I am fairly new to the area and I thought I'd relate lunch today downtown Washington DC.

I met someone at the Willard and we went into the restaurant there. The Willard is a fine old hotel, very ornate. About 10 years ago they were going to tear it down, but it got renovated instead and now it is an Inter-Continental.

We sat at the hotel and the chairs have big armrests that don't fit under the table so you have to be a little bit away from the table.

The prices were astronomical a la carte. A salad was $17, or instance. But you can order the "complete" lunch including any appetizer, entree and dessert for $34, which is what we did.

I had a crab compress which was fresh crab with avocado and tomato. It was good but I wouldn't order it again. My companions had a mesclun salad with fresh anchovies. The anchovies were not salty and were appearently excellent. They were put on top of each other to resemble a woven cloth, very interesting presentation.

For the main course I ate seared tuna, too well done for my taste, on top of run of the mill vegetables. My companion had lamb chops that looked incredible. He said they were very special.

Desserts were a choice of chocolate cake, or sorbet. I ordered the cake. It was beautifully presented with a thin strip of high quality chocolate binding together a delicate chocolate cream, a white chocolate cream, and a cake resembling a very soft shortbread. Really good. The sorbet my companion had looked awesome.

Service was adequate but not great. It wasn't slow, just amateurish, with the waiter giving us each the wrong dishes not once but several times. The ice tea was just average. I ordered an espresso that was lukewarm, all 2 millimeters of it. But overall I enjoyed it and would go back for a similar business lunch.