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jmc_bksDC’s Restaurant Week:
Went to Zaytinya. Check out the menu here.
Borrowing a page from Baltimore Snacker, here's my opinion:
Cocktail: Orange blossom and peach cocktail. Made with orange vodka, peach juice, and orange blossom water. The first hit on tongue was sweet but it had a very peppery aftertaste. Yum. Next time I’m trying a Pom Fizz.
1: Bantijan Bil Liban: crispy eggplant with garlic yogurt. Thinly sliced and crispy fried, the eggplant was tender without being fried to mush. The batter was not too heavy, although it was a bit salty. The garlic yogurt was good but there was too much of it: a base in the bottom of the rectangular plate upon which the eggplant was arranged, then another dollop on top of each slice. Once I removed most of the yogurt, the flavor of the eggplant and its coating were much clearer.
2: Havuc Koftesi: carrot-apricot fritters with pine nuts and a pistachio sauce. [There’s a cedilla under the “c” and an umlaut over the “o”.] Shape/size-wise, these looked more like meatballs with a circumference slightly larger than a quarter. Nothing wrong with that, just not “fritter-like” in my imagination. The taste? Lovely. The carrot-apricot mix was only faintly sweet; the pine nut and carrot were the dominant flavors, along with dill (I think). The pistachio sauce was quite lovely. In fact, I’d’ve liked a bit more of this sauce.
3: Fried Squid with garlic yogurt sauce. Batter for the squid was slightly sweeter and less salty than I’ve had with squid before. Very tasty. Texture-wise, they were perfectly done – not rubbery at all. The garlic yogurt sauce was *much* more garlicky than that included with the eggplant; the garlic seemed more intense and there were larger bits of it in the sauce. Very good.
4: Mahanek: homemade lamb and veal sausages in a sauce with pine nuts and garlic. These were small sausages, rather like Vienna sausages, but size was the only similarity to Vienna wieners. Fabulous. I couldn’t figure out what spices accompanied the ground meat in the sausage, but they were terrific: spicy, with a hint of heat. And the sauce was lovely. My only knock for this mezze? That almost all of the delicious gravy was left in the bottom of the chafing dish – there was no spoon provided to scoop it out and the consistency was too thin to be able to capture with a fork. (It seemed a bit rude to pick up the dish and pour the sauce onto my plate, so I refrained from doing so.)
5: Turkish Delight. Walnut ice cream with a yogurt sauce, honey gelee and caramelized pine nuts. A crispy wafer with a crepe-like taste was arranged artistically. The ice cream was good, as was the gelee. Not a big fan of the pine nuts in this case – chopping and caramelizing robbed them of much of their flavor and made their texture a bit too tough.
None of the portions were particularly large, since they were tapas. The largest was the fried squid. I ended up eating only half of it because I was getting quite full.
Location: easily reached via Metro, on the corner of 9th and G Streets. The decor is very modern; it doesn't really (IMO) either lend to the atmosphere of the restaurant or detract from it.
Service: not bad, especially given how busy the restaurant was, but a little disjointed. The second and third were delivered together, which resulted in a bit of a juggle for table space, along with the rapid cooling of the squid (not good, since it tends to rubberize as it cools). Then the fourth was delivered before any of those plates were finished. Coffee/tea and dessert were a bit of a wait, as was the check.
Favorites: the lamb/veal sausage and the carrot fritters.
My mistake: ordering tea after dinner. I know better. Hot tea at most restaurants is almost always an overpriced disappointment. It was here, too. Not that it was bad, it was just nothing special and certainly not worth the price.
Would I go back? Absolutely.
Went to Zaytinya. Check out the menu here.
Borrowing a page from Baltimore Snacker, here's my opinion:
Cocktail: Orange blossom and peach cocktail. Made with orange vodka, peach juice, and orange blossom water. The first hit on tongue was sweet but it had a very peppery aftertaste. Yum. Next time I’m trying a Pom Fizz.
1: Bantijan Bil Liban: crispy eggplant with garlic yogurt. Thinly sliced and crispy fried, the eggplant was tender without being fried to mush. The batter was not too heavy, although it was a bit salty. The garlic yogurt was good but there was too much of it: a base in the bottom of the rectangular plate upon which the eggplant was arranged, then another dollop on top of each slice. Once I removed most of the yogurt, the flavor of the eggplant and its coating were much clearer.
2: Havuc Koftesi: carrot-apricot fritters with pine nuts and a pistachio sauce. [There’s a cedilla under the “c” and an umlaut over the “o”.] Shape/size-wise, these looked more like meatballs with a circumference slightly larger than a quarter. Nothing wrong with that, just not “fritter-like” in my imagination. The taste? Lovely. The carrot-apricot mix was only faintly sweet; the pine nut and carrot were the dominant flavors, along with dill (I think). The pistachio sauce was quite lovely. In fact, I’d’ve liked a bit more of this sauce.
3: Fried Squid with garlic yogurt sauce. Batter for the squid was slightly sweeter and less salty than I’ve had with squid before. Very tasty. Texture-wise, they were perfectly done – not rubbery at all. The garlic yogurt sauce was *much* more garlicky than that included with the eggplant; the garlic seemed more intense and there were larger bits of it in the sauce. Very good.
4: Mahanek: homemade lamb and veal sausages in a sauce with pine nuts and garlic. These were small sausages, rather like Vienna sausages, but size was the only similarity to Vienna wieners. Fabulous. I couldn’t figure out what spices accompanied the ground meat in the sausage, but they were terrific: spicy, with a hint of heat. And the sauce was lovely. My only knock for this mezze? That almost all of the delicious gravy was left in the bottom of the chafing dish – there was no spoon provided to scoop it out and the consistency was too thin to be able to capture with a fork. (It seemed a bit rude to pick up the dish and pour the sauce onto my plate, so I refrained from doing so.)
5: Turkish Delight. Walnut ice cream with a yogurt sauce, honey gelee and caramelized pine nuts. A crispy wafer with a crepe-like taste was arranged artistically. The ice cream was good, as was the gelee. Not a big fan of the pine nuts in this case – chopping and caramelizing robbed them of much of their flavor and made their texture a bit too tough.
None of the portions were particularly large, since they were tapas. The largest was the fried squid. I ended up eating only half of it because I was getting quite full.
Location: easily reached via Metro, on the corner of 9th and G Streets. The decor is very modern; it doesn't really (IMO) either lend to the atmosphere of the restaurant or detract from it.
Service: not bad, especially given how busy the restaurant was, but a little disjointed. The second and third were delivered together, which resulted in a bit of a juggle for table space, along with the rapid cooling of the squid (not good, since it tends to rubberize as it cools). Then the fourth was delivered before any of those plates were finished. Coffee/tea and dessert were a bit of a wait, as was the check.
Favorites: the lamb/veal sausage and the carrot fritters.
My mistake: ordering tea after dinner. I know better. Hot tea at most restaurants is almost always an overpriced disappointment. It was here, too. Not that it was bad, it was just nothing special and certainly not worth the price.
Would I go back? Absolutely.
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Date: 2008-01-22 10:35 pm (UTC)Exactly! Every person I know on the owner/investor side of the restaurant business (admittedly not that many) says it's all about turning tables. The faster you turn around guests, the higher your profit margin. As much as I like to chat after dinner, it seems rude to do so when dining out, especially if there are other customers waiting to be seated.