November 29, 2007

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Farrah Olivia, Chef Morou's Restaurant

On our two-year anniversary, Jeanette and I went to Farrah Olivia, the restaurant of Chef Morou Outtara. You may know him from such shows as The Next Iron Chef, or NPR Food. The style of his restaurant is New American with West African influence, and it's mostly some damn delicious food.

While Morou's food isn't at the pinnacle of sophistication (Le Bernardin?), nor does it have the layers and layers of subtlety of such a restaurant, it is nevertheless elegant and complex. His dishes are not designed, like those of many top restaurants, to "challenge" his diners. And that's Morou's greatest strength: he isn't above a crowd-pleaser. Indeed, go to the menus on the website linked to above and read the entrees. One doesn't read them and wonder how such a dish could possibly be good (like one might at WD-50 or The Fat Duck). Nearly every one of them instantly looks like it will be a fucking flavor party so delicious that you'll be licking your plate afterward. And mostly, they deliver.

First of all, we got a great recommendation on a Meritage from our waiter. That was one of the high points of service, as he had basically no clue about any of the (admittedly, fairly high-level) questions I asked about the food prep, and he was also quite glib the entire time. But the wine was absolutely amazing. I also loved the wine list. For each varietal (and a list of blends) it had wines at every price level--literally a bottle at $30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90... Spending a bit more doesn't mean you'll enjoy the wine more, but it does help you center in on what you can afford. Anyway, I really, really loved this wine.

Warm bread was served with four different spreads, instead of the usual butter. There was honeyed butter (awesome), bok choy pesto (meh), sundried tomato spread (Jeanette's favorite), and horseradish and cottage cheese (weird, and I don't like either of those ingredients, normally, but it was actually not bad).

We got an amuse bouche of truffled, cured ham with corn flan and some kind of mushroom sauce. This was a good indicator of what was to come, with deconstructed dishes, every component of which could be enjoyed on its own, and which usually came together pretty well, too.

Appetizers were delicious. Cinnamon roasted quail with (cured?) mission figs ingeniously wrapped around quail legs for finger-food appeal, a fuyu and persimmon "yolk" (probably a soidum alginate-based spherification of a puree) that was delicious, spiced port reduction, and a small salad of apple, feta, and something. The quail was served boneless, and was not as tender as I imagined it to be, but everything was spot-on flavorwise. And again, what a crowd-pleaser.

Butter-poached lobster with tapioca and roasted banana cream was good, but there was way too much bland tapioca. Luckily, eating around it was easy, and everything else was delicious. You know how when you eat bananas, there's that certain odd tartness in your mouth that you don't really get from many other things (passionfruit has a similar, but different thing going on)? Well, that goes really well with butter (Bananas Foster, anyone?) and they both go really well with lobster.

Deconstructed caesar salad was very good, with parmesan flan, crushed croutons, and fresh sardines (salty, but not pickled like the icky, canned ones). There wasn't even close to enough lettuce to eat with the quantity of the other ingredients, and the only reason I can think of for this dearth was that the Chef liked the pretty presentation when it was only four small leaves of romaine. Nevertheless, this was an appetizer salad, not an entree salad, and by the end, we were by no means hurting for quantity. What was here was really tasty, but other than being deconstructed, and using great ingredients, it didn't offer much of a spin on the usual caesar salad. Parmesan flan was good, but not enough of a twist.

The entrees were both excellent, with few flaws. Slow-roasted lamb with palm fruit BBQ sauce couldn't possibly not be good. It was served with palm oil powder (I guessed powderized with maltodextrin, which the Chef later confirmed), a very faithful version of Southern collard greens (all the way down to the lack of seasoning), a fried dauphine-type thing, and, in a twist on the typical mint jelly with lamb combo, there was clear mint "caviar" on the plate. The mint caviar was another example of what must have been a minty sodium alginate solution dripped into a calcium chloride bath to form spheres with a gel skin. Problem is, these were either left too long in the calcium bath, or were made too long before the dish was served, because these were gelled all the way through and didn't "pop" in your mouth like I assume was intended. Nevertheless, everything was perfect except the texture of the mint caviar, and it all went together very well. The palm powder was an excellent counterpoint to the barbecue sauce, and the lamb would have been great even without any adornment.

The other entree was spice-rubbed venison loin (yes, we got a lot of game to go with our lovely Meritage) with a port-reduction, wild mushrooms and baby onions, and sweet-potato fritters. Venison was cooked perfectly rare (at our request) and everything else was exquisite. A perfect (and very satisfying) dish.

For dessert, I opted for the lemon cheesecake with candied citrus segments (lemon and maybe sour orange) and thyme syrup. The thyme syrup was good but superfluous, but Jesus Christ the cheesecake and candied lemon went together well. When tasted on its own the cheesecake was great, the candied lemon a bit too tart, but when alternating bites between the two, they worked together so well! This was really inspiring. Every bite had a delicious palate cleanser followed by a blast of creamy richness. Eaten this way, it was like every bite of the cheesecake was tasting it for the first time. So good.

The other was an apple strudel with coriander caramel, sour cream ice cream (delicious), and cherry-apricot compote. The apple strudel itself was good, but nothing special. Every one of the supporting players, however, was excellent. I've seen sour cream ice cream (or buttermilk ice cream, or scalded milk ice cream) on menus all over the place, but it was so good. I actually think this dish would have been better without the apple strudel. It didn't detract, but didn't add anything either, except for taking up a lot of plate space.

Finally, we were given little mignardises that were nothing memorable.

After our meal, I asked whether I could have a quick kitchen tour, and though the waiter said they normally don't do it, he asked and got permission. So we were escorted to the kitchen where we were immediately introduced to Morou himself (as if that was the only reason we wanted the kitchen tour--because we'd seen him on TV--I guess they get that a lot now, but I swear I really just wanted to watch the kitchen work for a minute). Morou was very gracious, talkative, and jovial. I discussed the palm powder with him for a minute or two, and he offered to give me some of his maltodextrin (I had some at home already--yeah, I'm ridiculous). Jeanette talked Next Iron Chef with him. Jeanette and I also loved John Besh, and it turns out Morou did, too. He clearly thought Besh should have won. As I said, Morou seemed like a great guy, and he'd be a lot of fun to work with.

Overall, there were some flaws, but the guy can put together a meal that satisfies like no other. Like I said, he isn't above pleasing the crowd, but he does it in his own way. You want the mint jelly? Fine, here are little chemical-reaction-created spheres of mint jelly. You want a Caesar salad? Fine, here's a deconstructed Caesar. As long as everything tastes as delicious as it did, diners are going to be willing to forgive all the tiny details that weren't quite there yet. But this is definitely one of the top five restaurants in the DC area.

Posted at November 29, 2007 2:24 AM | Comments (3)

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