Foodie Crap: Komi

For our big dinner in DC, soh, des, and I tried to get reservations at Jose Andres' flagship restaurant inside a restaurant, Minibar, but we couldn't get reservations so we had to "settle" for Komi. While I can't speak for Mr. Two Star Providence, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience at Komi from the excellent modern take on Greek/Mediterranean food to the great service and it was easily the best restaurant experience I've had. Recently picked by Washingtonian readers as the best restaurant in DC, Komi is a 12 table, reservations only restaurant and those reservations are usually gone a few days after they open that date. Oh, and if your party is larger than four you're shit outta luck because they only accept parties of 4 or less.

Komi's menu is pretty simple, you have two cows, Komi takes both cows and cooks them up real good... I mean you have two choices, the $90 dinner or the $125 desgustazione. If you select the dinner, you may choose a pasta and two mains. If you select the desgustazione, which we did, the chef picks the pasta and mains that you eat. Whichever you pick you also get a selection of mezzethakia which are a selection of small plates that lead up to your pasta and main courses. You also get dessert and a lollipop, yes a lollipop. But, more on that later.

1. Shima-aji, smoked turbot broth: Two slices of fresh shima-aji or yellowjack, sitting in a little bit of broth which provided a hint of smokey flavor with a bit of salt on top for seasoning. Nice.
   
2. Black grouper, our olives: Another sashimi preparation and similar to our first course. While good, I do question the order the first two dishes were presented to us. This course was much lighter than our first course and it would have made sense to serve this to us first
3. Scallops Two Ways
   
   1. Scallop, Dill, Truffle: Slice of fresh scallop surrounded by dill-mustard which slightly overpowered the scallop. Still a decent dish
      
   2. Scallop, Lime, and Habanero: The better of the two scallop preparations with the lime giving a good acidity to the dish and the habanero providing a little kick to it. Good dish.
      
4. King Salmon tartare, frozen shiso: Served straight up and eaten with a very small spoon which created the sense of a larger portion than you actually recevied, which was just fine because it allowed you to savor every small bite you took. Creamy with a hint of sweetness and mint from the frozen shiso that went very well with the flavor of fresh salmon. As I told soh and des, I could have eaten a large plate of this. Excellent dish.
5. Caesar Salad: Up until this point my favorite dish had been the salmon tartare, but this took its place as soon as I bit into it. This dish was basically a "crouton" filled with a thicker version of caesar dressing and topped with a bit of parmesan. The servers asked that we eat it in one bite which caused the dressing to fill your mouth as soon as the crouton was broken. That intense burst of flavor married well with the flavor of the crouton, which was quite soft and chewy, and the parmesan. Excellent dish.
   
6. Octopus, sepia, and sunchoke: Sunchokes, leaves and stems not the tuber, went well with the octopus and sepia providing a slight bitterness and crunch which provided a nice texture contrast with the chewy octopus and sepia. Good dish, if a bit plain.
7. Steak tartare and black truffle gelato: Served with a piece of flatbread. A dish that came ever so close to coming together for me. Individually the steak and gelato were good, but the flatbread was too salty, but even with the addition of the sweet ice cream the flatbread was still too salty and overpowered the steak. If the flatbread was less salty this would have been a great dish.
8. Our mortadella, our bread: Thin slices of mortadella, an italian sausage, with pistachios and pumpernickel and sourdough served with fancy mustard. By itself, the sausage was very tasty with the pistachios cutting through the fattiness of the pork. The mustard was a fine example of mustard and worked well with the mortadella. The bread was all over the place. The sourdough arrived warm and burnt, too burnt. I enjoyed the warmed that it brought when eaten with the other two items but the burnt flavor overpowered the sausage and mustard too much for me to truly enjoy. The pumpernickel wasn't burnt but I would have enjoyed it more if it arrived with a little warmth. However, it went just fine with the sausage and mustard. Overall this was alright, didn't have me jumping for joy, but it wasn't that bad either.
9. Mezzethakia Mignardises: 5 little dishes served on one plate meant to conclude the mezzethakia portion of the meal and lead us into the pasta and main dishes. Again I had to question the order of a few of these, but overall a nice plate of food.
   
   1. Date: An oven roasted date filled with marscapone and topped with a little sea salt. One of the best dishes of the night, even if it was burning hot when I first popped into my mouth. Aside from that, this was a damn near perfect bite of food. The sea salt balancing out the sweetness of the date and marscapone and much like the caesar salad there was an intense burst of flavor when the marscapone escaped it's datey confines. I just wish it wasn't served to us so piping hot, still an excellent dish.
   2. Cream Puff: Not quite a pure cream puff, more like a cream puff shell sliced in half and filled with foie gras. Worked well as a savory cream puff. Very tasty
   3. Animal Cracker: Komi's own animal cracker. Less sweet than your average animal cracker, so it was just a cracker in the shape of an animal.
   4. Gelee: A cube of jalepeno gelatin, like jello but firmer. Sounds weird but tasty, nice texture too. Little spicey with a little sweetness. Very awesome.
   5. "s'more:" Savory, not sweet. Crackers instead of of graham crackers and cheese instead of marshmellow and chocolate. Like a haute cheez-it. <.<
10. Pasta: Frankly, I have no idea what kind of pasta I was served, but it was good. I also had some of soh's pumpkin ravioli, which was very tasty, even better than mine.
11. Roasted Katsikaki for two: Served with Komi's own pita and a few condiments and at the same time as the dish below. Katsikaki is goat and it tasted fucking awesome. The crispy skin eaten with the tender goat was excellent. The pita was also nice but since we were all getting full we didn't eat too much of it.
    
12. Roasted Suckling Pig for two: Served with Komi's own pita and the dish above. Reminded me of peking duck a little with the crispy skin. Very good, although I did prefer the goat.
13. Cheeses: We got 3 cheese, I have no idea what they are but they were each served with their own accompaniment. I do remember I preferred the first and lightest of the cheeses.
14. Brioche: Apparently we had a brioche course. I don't remember a damn thing about it, but it was probably good
15. Shooter: It was sorbet + Meyer's lemonade, very refreshing and a tasty little treat before dessert.
16. Greek Doughnuts: Very good, very tasty, fluffy, and delicious. Also had some of soh's pumpkin ice cream, while it was good I preferred my doughnuts. Mmmmm doughnuts....
17. Peppermint Lollipop: homemade lollipops came with our bill. Nice pepperminty flavor and not too sweet, a good way to end the meal.