Zaytinya

Entertaining the parents on a hot and sticky DC summer afternoon can be tricky. When they visit we usually pick a neighborhood or two and wander somewhat aimlessly, poking our heads into interesting-looking places and just exploring... but last week's oppressive heat wave shrunk our tolerance for being outdoors. So we settled on visiting a few museums in the morning, and catching a movie in the afternoon. And in between, we stopped into Zaytinya for lunch.

This was an interesting choice, because I'm normally not a fan. I don't love their somewhat pretentious scene in the evenings. I don't love that I've been overcharged there more than once. I don't love that a request for (admittedly excellent) bread is always turned down until after we've placed a food order, even when we've ordered $100 worth of drinks, and even when we're clearly in the process of ordering food.

And I generally don't love their food, finding it decent but nothing special.

So I was shocked to find that I enjoyed, I mean really enjoyed, our lunch there last weekend. It may have had something to do with the air conditioning and large glasses of water, both of which were much appreciated after our overheated morning. But it was more. It was the horiatiki salata, summery sweet tomatoes tossed together with cucumbers, red onions, and green peppers. The saltiness of the kalamata olives and the tang of the feta, mixed with the fresh herbs in the vinaigrette, made this a salad we couldn't get enough of. It was the seared salmon, served with sundried tomato Israeli couscous and a yogurt dill sauce. The fish was prepared with an easy touch (lightly seasoned and lightly cooked), which surprised and gladdened me. It was the baba ghannouge, to my palate the best version of this standard in the city, not meek or merely a hommus substitute, but exploding with smokey eggplant flavor.

There were still some misses. The arayes, billed as grilled pita stuffed with ground lamb and tahini, had only a smattering of the filling, which may have been a good thing, since it tasted sour and unappetizing. And as much as the baba ghannouge bursts with eggplant flavor, the imam bayildi does not, its eggplant base completely lost beneath heavy tomatoes and onions.

Zaytinya
701 Ninth Street, NW
202-638-0800