If you're looking for a great restaurant with reasonable prices in Midtown, look no further than the L Wine Lounge. Even though I knew the address, I grabbed the wrong door knob on 18th Street instead of walking around the corner to L Street. You can see why I sometimes walk into the wrong homes when on broker tour. I'm directionally challenged. But in my defense, the sign over the door on 18th did read 1801.

The entrance is on L Street, directly across the street from where the battles have been escalating between the developers of the L Street Lofts. Since my company, Lyon Real Estate, was the exclusive listing broker for this project, let me say that regardless of the outcome of those squabbles, the L Street Lofts are magnificent, chic, urban and hey, you've got to love the exposed air ducts in the ceilings. The floor-to-ceiling glass views of Sacramento are remarkable. And where else can you get your money's worth for $500 a square foot in Midtown?

My husband had picked up tickets to see that classic LA punk band "X" at Harlow's last Thursday. Then we invited another couple to join us and tried to get extra tickets for them, but the show was sold out. As a compromise, we decided to go as a group of four to dinner and then let my husband and my associate's husband go on to the show themselves.  Harlow's wanted $100 to reserve a table, and they weren't serving dinner that night, so if I had to stand throughout the show, it was better my husband take a buddy instead of me.

As we waited for my husband to show up, we ordered cocktails. One of the special drinks caught my eye -- a vodka martini, but I don't believe martinis should be made with vodka and ordered a real martini instead. It arrived in an unusually large martini glass with an unusually small amount of gin, and no olives!

The L Wine Lounge features a three-course prix fixe dinner and, since I'm the adventurous sort, that's what I ordered. It's very affordable as compared to the $150 dinner at the now closed 55 Degrees. I enjoyed a delicious charentais melon soup, grilled Bavette steak with potatoes anna and hericot verts, the latter which was a bit stringy and crunchy. The steak melted in my mouth, and the potatoes were thinly sliced, stacked and cooked to perfection with a tiny bit of crust. Ordinarily, I don't like bread pudding, but this dessert was made with cubes of lightly buttered and roasted bread, mixed with currants, and was simply phenomenal. The wine pairing was wonderful but the portions were not what one would call "generous" at about two ounces, except for dessert which was a miniscule one ounce.

After the guys left, my associate and I stayed behind to talk. We asked for a Frangelico but the restaurant had none. Instead, it offered me a taste of Benedictine. Wow. If you had lit a match in front of my face, you would have seen a blow torch.  Benedictine is made in France from plants and spices, and is still manufactured by the same methods used by the monks who created this liqueur in the 1500s. Very sweet with a high alcohol content. I didn't want to crawl on all fours out of the restaurant, so I passed on the dessert drink. Cost of the three-course prix fixe with wine pairings was a reasonable $45. Without the wine, $30. I give the L Wine Lounge 4.5 stars.

Photo: Big Stock Photo