IndeBleu, Washington, D.C.

Last Saturday week when Arkansas Robert and I were having our fabulous dining experience at Vidalia, we determined to take advantage of the few restaurants that were extending Restaurant Week another week, and planned to lunch at a couple of the better places. Well, as it turned out, Robert had an unexpectedly busy work week and couldn't get away until Friday. We were excited, though, to be able to get reservations at the much-talked-about IndeBleu, a French and Indian fusion restaurant over by the MCI Center.

Robert's taxi was caught up in a bit of traffic, so he, houseguest Tony, and I walked in about two minutes past our reservation time. There were two hostesses at the maitre d' stand who greeted us and said they were getting our table ready. It took them about five minutes or so to finish up, so that gave us a chance to look around downstairs. The restaurant is in one of those deep, narrow spaces. To the left of the entry is a large staircase with a coat check underneath. A long bar is behind the maitre d' stand, but that bar was not in use. We noticed off to the side in back was another room furnished in sofas and other lounge type furniture, but that, too, was empty. During our wait, I also noticed something a little disconcerting, and that was that when I was near the door and windows, I got a whiff of something which I can only describe as "eau de street person;" I smelled it again upstairs after lunch when I was passing a cedar bush in a large urn, so I don't know if this was a natural "cedar" smell or something else.

When our table was finally prepared, we were escorted up a grand staircase to the dining room on the second floor. I saw no evidence of an elevator, so if a diner is handicapped, I do not know how they would be accommodated. On what I'll call a mezzanine level, they had a small dining space with a large table set for eight. Farther upstairs, to the right was a wine bar (also unoccupied) and to the left was the main dining room. Decor is starkly modern with lots of etched glass and wood, and walls are painted in deep spice colors.

The Restaurant Week menus were a little limited, featuring just one dessert, a first course choice of soup or salad, and for the main course there were only a fish, a chicken, and a vegetarian (plantains) option. The regular menu was also available, and the prices there looked pretty standard (I always hesitate to use the term "reasonable" for D.C. restaurant prices) for local downtown establishments. While we ordered, we were given individual pieces of small, salted, hot naan, a traditional Indian flat bread, which were quite good.

The soup offering was a leek and potato velouté with curry leaf pesto, which looked to be essentially a cream-free vichyssoise. In the center of the soup, a dollop of what looked to be crème fraîche formed a design that made the soup look like a reverse-color fried egg. The curry pesto in olive oil was drizzled around the sides of the "yolk."



Since the others chose the soup, I opted to start my meal with the salad of shaved vegetables and greens with orange lemon grass dressing and spiced cashew nuts, which turned out to be a lovely starter. They had carved some of the vegetables and then sliced them thinly on a mandoline; the cashews had an interesting hot barbeque flavor. The dressing had been squirted onto the rim of the plate in a circle around the greens, and then dotted with balsalmic vinegar.



For the main course, Tony chose the grilled salmon. It was simply prepared and looked to have been dredged in a spice mix before grilling. They served it on top of a scoop of some kind of chutney (I tasted it, but couldn't identify all the flavors beyond apple and onion) with a flavored oil on the plate, and a handful of alfalfa sprouts on top.



Robert and I had the white cassoulet of chicken confit, boudin blanc, and navy beans. I found the dish to be both wonderfully tasty and yet disappointing at the same time. The "problem," if you will, was the piece of food in the beans which I think was meant to be the boudin blanc. Now, boudin blanc is a type of white sausage usually made in big links. We had a little miniature sausage that was dry and crumbly. It had some good flavor to it, but the texture was very off-putting, and I had the impression that it was dried out. The chicken confit, on the other hand, was exquisite, and I really wish there had been more than just one tiny drumstick. The white beans, also, had a particularly nice texture, seasoning, and buttery flavor.



I'm not sure what our tiny desserts were called. They started with a little miniature muffin of what they called a "French tea cake" and sat it on a squirt of raspberry coulis, then added a scoop of a delicious lychee nut fruit ice cream, garnishing it with a long, thin strip of a sweet sugar cookie. The muffin I could have done without, but I would have loved to have sat down with a big bowl of that ice cream.



So, what was our opinion? Well, interestingly enough, we all liked the place and said we'd come back, even though the serving sizes were tiny and we all found various faults with our food. I suppose I will need to try another meal (selecting my own menu) before I can pass judgment on whether or not the fusion concept works here. Service was attentive and we had a particularly charming waiter from Norwich, England.