Dinner at Komi

Last weekend, Mark and I celebrated our anniversary with dinner at Komi. I don't know if I mentioned this in my account of our January meal at Komi, but the waitstaff and other front-of-house people there really are fantastic. Johnny Monis' food may be amazing, but that's not the only special thing going on at Komi. You know how at a lot of restaurants of this type, the unspoken message is "you don't deserve to eat here and you can't understand what artistes we are; be grateful we're serving you at all"? Well, at Komi we were actually greeted warmly at the door. The attitude of the servers here is more like, "We love food, and we know you probably do too, or you wouldn't be here." They are true professionals. We asked our server lots of questions, and he always had well-informed answers. We even chatted briefly about The Omnivore's Dilemma (when I asked where they get their quail eggs from).

Anyway, the tasting menu begins with the mezzethakia, a flight of eight or so amuse-bouche-sized treats. You don't order them off a menu -- it's a series of surprises, which makes it my favorite part of the meal. We started with a couple of house-cured olives, and they were so much cleaner-tasting than most. The brine wasn't especially salty or vinegary, so the taste was like a really good, fruity olive oil --an apt flavor with which to begin a Mediterranean-influenced meal. Next came wedges of radish topped with a bit of butter and salmon roe, the salty component in a riff on the French radishes-with-butter-and-salt thing. (Mark's came with thin shavings of garlic scape instead.) Oh, and with these first couple of mezze, we were served a Greek sparkling wine. Next came the mascarpone-stuffed date I've been craving since January. Still heavenly.

At about this point we were poured a really good Spanish albarino (sorry, I don't know how to add the tilde character in Blogger), along with two small grilled Padron peppers and a shot-glass-sized serving of gazpacho. I *think* our server told us there was roasted beet in there. Whatever it was, I heartily approve. After that was some octopus, a thin slice of avocado, and a quail egg atop black lentils. Next came a corn fritter with anchovy aioli (Mark's had saffron aioli, and I think his was better, but then I do love saffron). Then a little pita sandwich with oxtail and tzatziki (I remember this one from last time, only this time it also had beet in it). And finally, a bit of watermelon topped with whipped feta, the only mezze I wasn't crazy about. I just don't know about watermelon and cheese. There were a couple other wines during the mezze course; Mark took surreptitious notes, but now that I've waited so long to do this post, these notes are cryptic. I know we had wines from Santorini (who knew there was any part of Santorini used for anything but tourism?) and the Piedmont region of Italy because the notes tell me so. Oops.

Next, the pasta course. Mark had something with gorgonzola (and with it, a merlot/grenache blend); I had fava bean agnolotti with chorizo and garlic scapes and a curry emulsion (served with a gewurztraminer). It was good, but I thought the chorizo overwhelmed the delicate favas just a little.

My entree was roasted squab with asparagus, morel mushrooms, morcilla sausage and trotters, served with a Spanish rioja. When ordering, I inquired as to what trotters were. The short answer? Pig's knuckles. The magic of Komi is that I didn't care. They were delicious (they were part of a fritter). And now I'm cursing these notes, because all Mark wrote down about his entree was this: "Vegetables." And he's gone to bed now, so I can't inquire. (Perhaps tomorrow he'll weigh in in the comments section and share more details.)

Next we were given a little taste of olive oil gelato: so simple, so unexpected. If you've ever had really good olive oil, you understand what a great flavor that is. (And now we've come full circle from the olives we started the meal with!) This was a prelude to dessert: coconut panna cotta for Mark, a cornmeal crepe with mascarpone for me.

And they still bring out lollipops with the check: this time, lime and juniper flavored -- "like a gin & tonic," our server said. And indeed, it did taste like a G&T: a whimsical end to another amazing meal from Monis & Co.

the return of Top Chef, and what not to do with plastic wrap

First off, a public service announcement: the new season of Top Chef starts tomorrow! If you have BRAVO and you missed out last time, tune in. Seriously, people, come on. I need somebody to obsess with.

