Japone Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

Having whetted his appetite at Krispy Kreme, Leo decided that we should find a place to eat dinner as we walked home last night. Now, we've passed this place for years, but we'd never eaten at Japone. It's a little confusing at first, since it turns out that they have two restaurants in the same location, and one includes a separate bar inside it. Upstairs is Café Japone, featuring a karaoke bar and a limited menu of mainly sushi. Downstairs is Japone Restaurant, a "Japanese-French fusion" place, that includes the coral reef-themed Atlantis bar in the back, in addition to the restaurant's bar in the front.

We landed at Japone Restaurant, and were seated in their middle room, where white netting hangs over demi-lunar, high-backed, white banquettes amidst mirrored walls and accented with lots of votive candles.

Leo started with a vase of sake from their long sake menu, and I had a cup of some very strong, hot, green tea. He ordered an interesting variety of food for his meal, eschewing the concept of courses. Ordering from the sushi menu, he selected a small sashimi (slices of raw fish), two uni (sea urchin) sushi nigiri, and a spicy tuna roll. From the menu, he selected a foie gras custard with roast Japanese pork. He wasn't pleased with the custard, thinking it had been overcooked during the steaming process.




Sorry about the photos....Leo took them with his cell phone, and the Razr phone doesn't come with a flash.

I was in a simpler mood. I started with the lobster miso, the traditional fermented soybean paste soup with a split lobster tail in it; it was okay, though the lobster was a touch overcooked, probably since it stayed in the hot soup after it came out of the kitchen.



Then I had the spicy tuna and seaweed salad. The salad was interesting. They'd taken sushi-grade raw tuna and cut it into tiny cubes, tossed it with a sort of spicy sesame oil aioli, then mounded it on a bed of seaweed; very thinly sliced tomatoes and some interesting "soybean skin" chips garnished the plate. While this salad wasn't at all what I was expecting, it was actually quite interesting and a very different melange of flavors.



I ordered some green tea ice cream for dessert, but they were out.

We wandered around the restaurant a bit to look it over. The Atlantis bar in the back had fiber optic threads hanging down from the ceiling, giving the room an interesting "coral reef" feel. The front dining room had two fireplaces built into the wall (and felt great as we walked past!), and the room was dominated by an enormous long table in the center of the room that seated about two dozen.