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Very Best Restaurants: Taberna Del Alabardero

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Taberna Del Alabardero ***
Washington, $$

Not content with Josu Zubikarai's award-winning cuisine, the Taberna also stages gastronomical weeks several times a year, with guest chefs preparing menus of the regional specialties they serve in their restaurants in Spain. This last October, Valencia was featured with a menu that explored the many delicious possibilities of rice cookery that lie beyond paella.

Following the practice of luxury restaurants in Spain, Zubikarai's seasonal menus offer both traditional and contemporary Spanish cuisine. At the same table, the contrast of those styles can be seen in a rustic gratin of salt cod presented in its earthenware cooking vessel and a filet of halibut with an emulsion of mussels served on monogrammed bone china.

Other dishes that support Taberna del Alabardero's reputation as the finest Spanish restaurant in the country are a salad of scallops dressed with saffron, an airy terrine of asparagus, stuffed squids in a sauce of their own ink, hake with an earthy coulis of dried peppers, and fideua, the Catalonian version of seafood paella, made with short lengths of hollow noodles instead of rice.

Taberna Del Alabardero , 1776 I St. (entrance on 18th Street between H and I streets) NW, Washington; 202-429-2200. Open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday for dinner. MapIt!

QUALITY: ****Excellent; *** Superior; **Very Good; * Good
PRICE RANGE: $$$= Very Expensive; $$ Expensive; $=Moderate; ¢=Inexpensive

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