Little Fountain Cafe

A couple weeks ago I'm at Angles, one of my favorite watering holes in Adams Morgan, falling into my routine (getting sauced, chain-smoking, and rocking out to whatever the immigrant laborers in the back put on the jukebox), when I strike up a conversation with this tall, bearded guy at the end of the bar.

Now, to put this in context, Angles isn't exactly Cheers where everybody knows your name. It's more like Depressing where everybody smells or has a serious speech impediment. My point is this: you never ever know what to expect from a random conversation in this bar.

So, we're chatting it up, and it turns out that this guy is originally from NOLA (my hometown, ninja) and he's the executive chef at the fine restaurant downstairs, The Little Fountain Cafe. AND he spent some time working with my brother in law at Emeril's.

Now, the fact that Angles lives on top of a critically-acclaimed restaurant has always mystified me and my friends. On the one hand you have a cozy candlelit romantic setting while on the other you have plywood walls and puke-filled urinals. Incongruous to say the least. Also interesting is that you can order LFC food at Angles. Which means that this shithole has some of the best bar food in DC. Believe me, nothing can compare to having an order of Duck Rillettes with Toast Points and Cornichon and then washing it down with rail whiskey and Diet Pepsi.

But I digress.

This chef, Mike, after chatting about New Orleans and food for a while, invited me and a friend down into the closed kitchen at 1am so I could taste his gumbo. Which was solid, solid chicken and andouille gumbo. Coming from me, the gumbo nazi, that's high praise. He told us to come back for a full dinner, preferably on a Wednesday when wine is half price. And last night we did.

It was incredible. We were drinking $50 bottles of wine for $25 prices, eating sauteed breast of duck, pork chops stuffed with andouille and rock shrimp, lightly-breaded calamari, truffle mushroom risotto, and basically feeling awesome about ourselves for it. Sadly, the gumbo wasn't on the menu, but I forgot about that as soon as I was halfway through a killer bottle of Fume Blanc called Grgich.

Afterwards we went upstairs and assumed the customary positions at the bar and topped ourselves off with light beer and cigarettes.

All in all, it was one of the best dining experiences I've had in DC, including all the times I've been to fancy restaurants with parents. Needless to say, I highly recommend. Tell Mike who sent ya, and order the gumbo.