Lunch in the Afternoon

Persimmon
7003 Wisconsin Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
301-654-9860

It seems a great pity that few people take the time for lunch any more; I myself have often been guilty of this trespass. Yet lunch is a meal too, which makes it one of only so many we get in a lifetime, and it is rather a waste to ignore it or not to give it its due. For – assuming quality as a given, naturally – the one thing I ask of my meals is that they be unhurried.

Simon was in town yesterday briefly before he headed back to Providence, and we caught up over lunch. He chose, at his mother’s suggestion, Persimmon – remarking as we sat down that this was an old favourite and that they served a lunch worthy of a proper meal. For my part, I was just glad to sit down to lunch, a lunch complete with water glasses and multiple forks and starched napkins.

Persimmon is in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase area, an area that smacks somewhat of the new and artificial. I always think that there isn’t anything up there but hotels and chain retail and restaurants, but I am often pleasantly surprised. The restaurant is dubbed as a ‘New American bistro’ – which makes me wince a little, but I recover in time to appreciate the warm golden-orange walls – persimmon, from the name of the restaurant – with splashes of inviting yellows. The hostess, an older woman, had a light, pattering step and an eager manner, and her silvery tresses danced just atop her shoulders as she led us to our table.

I have known Simon for a long time now, and when I first met him he had that infectious, boyish brashness of youth, quite arresting in its warmth, its unguardedness and lack of pretense; capable of putting anyone at ease. His was a personality that reached out to you, singular in its eccentricities, and he possessed that uncommon inability to leave a room unmarked by his entry. He spoke with a wonderful turn of phrase, and was a lovely conversationalist. Later when I met his mother for the first of many times I understood where it all came from. Yet as the years had gone by he had mellowed somewhat, and had become more considered in his speech, more deliberate in his manner. At times during the meal he took on that absent air of one who has great responsibility. He was still Simon, but perhaps he had grown up a little.

I have a great affection for him though, and as the conversation fell into step I felt that relief that comes with eating at a familiar table. The calamari was superb, sautéd lightly and adorned with nicoise tomatoes and a pumpkin seed pesto, served atop a bed of rosemary polenta. The polenta was rich and creamy yet bore a lightness that betrayed the skill of the chef’s hand. Together they made for a wonderful combination of flavours. Simon and I also shared the duck confit appetiser with flageolet beans, a dish perhaps too heavy for lunch but nevertheless extremely tasty.

We owe the concept of a bistro to the French, whose country is littered with small cafés or restaurants that serve simple, modest and down-to-earth fare which warms the body as much as it does the soul. Persimmon had on its menu a nicoise salad and the classic steak frites – both nods to traditional bistro fare – as well as a bouillabaisse that hinted at the chef’s fascination with all things French. It was the latter that Simon made me get, recommending it with a raw enthusiasm I have learnt to distrust in people. Knowledge begets consideration; most often those who are overly animated are also overly ignorant. When the dish came it was a massive plate of mussels and shrimp and squid in a golden broth, daunting just to look at. It went quickly, though - I made a veritable fist of finishing it - and I was impressed by the freshness of the ingredients.

When I used to wait tables, I always had a soft spot for that bittersweet moment after dinner had been eaten and cleared. I probably did not wait enough tables to get jaded, and so I would always involuntarily share a little in the dining experience of those I waited on. There is something about that little window after the busboy cleared the plates away – and on slow nights I would always try to check myself and time my reappearance to allow for that extra beat, so that people could tie up loose ends, could find the last, definitive word on the night’s conversation. On busy nights however, as any waiter worth his salt can tell you, just getting to the table at all is an admirable feat. As a diner, I am more than familiar with the feeling: it is like having an unspeakable loss hit you, and realising that the loss had been, little by little, a long time coming. Whatever the case, I almost always felt like the absolute devil when I would return to a table, not because of the temptation I represented through the offering of the dessert menu, but because I was, in some sense, the one who drew the line at the end of their night.

Certainly that was how Simon and I viewed our waitress, who had been pleasantly anonymous until she came back and uttered those immortal words. She was, unwittingly, a cruel reminder that there was work to be done, and still a large part of the day to get through. That is, then, perhaps the only drawback to enjoying a good meal at lunchtime. Simon and I were stuffed, leaning back in our seats and making ungodly noises under our breath – but it always seems almost criminal not to at least take a look at the dessert menu. The rum-raisin bread pudding sounded divine, and Simon had wonderful things to say about the pumpkin cheesecake. I had no doubt about the quality of the offerings, but it was the middle of the day, and I had a girlish figure to maintain.

It was a good meal, with a good friend – and the restaurant is more than conducive to that. As we left we kept up the chatter, which in turn was prime evidence that the food, the surroundings, the service – the meal, essentially – had lightened our spirits. It had allowed us to connect in the most meaningful of ways, and to do that which only true friends do: make fun of one another. It was a charming place, and served good, hearty food. Who was it that once wrote that he liked his meals heavy and his women light? At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, I concur fully.