2009 Fall Dining Guide By Tom Sietsema Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009 A companion is so enamored of the minty butter sauce pooled beneath his grilled black bass, his plate is in danger of being scraped of its surface. "Would you like the recipe?" the winsome server at Eventide says. "I can ask the chef." Her attentiveness is one of many reasons this youthful American restaurant sails ahead of so many of its peers. From the warm biscuits that land atop the broad tables, spaced so that you don't feel as if you're sitting on your neighbors, to the fairly priced wines that are always served at the right temperature, Arlington's Eventide is a restaurant that sweats the small stuff. So the bar menu goes beyond the usual snacks to include bison sliders, and soft pretzels with house-made peach mustard and deviled ham. And the rooftop comes with a deck for al fresco dining. The menu, meanwhile, is concise but packed with little surprises. When seemingly every other chef was serving tomatoes with feta or mozzarella this summer, Miles Vaden distinguished his artful garden with basil "chimichurri," crackling paprika-spiced crumbs and shocking sherry gelee. Accompaniments -- fluffy bulgur wheat and fresh green beans with that silken bass, tangy Swiss chard and colorful bell peppers with a terrific pork chop sheathed in prosciutto -- flatter the focus of the plate. From the looks of the place, which begins on the ground floor with a lively lounge and climbs to a second-story restaurant made dramatic with theater-length blue velvet draperies and warehouse-size windows, Eventide suggests an expense-account establishment. Yet its prices (entrees average $25) are downright neighborly.
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