Dinner at the Monocle During Lent

Inside the Monocle

Saturday night I just didn't feel like cooking so Hubster said let's go out for dinner. So, off we trekked to Capitol Hill and found ourselves at the rather dark and clubby looking The Monocle, a restaurant tucked away alongside a parking lot for the U.S. Senate.  Looking at the building you know it's all that's left of what probably used to be hundreds of similar 19th century brick buildings that used to  be on Capitol Hill. I'd been there once before but Hubster hadn't so we had a great time selecting from a menu we hadn't seen much of before. Since I'm not cooking meat over Lent I did allow myself a very juicy and delicious filet mignon steak with a wine sauce that we shared since Hubster only ordered an avocado salad (he too is on some Lenten dietary limitations).  Don't you just hate "avocado salads" where there are only two or three squishy little bits of avocado? This one was nothing like that. His salad included a full sized fresh avocado sliced with lettuce and tomato and a plain oil and vinaigrette and just what he wanted. They also provided us great bread and icy water and good service, not to mention a substantive vodka martin for me and a dark Amstel beer for Hubster. We ordered fresh fruit for dessert but it turned out not to be fresh so when they asked how we liked it we said "it's not fresh!" and they took it off the bill.  I like good food and good service at pricy restaurants, don't you?