What the dates made me do, what the bacon told me
Dates are the foie of fruit. They get close to liquid and stop at flavored butter. So, when a menu says, "Dates wrapped with bacon and stuffed with Stilton blue cheese served with a balsamic glaze," yes, I'm going to step on your hat and topple your mother in my rush, and I'm sorry.
The same goes for the grilled cheese sliders at Screwtop — no crusts, a tomato sauce partnered for sparring with heavyweight cheeses — and the cheddar bacon bruschetta. Notable others have written more and better on Arlington's new wine bar, but I must write you as well. The cheese whispered in my one ear and the bacon whispered in the other, in breath delicious with the smell of bacon, "Tell the people."
Jen, Shelby and I nearly ran the tables on the sharing plates the other night, our first visit. Baked Camembert escaped this time. With candied walnuts and a spread of fig, the date's Kardashian cousin, you have to stop the sun-glassed cheese eventually and ask where it's headed.
Did I forget the wine? We also had wine. I ended with a port because the night was frigid but first had a glass making me wish the wine list was online. This wine was red, possibly Australian. When I ordered it, the waitress reacted. "That's a bold wine," she cautioned. She rattled off a minute's explanations, all amounting to the wine being different.
I stuck with my order and hoped she took all her tables that way. The glass turned out bold, different and even better for the warning. Early word — so often the spoiler, the hype or the buzzkill — built the taste.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:25 AM
"More and better" completely agrees on the sliders. I can vouch for the Camembert too.
January 8th, 2010 at 11:08 AM
Thoughts on the cheese plates?
January 8th, 2010 at 12:03 PM
This place sounds lovely. Bacon-wrapped, cheese-stuffed dates have to be one of my favorite things; there's a little cocktail lounge up the street from me here that does a dynamite version.
January 8th, 2010 at 12:16 PM
Mmmmh, porto. I could go for that, and it's only noon-fifteen.
January 8th, 2010 at 3:11 PM
She has a nice mix; the group I was with just did the baked and the sliders, but I am hoping for a lunch there in the near future. Hint, hint!
March 6th, 2010 at 8:51 AM
[...] the locavore-leaning pizzas at American Flatbread (relatively new in Clarendon, down the street from Screwtop, delicious and I want to go back for more slices soon), we found our careers shared so many [...]