dinner at Citronelle

Forget elaborate gifts or weekend getaways - Mark and I usually celebrate anniversaries and/or birthdays by eating somewhere we wouldn't be able to justify any other time of the year. My personal shortlist of D.C. restaurants special enough for that once-a-year trip include Komi, Restaurant Eve, CityZen, Citronelle, Minibar, and the Inn at Little Washington. We've done Komi and Eve, so this year for our second wedding anniversary, we made a reservation at Citronelle, Michel Richard's flagship restaurant.

Citronelle definitely has a different atmosphere than Komi or Eve; the latter both feel comfy, while Citronelle is more of an officious-French-waiter, D.C. dealmaking sort of place. That's not to say the service isn't excellent. It is, and if you can get over feeling intimidated by it, it's fun to sit back and admire the complicated dance. Anyway, we went with the promenade gourmande, the more reasonably sized of the two tasting menus. If it hadn't been a weeknight, we'd have done the wine pairings, but when I've gotta work the next day, that's just too much for me. So I started with a glass of Sancerre for the first few courses, than asked the waiter to recommend a red that would go well with my heavier courses (it was a Bordeaux and it was fabulous, but that's all I remember. I was a little put off that he didn't even ask me about my preferences, though - I asked and he just nodded and whooshed off and reappeared with a bottle). First came the amuse bouche, or rather a trio of them: egg surprise, escargot crumble, and vitello-tonnato. The "egg surprise" was a mousse-like cauliflower puree topped with smoked salmon, served in a perfect eggshell half. The top half had a little handle that you lifted up to reveal the puree. The escargot was in a tiny, thimble-sized ramekin, and the vitello tonnato looked like a tiny, pretty wedge of layer cake, one of Richard's many whimsical presentation touches. Next was a silky vichyssoise with house-made potato chips (fried in clarified butter - yum). That was followed by a fried soft-shell crab on a bed of chilled ratatouille. I felt like the crab itself wasn't all that special, but the ratatouille was nice.

Next, a melt-in-your-mouth broiled sablefish with a swoon-worthy caramelized sake-miso glaze. However, this was one course where Mark's vegetarian counterpart got short shrift: my fish came with a little mound of veggies (baby bok choy, etc., with Asian flavors). His dish? Simply three mounds of those same side-dish veggies. It felt like such a dated attitude toward vegetarians. A place that respected them as diners with equally sophisticated palates would have aimed a little higher. In fact, now that I'm on the topic: When we sat down, our waiter acted befuddled when Mark wanted to order a vegetarian version of the tasting menu. (This was after Mark told them he was vegetarian twice: once when he made the reservation on OpenTable, and again following up on the phone. We're aware this is the sort of thing a place needs to know in advance.) The waiter said something like, "Are you sure you want that?" I think there was some confusion because I was getting the regular tasting menu, and the waiter said Mark would have gaps where I had courses and he didn't, because the vegetarian tasting menu was shorter. Mark said that was fine with him, but then the waiter said no, no, it's no problem, the kitchen can do it. I have to say, Komi and Eve were never confused by the request or anything less than gracious about it. (In fact, I think when we first arrived at Komi, the waiter came over right away to ask Mark whether he ate cheese and eggs before he could even remind them he was a vegetarian.) In retrospect, Mark would've been better off with the shorter vegetarian tasting menu, because they don't seem to have enough ideas to sustain a longer one. (Hence the three piles of the side veggies from the sablefish dish.)

Anyway. Next came the lobster burger, my favorite dish of the night. It was a perfect little slider on a brioche roll with what I think was a tomato-ginger jam. (I think it's available in a full-sized entree version at Citronelle's casual-dining counterpart, Central. That would certainly lure me in there.) Perfectly moist, and just the right ratio of lobster to bread. It was served with more of those buttery potato chips. They were delicious, and certainly made sense with this fine-dining take on the burger, but then again, I'd just had them a few courses back. Hmmm. (Similarly, Mark was served asparagus two or three times, and not really in an "asparagus three ways" sort of way. Maybe if we'd gone with the wine pairings, we'd be tipsy enough to not remember?) Next, black angus steak with veal sweetbreads, morels and asparagus. It was good, but it had a tough act to follow after that superstar lobster burger.

