Restaurant 3’s Summer Cookouts Help
Usher in the Southern-styled ‘Foodcation’

By Jordan Wright
July 31, 2009

First there was the recession-busting “staycation” concept of staying at home for a week to re-energize and renew, with all the richness of offerings the DC area has to offer.

Now a new word has entered the stay-at-home lexicon: the foodcation; Southern-fried oysters and free-range burgers roasting on the grille, hush puppies as secretagogues and cold wheat ales on ice.

Last week, the Blue Points were roasting on the grill and the “wheaties” were on ice at this surprising outpost, Clarendon’s 3 Bar and Grill, owned by the local Williams and Cahill families and run by son, Jonathan Williams.

The number “3” after its name because the family also owns Whitlow’s On Wilson and the now-shuttered Whitlow’s Downtown.

On a recent glorious summer’s evening, in this casual and down-home roadhouse-in-an-upscale-setting, I began my “foodcation” with the tantalizing offer of a Southern cookout on the restaurant’s Boulevard-facing patio. The aroma of wood smoke and oysters, redolent with garlic, butter and fresh herbs (did I detect the subtle licorice scent of tarragon?), heralded my arrival.

Soulful Chef Brian Robinson has returned of late to his N’awlins roots to create a menu that reflects the dishes of his heritage. Along with the ambrosial oysters we sampled sweet, soft-centered, cast-iron-crusted hush puppies with honey butter, perfectly fried delicate green tomatoes, at the peak of their season, with melted goat cheese crumbles and tomato relish.

His Grandpa Dickey’s secret seasonings’ fried boneless chicken sat atop crispy waffles, dripping with bourbon maple syrup. It was followed by seared sea scallops balanced on stone-ground grits that had absorbed the sweet smokiness of morsels of Cajun-country tasso ham.

As a former chef at the beloved Georgia Brown’s, Robinson has captured the best of Southern cuisine. His fried dishes were light and refined…his fish prepared with a skilled wrist, each evocative of the deeply seasoned flavors reminiscent of Southern home cooking. This is the sort of menu you’d expect at a low-country gathering, where folks start the oyster roast fires early in the cool of the day and “visit” past sunset.

I caught up with Brian in his chaotic kitchen, just before dinner service, where he rekindled memories of his Grandpa Dickey, one of the renowned Tuskegee Airmen, while he prepared the dishes of his youth.

“These are the dishes he would prepare, always with the freshest ingredients around, “ Robinson recalls.

For beer lovers there was an amazing selection that was carefully chosen for pairing with each course. Craft beers like Piraat Triple from Belgium, a “living beer” that continues to ferment in the bottle and is called an “adventure” because it’s flavors shapeshift in the bottle; Steamworks Kolscha, a crisp ale, with a hint of sweetness from Colorado; Dale’s Pale Ale, “hoppy and malty;” and Bell’s Oberon, an American wheat ale considered both spicy and fruity, sequenced the food.

On the cheese board was Cypress Grove’s Humboldt Fog a creamy, dreamy, surface-ripened blue with its iconic ribbon of ash and Point Reyes Bleu a firmer, yet mild mannered blue made with the raw milk from this Northern California farm’s own grass-fed cows.

They were paired with Abita Purple Haze, which features the after-brew addition of raspberry puree and Brooklyn Brown Ale that evokes raisins, apples, brown sugar and molasses and rounded out the offerings.

Restaurant 3 Bar and Grill features over 70 different beers a long list of wines and hand-crafted specialty cocktails made with farmer’s market fresh herbs and infusions.

Contact the writer at [email protected]

If You’re Going…
3 Bar and Grill
2950 Clarendon Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22201
(703) 524-4440
http://www.restaurantthree.com/