Yes, that is the chef giving me a thumbs up while I try not to spit out the sea urchin that I didn't know was on my plate: fun times at Rogue 24

From walking down a deserted alley to the restaurant, some yummy courses and some not so yummy courses (and what felt like quite a lot of wine), our meal at Rogue 24 was pretty good. Surprisingly for Bruce, it wasn't even his favourite meal in DC though - we both loved our meal at Blue Duck Tavern, but that's partly to do with the fact that they had Honig on the wine list... my favourite wine ever and you never see it in the UK.

Some highlights and lowlights from Rogue 24:

• The head chef is actually there - in fact he was within about 5m of me for most of our meal!
• He also brings you food, comments on your accent and will give you a thumbs up mid-meal.
• At one point, he actually joined another table for about half an hour. One of the girls on that table left the restaurant with the Rogue 24 symbol drawn on her arm in pen. Perhaps he knew them already?! This guy is meant to be really shy!
• A wine pairing is pretty much compulsory - but I usually end up at least a glass behind because I drink too slowly... so it's a constant game of catch up. Bruce did not have this issue.
• The chef appears to be a little spume obsessed... but then with a 24 course menu, you probably do have to repeat some techniques. Or maybe he just loves spume.
• The restaurant was quite noisy (because we are hip and cool so we go to that type of place), so we couldn't always hear the description of what we were about to eat - this led to the sea urchin incident.... I thought it was sturgeon! If the chef hadn't been looking at me, I probably would have spat it out... the next course couldn't come quickly enough.
• The loos were of the dark and dingy cool variety - a bit like the ones at Dabbous and a bit of a challenge!

But still 20 out of 24 courses ain't bad...

Our hotel (The Jefferson) was also a bit of a mixed bag... some stuff was really nice - iced tea on arrival etc - but the doormen were a joke. I have never opened the main door for myself so often in a fancy hotel! Definitely would not recommend, especially as the location is a little out of the way, although it does have a really high TripAdvisor rating. Then again, I have never posted a review on TripAdvisor so maybe that's a reflection on the taste of the people that bother to post one?! Does anyone post reviews on TripAdvisor?!