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Cedar Brunch

March 28th, 2012 | By Becca

It’s not very often I take free brunches for this blog. I like to be

stealthy with my reviewing—snap quickly, judge harshly, and exit

swiftly—without making my presence known. I’ve even been known

to lie to servers. Upon predictably being asked “Why the massive

camera?” I quip back, “Assignment for a photography class.”

But when the great PR champ Jill Collins calls, I cannot resist her

charms. Even if she’s luring me to a restaurant that Cori Sue

previously had dismissed. It was Jill’s birthday, after all, and so we

must celebrate by being spoiled at her favorite restaurant, by

everyone—especially its new chef, Aaron McCloud.

Spoiled we were. This review is clearly not unbiased, as we were

given the royal PR treatment in Cedar. We got the Cedar-

encyclopedic waitress and were checked on frequently by one of

the managers. A water glass never went half-full. Having provided

that preface, the Mizzou J-school grad inside me prevents me from

calling this a review. And so I will simply tell you about my

experience.

Cedar is tiny. Jill tried to warn us of this by saying it’s “like a New

York restaurant,” where you walk downstairs, underground, to a

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small room with a few tables and a very attentive chef. Also in the

small room, a fully stocked granite bar that has pineapples infusing

and mixologists at the waiting.

Indeed, there are only 60 seats in the entire restaurant. You are

given the full luxury-in-the-forest experience as you walk down the

steps from the entrance on E Street in Penn Quarter. The walls are

covered in wallpaper with a big photo of a cedar forest—our

feelings on that and the mirrors are being censored. Let’s look past

the interior for a second.

The food took us to another place. For some, the pitch is that it’s

supposedly like “Ivanka Trump eating in an upscale hunting lodge”

(Jill’s words). Cedar’s brunch menu is meant to be rustic, heavy,

and full of gourmet meat. I almost wished it were blizzarding

outside and we were eating brunch by a fireplace in the cozy

space.


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We started with cocktails, of course. Tammy and I both had

champagne cocktails, of which there are six to choose from.

Tammy went for the Snowflake, a concoction of white cranberry

juice and champagne, which didn’t taste like cranberry juice at all.

She thought she was making the healthy choice; instead she just

made the cool-looking and delicious choice.

I had the Stratosphere, which was made with crème de violette

and champagne. The color of it was stunning, like a silver grey. It

was delicious. Later, we tried the Poodle, made with grapefruit

juice and champagne, and the St. Germain, which is made with

Elder Flower Liqueur. My favorite was still the Stratosphere.

Eric had The Uziel, which is named after the bar manager’s wife’s


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maiden name. It was made with vodka infused with grapefruit,

lemon, and honey from the bar manager’s family’s beehives in

West Virginia. The drink was smooth and didn’t have a bite, which

is perfect in the morning. That honey came around to our table

again later during brunch.

We didn’t get much farther than that on the cocktail menu.

Instead, we ordered coffee, which came in French presses. There

was the option of Sumatra (bold), Brazil (mild), and decaf, of

course. Cedar’s Bloody Mary is made with house-infused vodka,

garlic, jalapeno and habanero. I love that the cocktail menu had so

much thought behind it.

On top of our brunch menu, the servers dropped a small card with

options for wild game sausage. Our choices: venison with

blueberry, wild boar with cranberries, rabbit, and buffalo with

chipotle. OK, we’ll try all of them … if you insist.

The buffalo was amazing, the wild boar, so good one of us asked

where it came from. “Um, it’s wild, of course, so who knows?” The

rabbit, we were all scared to touch. Though I did try a small taste

and it was fine.


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The best part was that the sausages came chopped in pieces on a

cedar plank with four different choices of mustards to dip them in.

Those mustards were amazing. The apple mustard was made with

white mustard seeds, reduced apple cider, sage and roasted Fuji

apples. The bourbon mustard (yes, bourbon mustard!) had brown

Indian mustard seeds mixed with white and prepared Dijon, raw

bourbon, and a touch of Vermont maple syrup. It was smooth.

The spicy mustard had black mustard seeds, the chef’s hot sauce,

which includes pickled habanero peppers, pickled jalapenos, and

16 different spices. Finally, Cedar’s Honey Mustard is made with

bar manager’s farm honey (there’s that honey again).

Along with the sausages, we ordered a side of the housemade


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banana bread, which was served in thick slices, and covered with a

sprinkle of powdered sugar. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have

ordered this. Even though it was delicious, there was no need to

stuff ourselves with bread before the rest of our brunch.

I loved how the dishes were presented at Cedar. If they weren’t on

crisp white plates in various shapes, they were placed on the table

balanced on cedar or wooden planks. The slices of bread, for

instance, were balanced on top of one another on a cedar plank.

Light and fluffy, and slightly grilled and covered in oil, the bread

was still light and good for dipping, or eating with cheese, which

we found out later. It came with delicious butter and house-made

jam.


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For our entrees, we each ordered the most interesting sounding

item.

I ordered the smoked salmon benedict, because I wanted

something that had been smoked on cedar, to live up to the name

and the hype. The chef came out to our table and told us the story

of the restaurant’s smoker. It was his grandfather’s, and it

probably 70 years old. It’s tiny, but he smokes many of the menu’s

dishes in it.

