe, a cocktail bar in Georgetown that serves the most unique drinks I’ve seen. We usually run into our friends here, and have also befriended its management. We often partake in a “team meeting” (a round of tequila shots) with the bar staff when we come. I once brought pandan and activated charcoal as drink ingredients, just to see what L’Annexe could come up with. (I think the latter is benign in small doses, but beware that it can be a medication disruptor.) Soon afterward, they were both on the menu—the pandan in a drink called Spruce Banner, which includes gin, arak, mastiha, chartreuse, cucumber, lemon, mint, and the activated charcoal in a drink named Esmoquin, featuring mezcal, crème de cacao, and orange bitters. I’m not saying I’m responsible for this, but I’m not not. One of the chefs at Chez Billy Sud, a nearby French bistro, even liked it so much that he asked the L’Annexe staff how this drink came to be—and then he came up to me in the bar to thank me for helping create it. Tonight, the bar manager brings us a round of champagne upon arrival, and it is this service and familiarity that keeps us coming back. I put in an order for Honeydew You Love Me ($18.00), a frothy gin drink with notes of melon and a soft green hue, which may now be my favorite drink of all time. I grab the check for the both of us and tip extra, so it comes out to $50.00.
8:40 a.m. For fear of waking up my boyfriend at an ungodly hour on a Sunday morning, I take my morning Americano and work meetings in the hallway outside of my condo. I return to find him already awake and watching golf—the final round of The Open is on.
12:30 p.m. I head to the Dupont Circle farmers market before it closes at 1:30 p.m. I start at one of my usual stops, Zeke’s Coffee, for that bag of 1812 Espresso blend ($16.00). I’m elated to walk by the Quaker Valley Orchards stand and see boxes of donut peaches, so I get one box for $8.00. They make a refreshing and quick snack in the middle of the day, and I’m particularly looking forward to the mango donut peaches, which I am told at checkout are coming next week. We’re in between berry seasons, when strawberries have just ended and blackberries are coming soon. I pick up a box of blueberries from Twin Springs ($5.00). The heirloom tomatoes from Garner’s Produce look stunning this week, as I exclaim upon checkout when I pick up two of them for $7.75. I sometimes grab breakfast during my weekly farmers market run, and today the smell of the Hog Haven Farm breakfast sandwich pulls me over to them. I add spinach and caramelized onions to my sandwich ($12.00), which comes with a pork patty, English muffin, Irish cheddar, and tomato aioli. It feels like it’s over 90 degrees today, and I’m left wanting some of Urban+Ade’s infused lemonade. They are sold out for the day, but I remember that I have a pouch of their lemonade in my freezer that I will be pulling out as soon as I get home.
2:10 p.m. I get back from the farmers market and have my Hog Haven sandwich with Urban+Ade lavender verbena lemonade.
4 p.m. I’m not very impressed with my vegetable consumption recently, so I make a green juice for an afternoon pick-me-up. I usually make a week’s worth of green juice every Sunday, but I’ve been slacking. I throw apples, Asian pears, spinach, peaches, blueberry, and coconut water into my Vitamix.
7:35 p.m. I spend the evening watching some friends play in our Sunday night squash league at Squash on Fire and one of them invites us to his house for dinner afterward. My boyfriend leans over to me and says, “He just told us that he had to throw Trix cereal down the sink because he’s been eating it all day, do we really want to go to his house for dinner?” It is of course said in jest, as we know this friend regularly posts up at Bourbon Steak, an upscale steakhouse, and Sushi Nakazawa, a Michelin-starred omakase spot.
My boyfriend proposes Lyon Hall, a brasserie in Arlington, Virginia, for the two of us, and assures me I will like it. (“It’s like Le Diplomate,” is the description that my boyfriend thinks is going to win me over, and he’s right.) I start dinner with a drink called C’est Si Bon ($15), which I’m mainly curious about since it has a kiwi base. My boyfriend orders escargot, and I take the table bread and soak up the remnants of the butter, parsley, and pistachio sauce. I order the beet salad with smoked goat cheese and pistachios ($13), macaroni au gratin with smoked Gouda ($8), and the filet medallion “Wellington” ($38). I do not see a Wellington on menus often, though I like the lamb one at Duck Duck Goose and the famous beef one is coming to town when Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen opens in D.C. soon. This one is deconstructed, with the filet sitting on top of the pastry and mushroom duxelles. Tonight is one of the rare occasions where my desire to be in bed supersedes my desire for dessert, so we grab the check (we split evenly, at $73.00 per person after tax and tip) and head home.