Zengo, Washington, D.C.

Zengo just opened this year right by the Chinatown Metro stop after multiple delays and bills itself as "Asian-Latin fusion," a project of the Mexico City-born Chef Richard Sandoval. Sandoval initially made his fame in New York with Maya and the "modern Mexican" concept that he later took to San Francisco, and then with Pampano, a Mexican seafood restaurant in New York he co-owns with opera star Placido Domingo. After opening a casual Mexican establishment in Denver, he created the Zengo concept and opened the first Zengo in Denver. Domingo is also an investor in the D.C. Zengo.

Last Thursday, Leo and I decided to stop by and try out the new D.C. location. The entire ground floor of the restaurant is a high-design, trendy cocktail lounge and it was crowded with the denizens of the young professional set. A modern grand staircase leads to the dining room upstairs (incidentally, I did not see an elevator anywhere). Even though we began to go upstairs, the downstairs hostess acted as a not-terribly welcoming gatekeeper (strike one for public relations), and called on a telephone to the hostess upstairs before allowing us to pass. Once upstairs, the hostess there sent us with an assistant to our table. The designated table was a small two-top along the banquette wall of the dining room, ordinarily not a problem, but it was in between two occupied tables and the chair side was right on top of a large structural pillar, so it seemed too crowded for us. Seeing a lot of empty four-top tables in the middle of the dining room and one over by the window, we asked for table by the window or one in the middle. The seater refused, though, and said they were for larger parties. Well, not fifteen minutes later, she seated a party of two at the four-top by the window. Strike two for public relations.

The dining room is large and sleekly modern, clearly the product of a trendy designer. On the major side wall is a huge art installation featuring a room-long painted rectangle. On the rectangle a series of plastic "rocks" on pegs are stuck into the wall in an organic design, with a few rocks scattered on the wall outside of the rectangle towards one end. Another wall has a series of standard windows looking out over the busy Chinatown streets. A third wall has a series of tables in curved booth areas, and then a large, long, glass-walled private dining room. The fourth wall heads off to the kitchen and restrooms.

Speaking of restrooms, they are quite interesting in this establishment. There are no doors. Facilities are down a long hallway, with the women's room first and the men's room farther down; a busy service area for the waiters and a much used doorway into the kitchen lines the side of the hallway opposite the restroom entries. Inside the facility, everything is in its own small room or pod (the toilet pods did have doors, thankfully, but the individual urinal pods did not). Both floors and walls are stone and fixtures are very modern; it did take me some time and experimentation to figure out how to wash my hands. On the way back to the dining room, as I passed the open, extra wide entrance to the women's room, I had a lovely view of several ladies primping in front of mirrors.

The menu is an interesting mix of Mexican dishes with a Japanese flair and Japanese dishes with a Mexican flair, probably leaning more towards Japanese with the appetitzers and Mexican with the main courses. Some things sounded interesting; other things sounded a bit on the yucky side. Nevertheless, there were several things we wanted to try.

For starters, Leo chose the gyoza dumplings and I picked won ton tacos. The menus talk about encouraging people to share their dishes, and they seem to enforce this "suggestion" by bringing dishes out one at a time, instead of together, not only with our table, but with other nearby tables we observed. The first dish to come out was the won ton tacos. It was an interestingly creative dish made by taking won ton wrappers to fashion small taco shells and frying them until crispy. They were filled with vinegared sushi rice, pickled ginger, and diced bits of barely-seared ahi tuna, then drizzled with a little bit of mango salsa and then each of the four tacos was placed in a little individual pool of guacamole on the long rectangular plate. They were quite unusual and I enjoyed the unexpected taste combinations. After a rather long pause during which we finished our rather small cocktails (a mango mojito ($10) for Leo which he didn't like cause it was too sweet and a regular margarita ($9) which I thought was rather ordinary for me), the dumplings finally arrived. These were the typical "potsticker" steamed dumplings, only with the unusual filling of pork, shrimp, and foie gras, a little ginger, and a sweet passionfruit-mustard sauce. I ate one and it was okay, but it didn't wow me.

When the main courses came, they did not come simultaneously, but there was only a short space between. Leo had a grilled salmon on shitake mushrooms and cabbage in a sweet mango sauce; he complained that the shitakes seemed to have sand in them. I had Chinese-style braised beef short ribs (I'm not sure what made them "Chinese") which was served on top of a mound of mashed potatoes that had white Mexican Oaxaca cheese melted on top; the entire presentation was decorated with a huge handful of frizzled green onion tops and crispy cross slices. The beef itself was very tasty and flavorful, but the sauce poured all over everything was way too sweet.


Salmon


Beef Shortribs

While we saw some pretty desserts at nearby tables, we opted to skip the sweets.

There was an uncomfortably long delay waiting for the waitress to receive dessert menus, to hear our dessert decision, then to receive our check. Considering the fact that our waitress personally removed our empty main course plates from the table, there was no excuse for the very long delay getting dessert menus. Fortunately, Leo paid cash, so we didn't have to wait around even longer for a credit card transaction.