Next, the cheese course. Then a strawberry cocktail - a little dish with a sort of strawberry compote in the bottom, then a nice little mousse layer, topped with a mint granita that was so fresh and clean and herbal-tasting. One of the best "palate cleanser" courses I've had. Dessert, Richard's take on a Kit Kat bar, was fabulous. A dense chocolate/hazelnut crispy layered thing with pistachio ice cream and rhubarb tuiles .... sigh. Oh, and then somehow we found room for the petit fours. And managed to waddle home. :)

Overall, though? I sort of felt like we'd been sized up and mentally seated at the kids' table. They have a certain number of star dishes to trot out, and they're incredible, but a lot of Mark's dishes felt like afterthoughts. Maybe they figured we didn't know any better, but we do. In the future, I'll get my lobster burger fix at Citronelle's casual sibling, Central, and we'll do our special-occasion dining at places that treat us like we know what's going on.

Mushroom risotto? What a shocker.

When my husband and I go out for a nice meal, I can never shake my vague sense of guilt. I enjoy checking out the D.C. restaurant scene, partially because I learn a lot about it at my job and partially because, well, duh. But, although Mark loves a good plate of food (almost) as much as I do, he'd often be happier eating at the empty place with no wait list next door to the new place everyone's talking about.

And I think I've figured out why: The vegetarian entrees are uninspired, even from kitchens that otherwise turn out creative, well executed food. While I'm having an epiphany over unctuous duck confit, poor Mark is faced with yet another grim Melange of Seasonal Vegetables, one just like what he could get at the empty place next door. I feel terrible about subjecting him to places where I'll have all these amazing choices and he'll scan the menu, find the one veggie option (if there is one at all), and say, "Well, mushroom risotto it is, I guess." We skipped Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal because I just couldn't subject him to that scenario, even though he always swears up and down that he wouldn't mind (bless him).

In fact, it seems that the better the restaurant, the slimmer the meatless choices. (With exceptions, like certain types of ethnic restaurants and booked-in-advance tasting menus.) In casual-dining places where the philosophy is "give the people what they want," Mark generally gets to at least choose between the mushroom risotto and the Melange of Seasonal Vegetables. (Oh, goody!) But in places where the menu reflects the chef's culinary point of view -- places we'd both be excited to eat at -- that point of view comes across as "vegetarians, go home." Okay, maybe that's a little harsh. But the point is, they're showing you what they make best, what inspires them, what they like, and mostly that doesn't happen to include vegetarian entrees.

Here's the thing, though. Right now, the sustainable seafood movement is translating into a restaurant trend in D.C. -- look at Hook in Georgetown. And most respectable chefs these days make at least some effort to source ingredients as locally and sustainably as possible. So, given that going veggie at least part of the time reduces your carbon footprint, I don't understand why this isn't also manifesting itself in the form of more innovative vegetarian food in restaurants. (And I say this as a most-of-the-time carnivore, lest I sound preachy.)

I understand, I guess, that chefs view meat as the centerpiece of what they do -- that they can demonstrate their technical mastery by cooking it perfectly, and then demonstrate their creativity by having it be a vehicle for innovative flavor profiles. It's what lets them show off their chops (no pun intended). But come on, can someone please, please show me a vegetarian entree I wouldn't think to make at home? Do it for the vegetarian foodies, and for the omnivores who love them.

Is it better in other cities, maybe? Because it's bleak in D.C.

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."

have you ever grilled a salad?

When dining with Mr. Tart and his parents at Panzano last week, taking advantage of the Denver Restaurant Week promotion (two prix fixe meals for $52.80), we were a little doubtful of the appellation "grilled Caesar salad." I mean, come on, you don't grill lettuce. Maybe you grill other vegetables like carrots and mushrooms and put dressing on them, but then it's not really a "caesar salad," now is it? I figured that for this restaurant's version, the croutons were grilled instead of baked or fried.

But I was wrong!

The lettuce was grilled!

And it--and the whole salad--was amazing. The chef had taken the heart of a head of romaine lettuce, leaving the leaves attached to the stem, and cooked it over a wood fire so that some leaves were singed, some were smoky, but most stayed crunchy. The dressing was a little tart, a lot creamy, and just salty enough--it definitely didn't come out of a bottle--and then the single anchovy sunbathing on top tasted like rich, soft salt more than it tasted of fish. Shaved parmesan decorated the plate and the romaine balanced on a grilled sliced of garlicky peasant bread. It was without question the best caesar salad I've ever experienced! As soon as the snow melts off our deck, we're going to try to repicate it at home with our gas grill.

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).

bread pudding? bread soup?

