Last Friday night is the name of a tolerable Katy Perry song. It’s also the time that I sat down to dinner with my friend Patrick at DC restaurant Lincoln.
The place serves “small” plates of American dishes like chicken pot pie, soft shell crab, lobster beignets and New York strip steak. At first glance, the prices seemed reasonable at roughly $7 to $10 per plate. I certainly had plenty of time to study the prices because the one kink that this relatively new venue apparently still has to work out is what to do with its abundance of servers. Waiters, waiters, everywhere and not a one to serve.
When our waiter (with a waitress-in-training accompanying him) finally made his appearance he was gregarious to a fault, which helped to compensate for his tardy arrival. He was also well educated on the menu and house cocktails, which is a sometimes under-appreciated quality in a waiter.
Food is served as it’s ready, and first out was an organic kale salad with hazelnuts, dried cranberries, parmesan cheese and lemon vinaigrette. Pretty tasty, a slightly sour and salty dish but with delicious crunchy hazelnuts to balance it out and avoid it becoming bitter.
Next up was the tomato risotto with ricotta and roast garlic. Kudos to Ms. Waitress-In-Training for making a “you say tom-ah-toe, I say tom-ay-toe” joke when confronted with my mongrel British-American accent. The dish was good, the garlic kicking in strongly.
You can see a photo of the risotto above, along with the kale salad and the chicken pot pie, which arrived shortly after. This was the highlight of the meal, with moist chunks of chicken cooked along with spring peas, celery, and carrots, topped off with pastry. Full marks to Lincoln on this one because typically I hate pastry but the restaurant’s attempt was crisp, flaky and a perfect finish to the pie.
Patrick also gave a solid B grade (we judged most things that night like a school essay) to the roasted brook trout served with an asparagus lentil salad and whipped avocado. I’m not a huge fish fan but technically there was nothing to criticize with the dish.
Dessert was a great finale, with the serving of funnel cake, berries and whipped cream cheese ridiculously moreish. It was also more than two people cold handle, but is probably the highlight of the dessert menu. We also tried the bluberry tart with candied lemon peel and vanilla ice cream. It was, for want of a better word, tart and overflowing with fresh fruit. Perfect combination of flavors.
Drinks were hit and miss. Avoid the Lincoln Sour (Laird’s Applejack, Knob Creek, lime, and egg white), which is a bitter, flavorless mess. Far better options are the oustanding Lady Lincoln (Hendrick’s gin, St. Germain, prosecco, and lavender), Honest Abe’s Moonshine (Death’s Door white whisky, lemon, and ginger) and the Gettysburg Address (Beet purée, lemon, Square One Botanical, Veev, and barkeep aromatic bitters).
Overall, Lincoln serves some good food and drinks, it’s just luck of the draw on the menu. And the service needs some fine-tuning. But I’d probably return. It’s just a shame it wasn’t open when I interviewed Abraham Lincoln impersonater Michael Krebs.