Remember in January when I posted about the amazing dinner we had at Komi on my birthday? I'm pretty sure that was the best meal I've ever had in my life. Well, Komi chef Johnny Monis has been named to Food and Wine magazine's annual Best New Chefs list, an honor whose now-superstar alums include Thomas Keller (French Laundry, Per Se), Nobu Matsuhisa (Nobu), Tom Colicchio (Craft; also, these days the head judge on Top Chef), Wylie Dufresne (wd-50) and Grant Achatz (Alinea), to name a few. The announcement itself isn't really news, as the list came out weeks ago. D.C. area food blogs were all atwitter with the news (one headline read: You're Never Getting Into Komi Again). But I'm posting about this now because I finally got the Best New Chefs issue in the mail today, AND because Mark thought ahead and made us reservations at Komi for our anniversary. We ARE getting into Komi again!

I'm so excited. I don't even care what's on the menu: I will eat anything Chef Monis puts on the table. If he were to open up a box of Kraft Mac n' Cheese, I would have utter faith that it would be better than anything I could ever make.

I remember I said back in January that the attention to detail at Komi was amazing. Well, this slightly obsessive-compulsive quote from Monis in his Food & Wine Q&A made me laugh. After having seen him back there in the kitchen, crouched over dishes he was plating as if he were defusing a bomb, it just seems so apt. When asked about his pet peeve, he says: "I very much dislike when people rip into the plastic wrap covering something-when they make a hole and dig in. It takes seconds to just unwrap something properly. I can’t tell you why, but it has always bothered me. Improper use of plastic wrap, that’s what I call it."

eating D.C.: Komi

Have I mentioned that I have the best husband ever? For my birthday, he signed me up for a CSA share from Bull Run Farm. We got a combination vegetable/fruit subscription; some weeks there might also be flowers or some honey from the farm's bees in our share. I can't wait to finally have some garlic scapes!

That was the delayed-gratification part of my birthday, since it won't start until May or so. The instant gratification came from our dinner at Komi, the D.C. restaurant I've been most looking forward to trying (D.C. food bloggers rave about it). Chef/owner Johnny Monis is a mere 27 years old. I had a good view of the kitchen from where we sat, and I could see him in there, painstakingly plating everything. I know that a lot of chef/owners can be a bit removed from the day-to-day workings of the kitchen, but this guy's very involved in the details. And oh, the attention to detail is what makes Komi great.

Komi does "slow food" in the best possible sense: the restaurant is tiny, warm and inviting; your meal takes three hours, and for those three hours you are well taken care of. In a world where we all go out to eat too often, Komi is still a special-occasion experience. And yet they make you feel comfortable enough to put your elbows on the table. The servers know their stuff, but they don't talk down to you. The food is incredible, but never overly precious. It's fine dining, but the overall vibe is comfy.

We ordered the tasting menu, plus the optional wine pairings. I'm glad we did: instead of fumbling through the wine list and blindly choosing a bottle ourselves, we got a sommelier-guided tour through the highlights of the wine list, tailored to what we were eating. (We even got to try some very tasty Greek and Hungarian wines. Who knew?)

The first course actually consisted of eight or so mini-courses: a few house-brined olives, a fried ricotta ball, a little sunchoke panna cotta with a quail egg inside. A little oxtail sandwich with tzatziki, some sauteed octopus, cured beef with persimmon and avocado. (And corresponding veggie counterparts for Mark.) Every time we thought the parade of small plates was done, something new came out. Oh, and the best was a mascarpone-stuffed date, which may be the single tastiest bite of food I've ever had. The date was caramelized, and it was drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. The overall effect was that of a creamy salt caramel. So many layers of flavor in one little bite. I'm still thinking about that bite days later.

After the series of small plates was done, there was the pasta course: truffled potato ravioli for Mark, tagliatelle with wild boar (!), cocoa and mint for me. (In between courses, our server brought us three kinds of house-made crackers. See what I mean about detail?) For the entree, I chose the roasted turbot with blood oranges and some kind of creamy celery root polenta. Mark had a vegetable platter: Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, the same celery root polenta, and haricots verts with little slices of pickled red onion.

Next came the cheese course: Gouda, Camembert and candied quince in a vanilla-bean-specked syrup, with homemade oat crackers. Mine was served with a glass of vin santo; Mark had another kind of dessert wine, the name of which is escaping me. For dessert, Mark had blood-orange granita and I had the Greek doughnuts with chocolate mascarpone pudding. I thought the donuts were just OK -- they may have been overhyped in the reviews I read -- but the pudding was fantastic. Even when the check arrived, the parade of treats wasn't over, as it came with two house-made lollipops (pina colada flavor).