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At its
best, the cuisine is transporting; at worst it's okay. So
you can order smoked salmon strata-chef-cured fish layered
with herbed goat cheese and napped with cucumber foam-and
know that it'll melt in your mouth. Or lobster bisque with
scallop cappuccino, a foamy seafood essence, and realize
you're in practiced hands. Crispy duck confit eats like
fried chicken, and accompanying frisee with goat cheese
and sour-cherry vinaigrette adds texture and flavor high
notes. Tuna tartare is gorgeous, an Everest-like mound glistening
with soy-saki glaze, surrounded by razor-thin beet rounds.
In fact, it may be too much of a good thing and is best
shared. Compared to such exploits, a grilled-portobello
tea sandwich with green apple and Taleggio cheese seems
boring.
Move
on to main courses and more wonders await. Every plate is
a stunner. Lusty veal meatballs laced with green olives
and almonds, doused with lavender veal jus, and heaped over
house-made pappardelle may become eCITIE's signature
dish. A less-adept chef might make a mess of soft-shell
crabs dusted with coconut and ringed with blips of sweet-sour
orange-and-mango coulis. Here it crackles, a crust lover's
nirvana. Sunday Chicken is tender to the bone, salty from
its lemon-fennel brine, and sublime over a bed of chard
and lemon confit. Another his is tandoori quail, bathed
in buttermilk, masala, and ginger, stuffed with peaches,
and mated with curried cauliflower and savory basmati rice.
It is rare to find rice and cauliflower vying with quail
for star billing on a plate. One caveat: If you like your
birds well done, say so; the fashion is to serve them pink.
The
only trouble with Tunisian-spiced lobster strudel is there
isn't enough of it; $21 seems high for a morsel passing
itself off as an entree. And if the Havana pork chop tastes
like scores of others around, crunchy plantain tostadas
and a velvety corn tamale make up for it. A la carte sides
include that memorable rice and those killer tamales along
with shoestring Brittany fries and brittle sweet-potato
chips; all are worth trying.
Sweets at eCITIE go beyond the cliches. A riff on
the childhood treat is a chocolate cigar shell piped with
dark dense chocolate mousse and punctuated with Ciao Bella
amaretto gelato. The cylinder of mango and strawberry cheesecakes
is worth a go for the creamy berry version alone. And vanilla
creme brulee is smooth bliss. The unlikely sleeper is upside-towntown
cake with fresh-pineapple confit and creme fraiche. A few
bites and you won't mind paying for parking.
Cynthia
Hacinli
Washintonian
Magazine
September 2000 Issue
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