‘pigs in a row’
courtesy of ‘specialkrb’
Books have been written about it. Love songs. Poems. It’s salty. It’s crispy. It’s fatty. It’s bacon.
And Restaurant 3 knows about the beauty of the food, and the Clarendon neighborhood restaurant is celebrating the “Week of Bacon” from October 21-27, 2009. Each day for the duration of the week of bacon, the restaurant will offer a daily Bacon Happy Hour, where bar guests can feast on bacon bites such as bacon on a stick & bacon-wrapped shrimp and wash it all down with $3 craft beer draft specials. Not only can you stop by for bacon and beer, but Restaurant 3 is offering a Bacon Tasting Menu priced at $30 per person. I was lucky enough to preview a few of the Bacon Week specials, and let me tell you. It’s impressive.
So the bar bites are lovely. The bacon-wrapped shrimp is super delicious, the bacon is crispy but doesn’t lose it’s fatty goodness. But what I really loved were the bacon on a stick. Thick sliced pork, with a “75/25 fat to meat ratio”, Chef Brian Robinson tells me he cures it with only salt, brown sugar, chili powder, regular sugar and bourbon. He says he lets it cure for 2 weeks, and then smokes it “low and slow”.
If bar bites aren’t enough bacon for you, well, sit down to dinner, why don’t you. The $30 three-course tasting menu sounds delicious, and is as follows:
Course 1
Bacon & Egg Salad
Frisee/arugula tossed with chopped house-cured bacon and topped with a poached egg
Course 2
Bacon Crusted Mahi Mahi
Oven roasted mahi mahi dusted with a finely ground bacon powder and served over a bacon potato hash
Course 3
Bacon studded waffle with maple bacon ice cream
Chef Robinson told me he loves bacon because “you can do anything with it. Plus it imparts a lot of flavor on whatever you’re cooking it with.” Restaurant 3 is dehydrating the bacon to create the ground bacon powder, and uses the run-off grease to create the frisee salad dressing. I tried that salad, and let me tell you, the egg yolk, plus chopped bacon make for a delicious, savory salad.
If I were you, I’d make reservations for Bacon Week on OpenTable, just to make sure you get a spot. It’ll be well worth it. And with one of the best selected beer lists in Clarendon, I’d go early for happy hour too. It’s bound to be a hit.
3 is located at 2950 Clarendon Blvd. in Arlington, VA. Closest Metro stop: Clarendon (Orange line). Open for dinner Monday through Thursday from 5 p.m. – 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. – 11 p.m. and for dinner and brunch on Sunday from 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. For more information, call (703) 524-4440.
I like to sing my bacon a little tune.
Michael Scott: I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon. Sue me. And since I don’t have a butler I have to do it myself… so, most nights before I go to bed I will lay out 6 strips of bacon out on my foreman grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again, then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious, it’s good for me, it’s a perfect way to start the day. Today I got up, I stepped on to the grill and it clamped on to my foot. That’s it. I don’t see what’s so hard to believe about that.
“maple bacon ice cream”
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