Month: December 2008

I suppose it’s a bit bourgeois to go to really expensive restaurants while the economy is crashing down around us. But Angeline’s birthday arrived last week, and it has been hard to resist the siren song of Komi from all the positive things we’ve heard. So off we went to Johnny Monis’ fancy greek restaurant last Friday night.

As we tend to do in the high end places, we went with the degustazione, the tasting menu. Angeline ordered a crisp glass of white wine, and I signed up for the three glass pairing. (Not being a wine connoisseur, I couldn’t really say whether the pairing was good or bad. The sommelier didn’t spend a lot of time explaining the choices, and there was nothing revelatory about the choices from my point of view. At any rate, that hardly put a damper on the meal.) The tasting menu begins with an almost unending parade of small plates, they call mezzethakia (actually if you google “mezzethakia,” you’ll get much better reviews of Komi right off the bat). Initial courses were primarily seafood: sashimi ahi in olive oil with salt and chives, sea urchin and oyster in a fruity gel, a salad with baby octopus tentacles, a really nice ceviche with sweet pine nuts (I forget the fish, salmon perhaps?), and scallop carpaccio with truffle mayonnaise. A steak tartare with white truffle ice cream soon followed. And finally, on a plate with tiny foie gras sandwiches, handmade animal crackers, and goat cheese smores, was a date stuffed with mascarpone cheese, sprinkled with fluer de sel. It may not sound like much, but this last, one of the most talked-about items from his restaurant, was excellent and well worth the hype.

For pasta, I had a tagliatelle, I think, while Ange had pumpkin ravioli that were amazing. Then they brought the “salad” course: a one inch crouton, deep fried with a caesar salad puree inside. Very imaginative, and it did taste just like a tiny caesar salad.

The small portions gave way for a massive katsikaki (slow roasted goat shoulder). This was very good: coated in artisanal salt, the outside was crisp and flavorful, a bit like roasted chicken skin, while the inside was fork tender, like a less-fatty pork barbecue. It was served with an array of home-made condiments. Dessert included various chocolate presentations (a mousse and a small cake, if I recall correctly) and some tasty greek donuts. The bill came with home-made almond lollipops, presumably to distract from the number of digits in the total.

Bottom line: definitely top three restaurants I’ve been to, top one or two in DC. Well worth eating PB&J for a month to save up the cash.