Restaurant Experience: PS 7's

Last night my husband took me out to dinner at PS 7's, a high end eatery in downtown DC, not all that far from where I work.  We went because the restaurant had [kindly] chosen to extend its Restaurant Week deal for an extra week.  [For those of you not in the know about DC Restaurant Week: two weeks each year, once in winter and once in summer, many of the high end restaurants will participate in a special deal.  For this particular RW, lunch at a participating establishment was $20.10, and dinner was $35.10, for three courses (excluding beverages).  It's a good deal and a great opportunity to try out some of the premiere restaurants in DC for a little less cash.]  Last week was the official DC restaurant week, and it was very difficult to get reservations at the "good" places, and so we didn't really even try that hard.  (Also, having been in the DC area for a while now, Restaurant Week holds a little less thrill than it used to.)

I'd eaten at PS 7's (thusly named after the chef/owner, Peter Smith, and the address, 777 Eye St., NW) once before, with some of my colleagues for my birthday in June.  (I have great colleagues who also enjoy great food!)  I enjoyed it then, and was looking forward to enjoying it even more with my husband and a glass of wine. I started off with a glass of French rosé wine, because it was from Provence and all that talk of lavender ice cream had given me a craving for all things Provençal.  The wine smelled like France to me.  (This is a good thing.) 

For our first course, I had the heirloom tomato salad, with saffron tomato brulee, pantaleo cheese, Thai basil, 25 year balsamic.  (My husband had the warm spinach salad.  Because if you add spinach leaves to bacon, cheese, and fried onion strings, it's a "salad.")  It was good, but pretty acidic.  But I had some of their delicious fresh bread (cottage cheese bread, rosemary and lemon foccacia, and apple bacon biscuits) and butter to counteract that.

For my main course, I had the bistro steak, with filet beans, marjoram, pine nut custard, and vidalia olio.  (My husband had the "Pork-a-lotta," which was pork tenderloin with mustard, latkes, smoked jus, and pork currywurst.  Interesting flavors, for sure.)  Aside: I've noticed that I tend to get more respect from servers in restaurants now that I order my steaks medium rare.  Regardless, the steak was delicious, if not that exciting, though the crumbly bits on the plate had an odd citrus-y flavor.

For dessert, we both started with cups of their decaf coffee.  I don't often get coffee with dessert, but I knew from experience that PS 7's prepares theirs using a French press.  (Translated: extra yummy and fragrant.)  Again, it smelled like France, which clearly makes me happy.  (I promise to write a post some day about all my various food biases, so you can know whether to ignore me or agree with me.  A little preview: I love pretty much everything French.)  My actual dessert was the "Southern sandwich," which was chocolate blackout cake layered with peanut butter mousse.  As you might imagine, it was very tasty.  (My husband had the citrus bread pudding, which was...eh.)

We got out of there for about $100, less tip, which is a bargain for this caliber of restaurant.  I would give the overall experience a solid B.  The bread was A+, wine was A-, the first course was a B, the main course a B+, dessert a B+.  Our server was friendly and knowledgeable, but a bit scatterbrained (tried to take our order twice), and I had to wait a while for my first course, while my husband sat drooling over his bacon-laden salad.  (His mother raised him right.)  So definitely a B.  We'd go back, but in a city like DC where there are oodles of great restaurants, many of which we have yet to try, we may not rush back soon.