The chef, we should mention, is brand new at Cedar. Well, a few

months new. He started back in December, coming to the D.C.

area from various restaurants around the country. The cool part of

his story is that he was a child prodigy, an accomplished violinist

when he was young, and found his way into restaurants after a

chance performance at a restaurant. It was there he decided to

jump into the restaurant business, and worked his way up from

being a dishwasher.

Cedar doesn’t offer a regular ham Benedict. But that’s okay

because the salmon Benedict was delicious, and so the crab cake

Benedict must be just as worthy. The smoked salmon Benedict was

perched on potato cakes, the perfectly smoked salmon was topped

with poached eggs and a delicious caper hollandaise sauce.

Probably the most unusual (lumpy, certainly) and strongest

hollandaise I’ve ever had.

That hollandaise sauce had such a distinct taste to it, I could barely

taste the salmon or the eggs. But it was so great. On the side of

the dish was a pile of mixed greens, which was refreshing after the


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strong hollandaise sauce. It was sprinkled with balsamic.

Jill ordered the braised pork belly BLT, mostly out of curiosity. It

was Cedar’s interpretation of a BLT, with braised pork belly, fried

egg, smoked tomato, basil aioli, and mixed greens, all inside two

pieces of toast. The basil aioli held it together, and the entire

sandwich had a mix of tastes once you bit into it.

Eric ordered the French toast, which was supposedly banana nut

crunch French toast. We think it was the banana bread, toasted

with butter and oils, and given a corn flake trimming around the

crust. Delicious nonetheless. It was served with Chantilly cream

and maple syrup.


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Tammy, much to my dismay, ordered the omelet of wild

mushrooms (I hate mushrooms, and I love to try everything on the

table). It looked quite plain when it arrived, but it was filled with

spinach and cheddar, along with all the slick, slimy wild

mushrooms. She cut into it so I could take a photo with a peek of

the inside. On the side, garlic roasted potatoes, which were not

greasy at all, but rather firm and filling.

There were a lot of dishes on the brunch menu that we wanted to

try, but couldn’t, as there were only four of us at the table and our

stomachs were already so full. The deviled chicken hash looked

interesting (what the heck is deviled chicken hash?). There’s a

fried oyster sandwich, which would have been daring. Oh, and Jill

really wanted the Hangtown Fry, but we were selfish and wanted

the pork belly BLT instead.

Jill wasn’t going to let us leave without trying dessert. We were so

full it was painful, but we persevered. We ordered the carrot layer

cake, which was served with bourbon sauce and caramel pecan ice

cream. We also ordered the coconut tres leches cake, with passion

fruit sauce and pina colada sorbet. I tried neither of these. I was


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too focused on our third dessert dish …

We got the artisanal cheese plate—all five cheeses. It was

extravagant and amazing. When the plate was dropped, I

marveled at how pretty it was, and then turned my nose up at the

smell. Who took their shoes off? Stinky cheese, indeed.

On our plate, there were four American and one foreign cheese

(British! From the midlands!), and we were okay with that.

Domestic cheese included the San Andreas, a sheep milk cheese

from California, a camembert (my favorite) from New York, a

Grayson from Virginia, and an extremely decadent “ash” goat

cheese.

Our foreign cheese was a blue cheese from Nottinghamshire. It

was rich and both moist on the inside and crumbly on the outside.

It was during this cheese course that we learned that morning milk

and evening milk produces different flavors of cheese. Who knew?


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Cedar Brunch Boar’s Head Inn

Brunch

America Eats

Tavern Brunch

We were so full after nearly five courses of food that we had to be

rolled onto the nearby National Mall and to the Tidal Basin, where

we plopped ourselves under the Cherry Blossom blooms and

admired the sights in gluttonous agony.

Alas, I cannot grade this brunch, because we were given the royal

treatment, and that’s just not fair to you, dear readers. But now

you know what Cedar is, where it is, who is in the kitchen, what it’s

like in the tiny space, and what they’re serving at brunch. No

bottomless here. No big parties. Rather, a gourmet, hearty brunch

in a cozy little restaurant, served by friendly staff and a very

talented chef.

Cedar

822 E St. N.W.

Washington, D.C.

(202) 637-0012

Edited with help from Tammy Portnoy, who loves chefs who can

talk a good cheese and cherry, and bakes.

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Linkwithin

Tags: Aaron McCloud, Cedar, Jill Collins, meat, Mizzou, rabbit,

salmon, sausage, smoked, wild boar

Comments

patricia ann Smith says:

March 28, 2012 at 4:51 pm


11 of 13 3/12/2014 2:07 PM

Loved the review–have been dying to go for a long time

This Week: September 17-23 | Bitches Who Brunch says:

September 18, 2012 at 1:47 pm

[...] off your week in a healthy fashion with Cedar Restaurant’s

Vegan Week. Served up: melongrilled watermelon, sweet chili and

cantaloupe Summer [...]

Easter Brunch Guide 2013 | Bitches Who Brunch says:

March 26, 2013 at 10:21 am

[...] you have the choice of Chef McCloud’s version of a key lime

pie or a peanut butter cup. Read the Cedar Bitching to see if these

delectable dishes are what you’re looking [...]

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