Coco Sala

929 F St. NW

I returned to Coco Sala again, this time for a dinner.  It turns out to be quite expensive for dinner, although not as tasty as I remember lunch being.  Perhaps it was just the menu selections.  As for those, both of us had the Lobster Salad to start.  It was quite tiny, not really salad-like, but it was rather good.  Not $10 for a tiny pseudo salad good, but tasty nonetheless.

The next course, we shared our two orders, which were the Crabcake Lollipops and the Tuna Tartar.  The Crabcake Lollipops were excellent, albeit small.  The Tuna Tartar was fine, but nothing special.

For dessert we had the "xocolatyl Aztec Experience", which was comprised of "amuse" churros with cinnamon cream and dulce de leche dip, a "main dessert" of hot chocolate souffle with fiery chocolate center / espresso gelato / chipotle truffle / kalua soother and a "Petit Fours" of  chocolate infused horchata, mexican wedding cookie.  Well, first off, I remember mainly that the mexican wedding cookie sucked.  Blech.  Like one of those weird airplane cookies*, only not stale.  The other stuff was all pretty good, although not amazing.  Actually, the expresso gelato was a little too coffee flavored for me, but was probably good for those who like coffee, the kalua soother was good, but basically Kalua and Bailey's.  The rest was rather good though.

Still, an overall disappointment considering the cost: $107 including 4 drinks.

*no, not at all like the delicious fresh baked cookies that Midwest Express serves.

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I returned to Coco Sala for the 3rd time, this time with my coworkers for lunch for restaurant week.  Coco Sala redeemed restaurant week for my coworkers, who will hopefully stick with my recommendations from now on.  (To be fair, I am the only one who has lived downtown for more than a couple months and I have the longest tenure at work.)

As I may have stated in my earlier mini-review, the ambiance at Coco Sala is very chic.  The wait service this time was excellent and my waiter had an European accent and trendy sideburns.

I ordered the tomato & burrata salad, the feta & spinach tart with tiger shrimp entree, and the peaches & cream dessert.

The tomato & burrata salad was essentially four tomato slices (two orange, two red) surrounding a portion of burrata cheese all drizzled with balsamic reduction and sprinkled with basil and oregano.  The combination was amazingly good.  In fact, if I were at a restaurant and it were a dessert option, I would probably order it for dessert.  I don't think anyone got the other salad.  If they did, I was too transfixed to notice.

The feta & spinach tart with tiger shrimp was also very good.  I started with the tiger shrimp, which were grilled and sitting in their shell in a dill sauce.  My first bite was so flavorful that I almost swore aloud.  The feta & spinach tart was also quite good.  My coworkers who got the same combination were also quite impressed, although they liked the spinach tart better.  I love dill and grilled shrimp quite a bit, so they're probably more typical.  One coworker got the mac & cheese tart (seafood issue) and said it was quite good, although the accompanying salad was less impressive.

Dessert was actually my least favorite course, although I was still quite happy with it.  It was just very good and not amazing.  Maybe my taste buds were worn out.  There were fresh peaches grilled into some kind of little tart thingy and a shot of dulche de leche gelato to pour onto it - or do as a shot.  Both were quite good.  The only eh, was a white chocolate peach bon-bon, which was just kind of an ordinary little bon-bon.  My coworkers got the chocolate tasting, which consisted of white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate each in 3 forms: liquid, solid, and semi-solid.  They liked it quite a bit, although they were not fans of the dark chocolate.  I got to drink / eat their dark chocolate and I liked it.  The problem is that it wasn't sweet, so if you're not a fan of bitter dark chocolate (I love even 97% Lindt bars) it's a bit much.

Anyway, this experience qualifies as in the top echelon of meals I have had.  As a bonus, my coworkers calculated from the regular menu that what we had was ordinarily pretty close to the restaurant week $20 price anyway, so you can have the same experience for the same price.

Oh, and for being "frou-fou" or whatever (you know who you are), it was rich and filling and lasted me easily until dinner time.