Harry's Tap Room

I had a great lunch today at Harry’s Tap Room in Clarendon. I hadn’t ever been there before, but I had heard a lot about it. My coworker Lynn once told me it was a good place to meet men. Of course, she’s been married for like 5 years and just adopted twins a couple of months ago. Washingtonian Magazine rated its burgers some of the best burgers in Washington DC. This is why my friend and I went there for lunch today. I actually ended up having the crab cake sandwich (which was pretty damn good), but my friend had the Kobe beef burger and he said it was fantastic. I was a little surprised at how upscale the place seemed. The décor was pretty nicely done, although I found the faux snake skin covered benches a little funny. They had many other tasty sounding dishes on the menu, as well as an impressive wine list. For dessert, I had the seasonal fruit crisp. The fruit was peaches (which I love!), and while it was quite good, it wasn’t really what I would call a crisp. As far as I’m concerned a crisp is fruit on the bottom and flour/brown sugar/spices on the top. The authors of the quintessential American cookbook, “The Joy of Cooking,” tend to agree with me:

This simple and popular dessert consists of sweetened fruit—usually lightly thickened to produce syrupy juices—baked with crumbly toppings of flour, butter, and sugar and sometimes oats, cookie, or cake crumbs, nuts and spices.

This was peaches inside puff pastry. Good, but not a crisp. I would probably call it a dumpling or a turnover. Details, details. I’d probably still eat it again.