Now, our waitress was a very pleasant, friendly young woman, but we just didn't seem to get the attention from her one would ordinarily expect for a restaurant in this rather expensive price range (our total check with an average tip was $110, and all each of us got was a cocktail, a mid-priced appetizer, and a mid-priced entree). It appeared that she had too many tables and was overworked, but I refuse to make excuses for a brand new restaurant that charges as much as Zengo does. Many of the waitresses, all of whom (men, too) were wearing black trousers and black t-shirts, were wearing little black purses on long thin straps over their shoulders to carry their ticket folders and what have you, but as the waitresses were maneuvering between the tightly packed tables they frequently bumped patrons (including me) with their purses. When considering the big picture of the waitress's performance, the fact that food expediters from the kitchen didn't know who ordered what (the won ton tacos were even inititally offered to the adjacent table), the less than warm welcome from the downstairs hostess, and the snippy attitude of the staff member who seated us, I have to say that the greatest failing of Zengo is service.

I'm not quite sure what to think of the food, either. Everything we ate Thursday night was sweet. The cocktails were sweet. The appetizers were sweet. The main courses were sweet. I think that's probably the main reason we didn't order a dessert. My understanding of the art of Asian cooking, especially Japanese cuisine, is that all five of the tastes—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and earth—should be represented in a meal, and all we got was sweet.

Judging from the trendy crowds, it appears the general public isn't quite as particular about their dining dollars as are we. Whether the healthy bar crowds translate into dining room success is yet to be determined. While I won't veto a second trip for me (especially if someone else is paying), I won't likely suggest it the place and I doubt that Leo or I ever recommend Zengo as a restaurant option for our friends.

The Cheesecake Factory, Arlington, VA

Five of us ended up planning an impromptu dinner Wednesday evening. We drove into the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, where we ate at The Cheesecake Factory.

The Cheesecake Factory is part of a national chain with over a hundred restaurants around the country, mostly concentrated in major metropolitan areas in California and along the east coast. They are pretty up-scale for a franchise, concentrating on updated versions of American cuisine with a few popular international touches in large, spacious restaurants. The Clarendon store was no exception. We were seated in a big six-person booth in about the center of the restaurant.

One of the trademarks of the Cheesecake Factory, and actually one of my major complaints about them, is that all of their offerings are huge. Americans are already predisposed to try to clean their plates, and they don't need anymore encouragement to eat oversized portions and increase their obesity. While many people would say to either eat half and waste the rest (an idea which makes me cringe) or to get a doggy bag and take the leftovers home for lunch the next day, the doggy bag option is just not practical for people out on a business meal. The solution is that the restaurant needs to downsize their portions.

One of the guys at the table was eating light, so he ordered an herb-crusted salmon salad; the mountain of lettuce and salmon he received in a huge, oversized bowl would easily have made two entree salads at another restaurant. A couple of guys ordered quesadillas as appetizers, but what arrived was a huge serving of too-thick cheese quesadillas with what had to be well over a pound of cheese!

Our friendly waitress took our drink orders and was kind enough to mention when I ordered iced tea that it was adulterated, flavored with mango and other fruits (they call it "paradise tropical"), a nasty combination I find particularly noxious and disgusting, especially when restaurants serving it don't have an unflavored alternative. We eventually worked it out for her to use some cold, about to be discarded, coffee to make me some iced coffee, and that was quite satisfactory.

Knowing of the large portions, I avoided first courses and just ordered the pecan crusted catfish. As expected, my serving was enough for two, but it was good and I ate it all anyway (considering I'm trying to diet, see why I don't like this place?). I had two large catfish filets probably the equivalent of an entire large fish which had been rolled in ground pecans and very skillfully sauteed (not deep fried!) just to doneness. The fish rested against not one but two enormous mounds of nicely flavorful mashed potatoes. On the end of the plate was a big serving of a white corn succotash kind of vegetable that was crunchy and exploding with a melange of flavors.

No one had room for dessert.

Breadline, Washington, D.C.

Things started off yesterday with an unexpected last minute invitation to lunch at Breadline, a popular downtown lunch spot on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House, and because of the usual throngs of lunchers, the invitation was pointedly for 11:30, or we'd not be able to get a table. It was well-timed—we were able to walk directly to the counter to order our food, then pretty much had our pick of decent tables in the long, deep dining room off to the side, and not fifteen minutes later, the cafe was packed and there were lines of people going out the door to order and end up having to do take-away.

As you may have guessed by now, Breadline is another of those blended self-service bakeries/sandwich shops/coffee shops, and, in keeping with the tradition of the best of them, they have absolutely excellent sourdough breads and rolls, and in this case, it's not a national franchise, it's a local bakery. Their breads are so renowned that they are purveyors to some of D.C.'s finest restaurants, including Michel Richard's Citronelle in Georgetown. The local ownership gives them the opportunity to do a lot of intriguing daily specials in addition to the usual fare, and interesting indeed they were. Wednesday's special was "dalliah chicken," a spicy, spicy West African dish that includes a well, but thoroughly seasoned chicken breast redolent with hot pepper spice and stewed tender with caramelized onions, fried plantain strips, and peanuts.

The other guys at the table also had sandwiches, but the order-your-own situation didn't permit me to hear details of their orders. The only thing I didn't like about Breadline is that the iced tea comes in lidded plastic cups with no urn for self-serve refills (and being a Southern boy, I love my iced tea!), but that's a small complaint given the value, the taste, and the wonderful bread.