My wife and I went to out favorite restaurant last night. We went with high hopes, but in the end were both saddened and disappointed.
2941 became our favorite restaurant about 3 years ago, when we went to it for our second wedding anniversary. We had talked about going for some time because it was literally in our neighborhood, being just a mile or so from our house, but (at least for me) the menu was a little intimidating, and I couldn’t justify the price for food I may not appreciate. And I was a bit skeptical of a ‘High End” restaurant that was in the basement of an office building in the suburbs.
But we both love food, and over the past 5 or 6 years we have made it something of a goal to improve our pallets. We also watched a lot of Top Chef and did a lot of drooling. We started picking out restaurants that made the top 50 in the Washingtonian Magazine rankings. We were never disappointed. We had some fabulous meals, from Contemporary American and French, to Italian, to Thai, and everything in between. I ate things that made my mother shudder when I told her about them. Raw, live scallops. Beef marrow. Sweetmeats. Squid. And many others.
Finally we decided it was time to try 2941, which at one point had reached as high as #2 on the listing of best restaurants in the area (behind only The Inn at Little Washington, which we have not tried yet, but will one day). I was still a bit skeptical because of the location, but it kept getting such rave reviews that it had to be tried. Oh, how I now begrudge those lost two years that we could have been regulars there, as we would become from that very first night!
My first impressions were that, despite being in a bad location the restaurant was quite attractive. It was quiet, with a nice elegant bar off to the side of the dining area, beautiful artwork on the walls (naked ladies are always a plus!) and chandeliers made of Murano glass hanging from the ceiling. One entire side of the restaurant has glass walls too, so that you could see the small park and pond next to the building. At night there were lights highlighting some artwork too, which added to the ambiance. The wait staff all wore black suits and ties, and a sommelier could be seen going from table to table recommending wines from a vast list to go with your meal.
We were both immediately impressed with the bar. Whoever the mixologist was he had talent. We both tried one of their specialty drinks, and were glad that we did. In future visits I would also try one of their impressive number of single malt scotches. They have everything from 12 year old Glenfidich (moderately priced) to 21 year old The Balvenie (super expensive, but so worth it). The bartenders at 2941 have all been attentive, generous and easy to talk to. The bar at 2941 may not be a place where everybody knows your name, but they remember the faces of those who have been there, and always make you feel welcome. Cheers to them.
On to the food!
I wish I could remember everything we ate that first night. We decided that as this was a special occasion we would treat ourselves. And what better way than by choosing the chef’s “tasting menu”. This menu consisted of 5 courses. An amuse bouche (in french, a “small bite”), an appetizer, a fish, a meat and finally a desert. While my wife does not drink wine I chose to have the wine pairings with my meal. A small (3 ounce) glass of wine that went with each course.
From the beginning we were astonished. The food was as good as anyplace we have ever been, including 1789 in Washington DC and American Seasons in Nantucket Massachusetts. The presentation was beautiful, and the food was sublime; restrained where restraint was called for and bold where boldness was necessary. You could tell they were using great ingredients, even if you couldn’t identify them all. And a lot of those ingredients were local, which was a plus. I remember in particular the “Lobster Roll”. Let me say now that I do not like lobster (being the worst New Englander ever) but this was among the very best things I had ever had up to that point (and still has a place of honor in my memory). Fresh lobster (no bread here; this isn’t Virginia Beach after all) rolled up and placed on a plate with Rhubarb gelee. Rhubarb! Something my wife says can be found on the side of the road in West Virginia! So simple. So beautiful to look at. So incredibly delicious. And this was an appetizer!
Time and again my wife and I would find excuses to go to 2941, despite the chance that we might (and have) drop $300 on a single meal, even before the tip. Time and again we would marvel at the quality and inventiveness of the food. I grew up with very simple tastes in food, but in large part to 2941 and my wife’s insistence that everything must be tried (twice!) I have grown fearless about food. It is one of the few things that I have no hesitation spending money on, because a good meal can nourish not only the body, but the soul as well.
Shall I wax rhapsodic about the black sea bass that I loved so much that I had to have it on two consecutive trips (which were very close together, as they changed the menu sometimes DAILY, leaving some things on the menu for no more than a couple of weeks at most)? Or I could tell you that the truffle popcorn at the bar was so good that my wife and I started talking about how we could steal some of it. Or I could regale you with stories of how we would go “just to have a drink at the bar” and ended up eating dinner there instead because we made the mistake of looking at the menu. And almost from the beginning we were nearly always given something complimentary, either an additional amuse bouche at the beginning of the meal, or more often an extra desert (or two) at the end. And oh, the deserts! Truffles with gold leaf! Homemade marshmallow! Baklava! Oh, my!
