Art, Soul and an FDP Birthday

March brings us another FDP birthday! And you know what that means…. A fabulous restaurant picked out by the Piggy of Honor, Kate. Kate, a well-known biscuit lover, chose the southern inspired Art and Soul restaurant on Capitol Hill. And since our schedules always seem to be ridiculously busy, we did brunch rather than dinner. But don’t think for one second that just because it was brunch we slacked on our gluttonous duties. There was plenty of food and champagne of course!

Since it was a special occasion we kicked it off with the celebratory bottle of Champagne. This time it was a 2002 Montadon Brut. While we sipped and mulled over the menu we were greeted with a warm cinnamon bun, which lasted about 5 seconds on our table. The menu presented us with many dilemmas. We couldn’t decide how many biscuits, hoecakes and fried things we should order! We did decide to start with the biscuits and gravy (which is technically a side) and the Capitol Hill salad (kidding ourselves trying to be healthy). The biscuits were light and fluffy and were the perfect thing to absorb all of the delicious pork gravy. The salad was a nice contrast with apples, blue cheese and candied pecans.

Now time for the main event! Hands down all four piggies snorted with delight when we saw Chicken and Waffles on the menu. So that was a no brainer to order. We followed that fried deliciousness with the Country Fried Steak. Yep, that’s right. Both the chicken and the steak had a beautiful thick golden brown crust on the outside and were appropriately salty. The waffle that accompanied the chicken had a light texture and was topped off with a Pecan Butter. The steak was served up with eggs any style; we went with scrambled, and some sumptuous grits. To contrast our fried extravaganza we also ordered the Chesapeake Benedict and the Lemon Mascarpone pancakes. The poach on the benedict was just right and it sat atop lovely lump meat crab cakes. The pancakes had just the right amount of lemon taste to them that counteracted the salty bacon. In this line-up there was no weak link. We devoured everything like our lives depending on it.

We loved the décor of Art and Soul. It displays fun, modern art while maintaining a southern comfort kind of feel. Our service was a bit slow (and forgetful- 3 times to ask for coffee), but at least it was nice. We would certainly go back (we didn’t get to try the hoecakes) and we collectively decided on 3.5 oinks!