Best Foie Gras in DC?

I endorse this thread. Oh yeah, just brought a fresh lobe home. Photos forthcoming

restaurant? try TenPehn in DC. awesome appetizer.

Mmmmmm foie.

Depends on how you want it made.

Uncooked, you can pick up a pound for ~$110 at Balducci's and make it as good or bad as you want.

Seared is a toss up, because for any decent chef, it's pretty hard to screw up salting and sauteing foie, although places have managed to over cook it, like Cafe du Parc and Marcel's a few times. What you end up judging with seared is the whole dish, because they'll always add something on the plate with the foie, which usually enhances or detracts from the foie. I've enjoyed the foie at Bourbon, Le Paradou (which is, or will be closing soon), but probably the best consistently has been at Restaurant Eve (where the foie is supposedly from ducks fed the traditional Egyptian diet of figs). And if you venture to Baltimore, Charleston has a fantastic seared foie.

Terrine/torchon really depends on your personal tastes as places season them differently, and if you prefer the more butter-like texture of this style of preparation. Usually, you end up spreading this on brioche. I like the way Central does it and Westermann's versions at Cafe du Parc. Vidalia does a nice and simple torchon as well.

For "out there" foie, Volt up in Frederick does a freeze dried foie gras, like El Bulli did, where the foie is turned into a powder that reconstitutes in your mouth as you eat a duck consomme. Of course, it lacks the normal taste of foie, but it is a bit of a novelty.

I've had good foie gras at Cashion's, which is one my favorite restaurants in D.C., and at 2941 out in Fall's Church.

(what is foie gras?)

^ for shame. The Law Review had its end of the year banquet at the only upscale french joint in Knoxville. When I looked at the menu (that the Law Review had ordered) and saw that they had omitted the Foie, I declined to RSVP.

It translates to "fat liver" in French. It is the liver of a goose or a duck that has been force fed until the point that it becomes very fat. It's a huge delicacy. Very rich and buttery. It's very expensive and unlike anything you'll ever eat, but it causes a lot of controversy because of the forced feeding.

I think you're doing foie gras a disservice but not actually describing what that force feeding entails.

There's beauty in deception.

Thanks - this is quite helpful!

"Force fed" foie gras is banned in California because of it's cruelty. foie gras production has been outlawed in the U.K., Germany, the Czech Republic, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and Israel. They sell "naturally fed" foie gras instead. I have no idea how the difference effects the taste. I mean how good can corn boiled in fat really taste after being half-passed through a bird? Foie gras, French for "fatty liver," is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of male ducks and geese. The birds are kept in tiny wire cages or packed into sheds. Pipes are repeatedly shoved down the birds' throats, and up to 4 pounds of grain and fat are pumped into their stomachs two or three times every day. The pipes puncture many birds' throats, sometimes causing the animals to bleed to death. This cruel procedure causes the birds' livers to become diseased and swell to up to 10 times their normal size. Many birds become too sick to stand up. The birds who survive the force-feeding are killed, and their livers are sold for foie gras Much like veal, there is nothing elegant, high-society or luxurious about it. It looks something like this

Actually, the ban on foie gras in Chicago was lifted in May 2008.

Wow - I knew it was fatty goose live but had no idea of the process to produce it. I'm really turned off to trying it now.