So it was with mixed emotions that we heard a couple of months ago that they were changing the format of the restaurant from high end French cuisine to more moderately priced Mediterranean. We understood though. In a tough economy they must have been having a difficult time. The restaurant was pricey, and badly situated (again, in the basement of an office building in the suburbs!). They must have hoped that by making it a little more reasonably priced, and by making it a slightly more casual place (no more suits and ties for the wait staff, just vests, and a TV in the bar where there were now happy hours from 4-7) it would draw in more people.
It seems to have worked. My wife and I have been there twice since they re-opened in mid January. Once just for a drink and again last night for dinner. The bar is still very nice, but is now more crowded and louder to the point where they have constructed a barrier between it and the dining area to minimize the noise level there. And the specialty drinks are still great, as are the bartenders (one of whom let me have a tiny drink of Absinthe for free when I asked if they really had it; something I had always wanted to try partly because it used to be illegal). No longer are most of the people at the bar waiting for their table. Now most of them seem to be there just to have a drink and maybe something off the new Bar Menu.
As for the dining room, I miss the white table cloths. I miss the waiters and waitresses being dressed formally, which made me always want to wear a suit and tie also, so as not to feel underdressed. I like the new light fixtures, but they aren’t as cool as the old ones. At least the naked ladies on the wall remain.
But the food. We decided to make our own tasting menu, since they no longer offer that option as a regular feature of the menu. To say we were disappointed would be to understate things. Part of the problem is that we had had so much mind-bending food there that anything less was bound to be disappointing. But there were some serious flaws. We won’t even go into the missing artesian breads (a small thing, but small things become larger when they are gone).
We shared the Mac and Cheese Croquettes. They were ok, but something I might have expected at a very good pub. They lacked seasoning (salt), and they came very plainly presented on a small white plate.
Next we each had an appetizer. Lobster and fois gras risotto for my wife, and a De-composed Chicken Salad for me. Both were a bit underwhelming. My wife had had similar dishes elsewhere and been wowed by it. Not here. My Chicken Salad was made up of three small deep fried chicken croquettes (more deep fried food? At 2941?) with pancetta, greens, and a poached egg. It was too big a portion for an appetizer. The chicken was ok, but again, nothing that you couldn’t find at a good pub, and the poached egg (which was the best part of the dish) was hidden at the bottom, instead of being on top of the greens where it belonged. And again, it was not well seasoned. The pancetta and the chicken both added salt to the dish, but there was no pepper to offset it, making it out of balance.
Then came the pasta dish. We shared an appetizer portion of homemade pasta with chanterelles and mascarpone. This harkened back to the best of 2941. The pasta was perfectly made, and the earthiness of the mushrooms was perfectly balanced by the cream sauce. This was a keeper, and gave us hope.
Then came the entrees. Bay scallops with Buddha Hand confit for my wife, and veal with fois gras for me. Again, I have to say that while they were fine, they were not Fine Dining. The scallops were very small (not unusual with bay scallops) but seemed a little overwhelmed by the confit and the citrus-y sauce they were paired with. My veal was cooked perfectly medium rare (as requested) but the presentation was a jumble, with everything just piled up in the middle of the plate, and it too was overwhelmed by the sauce, which was both too sweet and too salty for my tastes. Like many high end restaurants 2941 never had salt and pepper on the tables. It was never needed. But for the third time in 4 courses I felt the lack of them. And the over-saucing was disturbing. There was simply too much of it, as if the chef was afraid to let the food stand on its own. There was no balance or restraint shown.
We both declined desert, but as is their want they provided one (or again, two) complimentary. One was a pistachio “milk shake” which was actually pretty good (at least my wife, who ate most of it, thought so). The other was a “beignet”, which was actually no more than a honey-dipped donut hole. On the whole I could have done without. Or gone to dunkin’ donuts for some the next morning.
Had we eaten at someplace else I think we would have thought “it was ok, but not some place we need to rush back to”. And while the cost of the meal was less than we were used to it felt overpriced. Another first for 2941. Until last night I had never balked at the bill. The experience was always worth it. Not so last night.
Last night felt like something beautiful and special had been taken from us. 2941 was our “special” place. A high end restaurant right in our own little town where we went to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays, and New Years, and…well, Thursday. A place where we felt special, because we were eating special food in an elegant setting and being served by true professionals. And let me digress here by saying the wait staff is still excellent. We had a new waiter last night, who was very good, and saw a couple others who had served us before (one of whom came over twice to say hello and ask us how we were doing). The new 2941 is a nice restaurant, but while we will probably still go there once in a while (after all, they still have that awesome popcorn at the bar) we are both resigned to the fact that we may need to find a new special place.
MAL
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