Mr. Tart and I recently dined at Boulder's Mateo, where we had a lovely meal--including a ginormous lobster raviolo--yep, just one!--which ended perfectly with what they called a dried-cherry and caramel bread pudding. Served in a ramekin, the custard was nearly liquid and the bread chunks still chunky and almost crisp. I suspect that this bread pudding hadn't actually been baked, because the bread had not absorbed much custard, hadn't gone soft, hadn't expanded and enlarged, and no dried crusty bits clung to the side of the ramekin. It was like a thick sweet soup studded with dried cherries and topped with caramel syrup. And this dessert tasted so rich and lucious I didn't even mind being misled by the "bread pudding" misnomer.

So here's what I'm wondering: does it really have to be baked in the oven to be considered "bread pudding"? And does anyone have a non-baked bread pudding recipe to share before I try to invent my own?

D.C. Restaurant Week: Cafe Atlantico

As we’ve gotten to know our new city over the past few months, I must admit I’ve been disappointed with the state of D.C. dining. There’s a perception that D.C. is a second-tier food city, and sadly, I think my experience has supported that. I’ve had a few good meals here, but all too often they’re just sort of OK. On Thursday night, though, I had my first really great meal here. It’s Restaurant Week here in D.C., which means it’s time for dozens of the city’s best restaurants to offer a special prix-fixe three-course menu for $30. We chose to check out Cafe Atlantico, a Nuevo Latino place with a few creative twists. It’s owned by Jose Andres, the chef behind Jaleo (a tapas place we really like) and Minibar (haven’t been there yet, but they do “molecular gastronomy” type stuff like, oh, caramelized olive oil bonbons). Cafe Atlantico is sort of the middle ground between traditional fare and that more experimental stuff.

I started out with a mojito, and it was fantastic. I’d heard they were great here, and mine lived up to its reputation. Mojitos are easy to screw up, I think. They’re often too sweet, too tart, too boozy, too weak, too something. This one, though, was perfectly balanced. And they don’t skimp on the mint! (I would have happily ordered a second one later in the meal, but our server was nowhere to be seen until dessert. That was the one service blunder.)

My first course was conch fritters with jicama-avocado ravioli and mango oil. I loved this dish because everything on the plate had a counterpoint, texturally and in terms of flavor. There were these hot, savory fried morsels complemented by these cold, clean-tasting ravioli. There was a palate-cleanser quality about them. I do wish there’d been a little more of the mango oil; it brightened the whole thing up. But about those ravioli: they were wrapped up, dim sum steamed-dumpling style, in something that at first looked very much like a spring roll wrapper. I could taste jicama in there with the avocado, but there was something about it I couldn’t figure out. The crunch wasn’t there. I didn’t realize until the second dumpling that the jicama was the wrapper – sliced paper-thin! So that was kind of cool. Mark had a salad he really enjoyed; he said the vinaigrette was a lot subtler than most. Vinegar needn’t club you over the head.

My main course was duck confit and, once again, everything on the plate had something balancing it out. The duck was bruleed on top, which was brilliant. I don’t know if a crisp sugar crust on top of a layer of caramelized duck fat sounds good to you, but trust me, it was fabulous. I don’t generally like fatty meat, but duck confit just melts me into a little puddle of happy. I forget now what the sauce was, but it was something saltier to balance the sweetness, and there was a little frisee salad to offset the fat from the duck. There were some really thinly sliced plantain chips, too. Meanwhile, while I was in duck fat heaven, Mark was enjoying a portobello mushroom with corn, goat cheese, and beets. (His contribution to this review? "It was good.")

(I just said “duck fat,” or some variation, four times in one paragraph.)

Finally, dessert was a little chocolate cake with a molten center, bananas, caramel, and –this will sound weird but it totally worked – a little lime juice. It kept everything from being cloyingly sweet. See, again, it’s all about the counterpoints. Mark had a passionfruit sorbet: not too sweet, not too tart.

Here’s my one complaint, though: We ordered coffee with dessert, and the coffee was awful. It tasted like the dregs of a carafe that had been sitting on the hot plate for two hours. I’ve had better coffee at IHOP. Why do so many really good restaurants treat coffee like an afterthought? After so much attention to detail throughout the meal, it’s really jarring at the end to be served bad coffee. A great little cup of French-press coffee would have been a perfect conclusion, and it would have been so good with that dessert. So much energy is spent on food and wine pairings – why not coffee? It just seems dumb to ignore a diner’s last impression of the meal.

Coffee-colored water aside, it was a memorable meal, and a lovely way to celebrate my new job. (Yes, new job! Like how I snuck that in there at the end?)