Face it.  We all love a little head now and then.  There is something about the pure pleasure we get from fondling the firm bulbous root, rolling it between our hands, imagining it coated in oil, wondering how many in a day we can handle, smashing the flat of a knife blade against it.  Wait?  What?  Oh, riiiighhht…the Garlic Sensualist tee is here for all of us that know what we like, can’t understand when we hear, “Garlic?  No way!  That’s too spicy”, and always, always, always know that it’s hard to have too much.

The Delicious Libertine Garlic Sensualist Tee makes the perfect statement.

Click on the picture for the Womanly Version; for the Manly Version, head off to the site.

This review is copied - verbatim - from Yelp, where I published it originally. I try not to do restaurant reviews on DeliciousLibertine, but with Kasbah I feel a certain affinity.

La Kasbah Restaurant

11424 Washington Plz W
Reston, VA 20191

There are, of course, hundreds of places for Northern Virginians to choose when contemplating dinner, or lunch, or even a coffee. The sad truth, of course, as any small restaurant owner will tell you, is that most of us will choose thickly populated areas with name brand eateries.

We are all the poorer for it.

Small places like La Kasbah, run passionately by people passionate about food and its power to bridge cultures, are always threatened by our own culture of mass undifferentiation. But despite this threat, and perhaps driven in some part by it, the passion at these places shines through in the food, in the service, in the attention to those little things that make a meal something more than an exercise in ‘filling the tank’. La Kasbah does all of these things brilliantly.

The food is classic, and I do mean classic, Moroccan. Chef “D” focuses on the most definable and fundamental flavors of the North African country with a sensualist’s appreciation of melt-off-the-bone lamb, flavors of raisins and nuts, citrus and ras el hanout. You can find kabobs of course, but also an exquisite lamb tagine, a variety of couscous, and more unusual dishes like an excellent chicken in confetti and green olives.

Although La Kasbah recently got their liquor license, the wine list, featuring both Moroccan specialties as well Italian, French, and new world bottles from California and elsewhere, has always had something to attract and hold my attention for a couple of hours. And, of course, if you cannot decide there is plenty of help available.

Yet, for all of this, La Kasbah, like so many equally good places, has to fight for every customer. And, in many cases, the reality is that it’s a losing fight. Were it located in the bustling streets of old Marrakesh, La Kasbah would be fantastically popular, but Lake Anne long ago lost out to Reston Town Center as the place to go, as the place to be. The crowds there, and the lines snaking out of restaurants serving much the same flavors in different packages, leaves little room for discovery. In Lake Anne, there is still the opportunity to be surprised. Pleasantly and extremely so, and nowhere more so than at La Kasbah.

12/15/2007

For an American, eating in Madrid is an athletic endeavor. It’s not a matter of quantity (except in the aggregate sense), it’s the sheer frequency that threatens to exhaust all but the most fevered and dedicated eaters. One doesn’t have to eat six times a day. Indeed, no. But, you’ll want to. Hence…the pretapas tapas.

Designed to hold you over between your lunch of bean stew, lamb, bread, a bottle of wine, desert, and a coffee and your inevitable pilgrimage to the tapas bars, the pretapas tapas can be had anytime after five or six in the afternoon (Madrid time). Best choices are something with a little substance, both to keep you from getting peckish and as a way to ward off the effects of the two bottles of wine you’re likely to enjoy over the next eight hours.

Here we have jamon (of course) on toasted bread with a drizzle of olive oil, and anchovies with tomatoes (also on bread with a drizzle of olive oil).

Permit me to introduce you, dear reader, to Casa Patas.

Me: Dear reader, meet Casa Patas

Me: Casa Patas, meet dear reader

Case Patas: I have a 9 euro menu el dia that includes a bottle of wine, four courses, coffee, and great people watching. Oh, and I’m the premier flamenco spot in the Madrid.

Dear reader (you): drooooool

Yep, trust me, that is exactly how it would go. There might be a little more drooling than that, or perhaps even stronger exclamations of wonder. But, you get the gist.

Daily menus are commonplace in Madrid, indeed in many European cities. Designed, in their best incarnations, as a way for the restaurant to showcase the freshest and most interesting bits of the cook’s larder, but all to often the worst sort of tourist invitation to bad and overpriced food. There is, in Madrid, certainly some of the latter. But, and this is an important but, there is much more of the former.

The best example of this is Casa Patas. Located in the heart of the old city, this place is the real deal.

How real? Look again, closely, at what Casa Patas offers - for lunch. Four courses! Think warm crusty bread with olive oil; think a warm bean stew with little bits of seafood, cream, and a touch of olive oil; think braised lamb with peppers and onions; think fantastic coffee and a little panna cotta. And…a bottle of wine. That is a menu del dia that anyone could be proud of.

Oh, yeah, Casa Patas also does some flamenco, both old and new school: for example.

I’m not sure that Casa Patas should be the reason you visit Madrid, but it a strong reason for enjoying yourself once you’re there.

Olives are a fact of life around the Mediterranean. European, Arab, and Classical history abounds with the olive. In fact, you could write a book on the importance of olives in world history (and a number of folks have).  But, it is one of those few fruits, that despite its wide adoption in the United States, is still hardly known well. We know olives on pizza (black or green), in salads (ditto), with pasta, and stuffed full of wonderfulness in a martini.  But, our appreciation is limited more by quality than quantity.

And, it’s too bad.

Because a really good, fresh olive is a revelation.

Served on a plate, warmed by the sun, in their own sweet, flowery oil, Spanish green olives make the perfect beginning to something larger, or a snack designed to restore a sense of purpose while hiking through the city. These are olives that haven’t been around the block; they haven’t spent days or weeks in transit in the hold of a ship or the belly of a plane. Rather these are delivered in great buckets, slopping in oil, and taken out and put on plates by the handful.