Arriving last Saturday night, the Mandarin Oriental’s circular driveway entrance is jammed with Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, Lexuses and Cadillacs of guests arriving for a black-tie event, so I park a couple of blocks away. Inside the elegant lobby, a jazz quartet is playing in the Empress Lounge, and I find myself confronted with two choices.
To the right is Caf頍oZU, which serves breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner daily and has a spectacular view of the Tidal Basin and cherry blossoms. Chef George Fassiadis offers a superb Asian-inspired menu that is almost the equal of CityZen. I’ve eaten there three times and would give it four and a half domes.
But I’m here to judge CityZen, which bills itself as Washington’s “most triumphant new restaurant,” with a boyish, Iowa-born chef who earned his toque at the side of Thomas Keller at the legendary French Laundry in Yountville, Calif.
I have a bad cold, left over from 10 days in Iraq, and really shouldn’t be doing this, but duty calls, so I turn left into CityZen and enter a dramatic room with a 20-foot high ceiling and 30-foot wall of flames behind the main bar. The only view here is of Ziebold and his team in the open kitchen. I don’t have a reservation, and am told the restaurant is booked solid for the evening. But it’s early, and the hostess finds a table for me.
Oddly, she presents me with “some reading material,” the latest issue of Wine Spectator with its list of “100 perfect wines.” But I have my own reading material.
I order a glass of the least expensive Bordeaux I can find on Sommelier Christopher Hile’s 800-bottle list, an ordinary Chateau Pavie du Luze at $9. Many of the wines are well into three figures — the least expensive glass of California wine is a 2001 Stuhlmuller cabernet for $14, which I order later.
I pass up the $90 tasting menu of saut饤 Florida Everglades frog legs, pan-seared south Florida cobia, Elysian Fields Farm lamb, cheese trolley and dessert ($70 extra with matching wines), and order from the ᠬa carte menu, which offers a three-course meal for $75.
I choose an appetizer of corned- beef tongue with Parma ham, mushrooms and truffle sauce; an entr饠of pave of Atlantic salmon with fava beans, tiny potatoes and pearl onions; and, for dessert, mango and passion-fruit ravioli with sweetened milk froth and banana beignets.
I read Boston Globe reporter Anne Bernard’s gripping account of the assault on Fallujah last Novmeber as she rode with soldiers in a Bradley armored vehicle: “Wedged in the back, their bodies aching, the five infantrymen could hear their gunner’s bursts of cannon fire and the crack of roadside bombs going off a block away as the armored platoon went after pockets of insurgents.”
My waiter informs me that “the chef would like to welcome you with this mushroom fritter and pur饬” quickly followed by two more ethereal palate teasers: tablespoon-size portions of warm shad roe porridge and cobia serviche with mango cubes.
Meanwhile, in Fallujah, the unit Bernard was with “had killed about a dozen Iraqis,” and at one point, with no other way to maneuver, the driver of her Bradley vehicle “had to run over a dead body.”
Another waiter arrives with two kinds of butter — from Vermont and Virginia — and three kinds of bread — sourdough, rye and cheese. I can almost hear my cardiologist crying, “Don’t!” as I slather the sourdough and rye and devour my corned beef appetizer, which bears little resemblance to that at Loeb’s Deli.
My entr饠arrives, just as Bernard’s soldiers dash into a house while tank crews fire “heavy machines at the Al-Janabi Hospital, and 120-mm tank rounds slammed into an adjacent house, the blasts shaking the windows of the house under the soldier’s feet.”
The salmon is perfectly cooked, crisp skin on the outside and pink flesh inside. But the most impressive thing is a black wooden box that contains 10 bite-size Parker House rolls. A truly creative touch, followed by a palate-cleansing dollop of orange sorbet in buttermilk froth.
Then comes a mango and passion-fruit ravioli that is simply exquisite. Coffee arrives with three crystal jars of refined, granulated and raw sugar, and the meal is topped off with a plate of sweets — tiny truffles, black cherry jelly squares, coconut tuile and passionfruit puffs.
There are no false notes at this restaurant, I think as I finish the article on Fallujah:
“As the sun set behind the smoke from the American bombardment, the team was keeping an eye on an insurgent sniper down an alley from the house. Shots were being fired at a Marine vehicle trying to clear cement barriers from the road, and the platoon’s tanks headed out to a new fight.”
I pay my bill, $135.30 with a generous tip for the flawless service, and walk out into a lovely springtime evening. The elegant meal I have just enjoyed reminds me of how lucky we are to live here. My cold is better. I’m glad I’m not in Fallujah.
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