sharing saturday with sheri, pt. 1, or cuisine and culture

on saturday (august 16), i had plans to see my friend, sheri. as i've mentioned, i scheduled my trip during restaurant week, and i scheduled brunch for us at bistro bis. i had actually eaten there during restaurant week in january, and i wanted to go again.

for appetizer, i think i had the salad frisee with au lardons, while sheri had a melon appetizer. (i forgot to take pictures!). for the main entree, i had the quiche aux champignons (pictured below), and sheri had the french toast (not pictured). i actually had the french toast in january, and it was yummy. the quiche was good, too, but one of the salads--either the appetizer or the one that came with the quiche (can't remember which)--was too bitter for me.


for dessert, sheri had the cheesecake brulee (i think), and i had the chocolate toffee bread pudding. this bread pudding was basically the reason i wanted to eat here again. last year, i ate at 1789, and they had really delicious bread pudding. unfortunately, the dessert chef left so they don't have that on their menu anymore. so, i was excited to have some good bread pudding, though i have to say i wasn't as wowed with it the second time, as i was the first time. (along the bread pudding line, i enjoyed the one served at disneyland's storytellers cafe.)



after brunch, we walked from the restaurant to the newseum. i had never been there, so i was glad when sheri suggested it when we were making plans. it's rather expensive ($20 for adults), especially considering all the free museums in dc, but it's a great place.

before you even enter the museum, they have a display of the front pages of newspapers from each state and select countries. the display actually starts in the today's front pages gallery inside the museum, and those displayed outside are additional ones. it's cool to see something before one even goes inside the museum, though. and it's amazing because people have to cull through the papers everyday to select what goes on display.

among the exhibits, we saw: the bloomberg internet, tv and radio gallery, the pulitzer prize photographs gallery, the time warner world news gallery, and the journalists memorial (pictured below).


we also saw the berlin wall gallery (see pictures below), where a portion of the original wall is displayed. an east german guard tower is also included.




we also watched "i-witness: a 4-d travel time adventure." sheri and i agreed that that, in itself, was worth the price of admission.

we saved some time to browse in the shops, where we played with the toy microphones and pretended to be newscasters. below is a picture of the capitol taken from one of the shop windows.


we sure had fun eating and learning.