If you find yourself forgetting how to use utensils because your diet consists entirely of finger-food favorites like bagels and pizza, you’re in luck. There are only three days left of D.C.’s Restaurant Week (extended at some places like Farrah Olivia), when the best restaurants in the city offer top-quality cuisine for a fixed price of $20.08 for lunch and $30.08 for dinner in honor of the new year.
This rare opportunity warrants risking pricey new restaurants. In Old Town Alexandria, Chef Morou’s Farrah Olivia is unlike any restaurant in Georgetown. Morou—who goes by his first name, Emeril-style—was a contestant on “The Next Iron Chef,” where he showcased his Ivory Coast, French and southern U.S. influences.
From the very beginning of the meal, Morou makes it clear that he wants his diners to be surprised and delighted with every dish. To start, a raisin bread is paired with four colorful spreads, none of them plain butter. A bok-choy pesto spread and cottage cheese-horseradish blend stood out as the boldest flavors. Shortly afterward, our waiter arrived with a amuse-bouche—warm, pillowy cranberry fritters paired with a swirl of tart tomato aioli—that adjusted our palates to expect the unexpected.
Farrah Olivia’s Restaurant Week menu features a first course, entrée and dessert. Morou’s southern influences showed in the first course tower of lightly fried white grits with a liquid black corn center surrounded by candied red cabbage. Like all of the dishes, half of the amazement came from the artful presentation. While a little heavy on the black pepper in some areas, the grits had an amusing combination of flavors supplied by the simultaneously sweet and tart cabbage with the exotic black corn. A more adventurous choice is the shocked escolar, which pairs coin-sized squares of quick-cooked white tuna with merlot powder, ginger and wasabi pearls. The dish looks like a lesson in feng-shui design for a dinner plate, and the side ingredients make for different flavors in every bite.
For the main course, I had a curry banana-crusted chicken breast with a quinoa salad. I’ll admit I had no idea what quinoa was, or how curry and banana would fit together on the same dish, but it turned out to be one of the best meals I can remember. The chicken was perfectly tender throughout, albeit not very flavorful on its own—the memorable taste came from the sweet glaze of curry, banana, walnuts and other unidentifiable flavors. Quinoa turns out to be a spherical grain, and the “salad” was more like a spicy pasta side to balance the sweetness of the chicken. Morou’s experimental, deconstructive tendencies showed through in other dishes such as the orange salmon with yucca couscous and shrimp essence, or the gnudi (essentially ravioli filling without the pasta) topped with parmesan foam. Dessert was a chocolate brownie with toasted marshmallow—ordinary enough, until you discover the beet sorbet on the side.
Although there was quite a wait between the first course and entreé, we were still treated to attentive service in the small dining room: there seemed to be at least two employees devoted entirely to refilling water glasses the second they were half-empty. With no more than 30 tables, the space is intimate and simply decorated with green silhouettes of branches on coffee-colored walls and painted coconuts hanging from the ceiling. Farrah Olivia is a place to go if you want an adventurous, delicious experience, and Restaurant Week is the time to get it at incredible prices.
Farrah Olivia will offer Restaurant Week pricing until January 31. It is located at 600 Franklin St. in Alexandria. Call 703-778-2233 for reservations.
