Monday, February 15, 2010

Zaytinya, Washington DC

Waking up to a little Winter wonderland such as this invokes strong emotions within me. Strong emotions because I knew I had f**kloads of shoveling to do before I could leave the house. Well at least the snow had stopped and the three hours of shoveling worked up quite an appetite to justify another meal.

It wasn't our intention to hit another "tapas" style restaurant the very next day but technically Zaytinya does mezze style dishes which is pretty much er... Middle-Eastern tapas. The food here has strong Greek, Lebanese and Turkish influences which were evident in the flavor and selection of dishes.

Warm pita bread on a cold late morning, most welcomed.

Smooth humus with a generous pour of olive oil, this accompanied the bread very well.

Escargots on a bed of mashed potatoes served with a garlic butter sauce, a tad salty but these were still quite tasty snails.

Now this was very tasty, minced lamb kebab koobideh seared just enough to cook the exterior leaving almost a tartare like raw finish within. Delicious!

The homemade veal sausages were also very good with a surprisingly very snappy casing which pretty much just burst forth with full flavor on every bite.

Crisp pita bread filled with seasoned minced lamb, I could imagine this as a nice snack or sandwich to go, the bread remained nice and crisp despite the juicy mince.

Here's a risoni with grilled chicken and shaved parmesan, this felt a little heavy but that could probably be due to the fact that we were already pretty full before this last savory dish arrived.

Zaytinya's rendition of the Turkish delight. Walnut ice cream with Skotidakis Farm goat’s milk yogurt mousse, honey geleĆ©, orange-caramel sauce and caramelized pine nuts. I'm not a big fan of the typical Turkish delight confectionary (way too sweet for me) but this was a nice refreshing change.

And just to balance up the desserts, here's the Greek yogurt and apricots. Muscat soaked apricots, vanilla yogurt cream, apricot sorbet and pistachio powder. Not bad either.

The almost obligatory Turkish coffee ended the meal.

D

4 comments:

J said...

All this for 2 person! U guys are da man!

red fir said...

Xin Nian Kuai Le! Did you get some bak kwa to eat?

Cindy said...

Wow, this all looks really hearty and gorgeous! I just forked up (used a spoon actually) my own guacamole inspired by a Nigella episode. Have a raclette party st ttin. Good times!rt while. Happy Lunar to you too. Good times!

allureviola said...

I want some snow!~ :D

The dishes look truly awesome.

My favorite animal is steak. ~Fran Lebowitz