WE MOVED TO A NEW SITE www.Noshdc.net: Cork Wine Bar

Cork Wine Bar

1720 14th Street, NW

I've never worked in a restaurant before, wait does McDonald's count (I was in high school), so sometimes I use my imagination to fill in the blanks for unanswered questions. Like for instance, if a restaurant has several duck entrees leftover at the end of the night what do they do with them? Do they throw it out, give it to the staff…what??? Hmmm just wondering…imagine that could get expensive.

Anyway, I've meet up with friends at Cork several times over the last month. I really like this restaurant. There is nothing 'outstanding' about the venue or staff, I mean no complaints just nothing special except for the bartenders. They were able to answer all our questions about the wines and made great suggestions. The food and wine are the stars at Cork.

The restaurant is small and sits within a busy block along 14th Street, it's not hard to miss this place since there are so many eateries opening side by side for blocks. You'll want to sit in the front section of the restaurant so that you can have a view of the street. They also have a small outdoor area of about 4 small tables and the bar sits about 10. You probably don't want to stroll up expecting to find a table for dinner without a reservation so make sure to plan ahead if you can.

Its amazing that there are so many restaurants all over the city and most of them have a little something distinctive to offer. A popular dish here that I love is the avocado on grilled bread with pistachios, pistachio toasted oil and sea salt….OMG this is so darn good. The toasted fries are sprinkled with a delicate lemon zest. I think they are prepared with duck fat but that just might be my wishful thinking, doesn't matter because they taste like they are prepared by little french fry angels….yep my mouth is watering too.

Avocado

Now for the pièce de résistance, the Duck Confit with braised red cabbage, whats better than outstanding? Let me mention the first time I had the Duck here I swore I found the love of my life, I fell hard…yep that Duck got me all twisted. The second and third times ahhhh the bird didn't seem so fresh. As you can imagine this broke my heart, but I had fallen hard and wasn't willing to throw in the towel and still willing to give this Duck another chance! You might also want to try the braised kale. I don't see kale on many menus I guess because they don't want to compete, Cork does it so well.

Duck!

My friend TR enjoyed everything she had (her Calamari and Shrimp was good), VH1 got the cheese board and it was good and VH2 got the Charcuterie and yep it was good too. You see the trend here…..this place is good. You should go.