20. Farrah Olivia
I was in blogger DEFCON 1 on Friday—I found out Farrah Olivia was closing in two days and I hadn’t been yet. Crisis! Luckily, crisis easily solved by going to the depths of Old Town to dine. I was relatively familiar with Farrah Olivia already since Morou, the chef, had done a pretty good job whoring himself out to the Food Network on many many occasions. Most notably on the show where they picked the new Iron Chef, where Morou seemed both cocky and incompetent when cooking anything but freeze-dried cobb salad on a stick (or something equally chi-chi ridiculous). So I went to his restaurant fully expecting to eat filet minion pellets while suspended from the ceiling.
However, Farrah Olivia is actually much more up my alley than I expected. The restaurant shares a front door with the Balducci’s which I felt didn’t give it the expensive and fine dining flare they were looking for, but real estate is mighty expensive in Old Town so I’ll give them a pass. I opted to sit outside on the patio since it was 70 degrees and sunny out, and though it was sitting on the GW Parkway, the low awning and ceiling fans make you feel like you’re sitting by something much more picturesque. Like a Dairy Queen.
Sadly, the menu did not really impress me, either by being crazy and off the wall or just all-around appetizing. The entrees that looked the most interesting—short ribs or slow roasted lamb—were not really summer dining appropriate so I went with the black cod. Before my entree came out, a waiter came by with an amuse buche of some sort of foam smoothie made of avocado or lime or something equally green and topped with curry. I never quite figure out what it was since the waiter mumbled his way through his explanation—he seemed so tired of explaining all the intricate details of the dishes that he had just given up since they were closing, like a marathon runner who quits with .2 miles to go. Whatever it was, was weird. The cod was fine, I didn’t think the fish was cooked all that well, though it was crispy on the skin side. And though the menu said it was served “with mussels”, it should have actually said “with mussel” since there was only one. And in my opinion, the piece of fish was pretty small for the $30 price tag. Oceanaire it was not. I probably did myself a disservice by not ordering something really ridiculous, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat a soup duo of hot and cold soup served in the same dish. (Isn’t that just room-temperature soup?)
The best part of the meal was actually the coffee—served in a pressed pot and dark and thick. I though about asking if they were having a liquidation sale on the beans but lost my nerve at the last minute. I bet Farrah Olivia is a very nice place for sitting outside with the aforementioned coffee for brunch on a sunny day, but thought it was a bit overrated. And I didn’t quite have the dining experience of a lifetime since I went from being seated to paying my check in twenty minutes. Maybe if they advertised a speedy pre-theater meal they wouldn’t be closing their doors so soon. Sad to see you go Morou, but I’m sure I’ll see you battling the Ace of Cakes in a sous-vide wedding cake challenge very soon.
