Happy Birthday, Dave!

It was my friend Dave's birthday this Saturday, and despite feeling like I'd been run over by a truck, I went and had a good time.  Dave's birthday thing is to choose a restaurant, and then we all go out and eat there.  Simple!

We went to 8407 Kitchen bar in Silver Spring, MD.  This is actually my go-to place in Silver Spring because 1) I know where it is and 2) more importantly, it's really good so why go any where else?

It's got all the things that lure me in
1) a good cocktail program
2) the word "charcuterie" on the menu
3) cheese board
4) good scotch menu for dessert.

and this isn't on my list usually, but I like it about 8407: their portions are reasonable so I don't leave hating myself.

Despite #1, I didn't get any cocktails both because I wasn't feeling awesome and because THEY HAD MUSCADET ON THE MENU!!! I've been looking for that wine forever.  It's light and crisp and just a bit sweet, it went perfect with my squid ink tagliatelle and shrimp.

Because we're us, we ordered a metric crapton of appetizers and shared them around:

* deviled eggs - this was my order.  Nice, classic deviled eggs but served with crispy pork rinds and pickled beets.  Not sure the pork rinds were necessary, but who doesn't love them.

* trotter tots - easily my favorite.  The were creamy and porky and crisp around the edges. Heck yes!

* calamari - was the classic fried, breaded calamari.  What was most interesting was the sauce they served it with, wasn't the usual marinara but tasted like a Cuban Aji sauce with cilantro and jalapenos.  It was delicious and a bit spicy, but might have overwhelmed the squid a little.

* grilled liver pate - everyone else thought this was too salty, but I liked it.  I like salt and grew up eating liverwurst, so that could be part of it.  Overall a good classic pate.

* cheese plate - unfortunately I couldn't hear what cheeses were on it, but there was a blue, I think a camembert and a cheddar.  The camembert and blue were easily my favorites, but that's pretty normal for me.  Everyone LOVED the honey that came along with the cheese, I didn't try it and have no idea why.

* Rabbit rillette - for me, this was overpowered by the liver pate that I had right afterwords.  It was good, but was blown away by the much stronger taste I of pate.  Wish I had slowed down and had the rillette with my muscadet.


I'm surprised I didn't get the oysters, and surprised I didn't get scotch for desert.  Instead I got a chocolate peanut butter concoction that looked like a giant Reeses' peanut butter cup.  It had peanut butter chunks instead, so it wasn't as consistently peanut buttery as I would have liked.  I'm not a sweet dessert person, so please don't take my word on this one.  The thing that I thought was most interesting was the scoop of curried vanilla ice cream that came on top. I'm going to have to make that at home, wish it had been more curried, but I'm a curry sucker and honestly if they had done that it could have overpowered the rest of the dessert.

All in all, my Silver Spring go-to still holds! Will return and eat more another day!