Went to Zaytinya Sunday night with the girlfriend for some meze; my third time, her first. She is Turkish and nearly had an orgasm looking at the menu. Only had to wait twenty minutes at the bar, as opposed to the two hour wait my first time there. I'll do my best to remember everything we ate. Fattoush salad(cucs, tomatoes, green pepper and crispy pita) Ordered some cheese and pastirma, which is strong as hell cured beef from Turkey. I only had one slice as I'm not a big fan of this and if you eat a lot of it the smell actually emanates from your pores. She ordered a second plate of it. Puff Boregi(cheese wrapped in lightly fried pastry) She seemed at recognize the cheese, I didn't have a clue, but it was damn good. Adana Kebab(ground lamb skewer) This stuff is amazing, we ordered two more plates of it. Seasoned with some spice I couldn't recognize. Shish Taouk. This is the best chicken shish you will find anywhere. I think they use the leg meat instead of breast, amazing flavor, great onions on the side. Seared salmon with pearl couscous and pomegranate reduction. Very good. Soft shell crab witha potato garlic sauce. A special, fried in a light tempura. Very good. Shrimp with dill, lemon and olive oil. Great flavor, excellent shrimp cooked perfectly. Baked oysters with bay leaf. This is the one dish I don't like at Zaytinya, but the gf wanted to try it. I guess I'm too used to raw oysters at this point. My girlfriend ordered a few more dishes that I didn't try and have no idea what they were. She assured me they were excellent. Dessert was a Lebanese dessert wine, Turkish coffee and of course the Turkish Chocolate Delight(or something like that). This is the third time trying this and I am almost convinced this is the best dessert in DC. Ended up ordering one for the gf after I force feed her some cardamom espuma. Little chocolate molten cake surrounded by a pool of chocolate sauce with Raki and around that is cardamom espuma(foam) and some sesame seeds sprinkled on top. I usually detect some flakes of fleur de sel but I must not have been paying attention this time. Perhaps Steve can explain this dish in more detail, but it really is amazing combination of flavors and textures. Overall, excellent as always, but I wouldn't expect anything less from Jose Andres. Anyway, my girlfriend said it's a good as anything in Turkey, if not better.
