2941 Restaurant (VA - Falls Church)

Ahh Virginia - land of Civil War battlefields, Beltway Bandits, Red State values and yes, serious food. No, I'm not talking about that much ballyhooed Relais & Chateaux joint in Little Washington (I think we've all realized by now how far they have fallen), I'm talking about 2941 Restaurant.

I had my doubts at first. A Falls Church location and naming the place after the address were serious warning signs. Falls Church conjures visions of strip mall ethnic food, not fine dining and the "name your restaurant after your address" thing was very popular in the late nineties - with many restaurants that are no longer with us. I worried that I was stumbling into just the current power lunch spot du jor, struggling to attract dinner crowds.

My first experience at 2941 was on a sleepy Sunday evening in May. I was completely blown away by the breadth of ingredients and depth of flavors. Knowing that you can't draw a trend line through a single data point, I went back Tuesday night - on Valentine's Day. Sure the kitchen hums when it is slow and everything under the sun is coming into season, but how would it be on the busiest night of the year, with a more challenging sourcing environment?

They didn't skip a beat. A small group of us dined at the kitchen table and came away convinced that 2941 is turning out some of the best food in the area. Period.

First of all, this is one of the most pleasant kitchen tables I have ever experienced. Some, like Charlie Trotter's and the one at Galileo are cramped, in-the-way offerings, where you feel the heat of the line, experience every smell of the kitchen and occasionally get tossed around by over-zealous runners. Others, like Tru are so civilized that it is hardly like being in a kitchen at all - almost like sitting in a private room watching the Food Network.

2941 is the best of both Worlds. You are set back into an alcove that provides sound protection and climate control, while also providing a front row seat for all of the drama that unfolds over the course of a service. Two examples underscore my point: First, someone was shaving fresh black truffles just ten feet from the table, but because of the ventilation, we couldn't smell a thing; Second, someone dropped a tray of crystal wine glasses next to our table, but we were completely untouched - safe and sound in our alcove.

The meal began with the restaurant's signature bread service. DC is the baking equivalent of Chernobyl - there has been no life here for so long that we begin to doubt if there ever will be again. Against this sad backdrop, where Firehook passes for good bread and Cake Love is where people go for desserts, 2941 rolls their own. The result looks to me like they are trying to run up the score. Every night, they serve up to eight different freshly baked breads, each one better than the one before. On your table will be everything from a plain French baguette to a pumpernickel raisin bread, a sun dried tomato and oregano bread, an olive and rosemary bread and even a chocolate and cherry bread. You could very easily make a meal out of the bread basket and a bottle of wine (Hell, they could serve the bread basket with a flight of wines paired to each bread and call it a day!).

As we gorged ourselves on bread, the first course arrived, a lobster bisque with aged sherry, tarragon oil and chervil paired with champagne. The bisque was a deep orange/brown - the kind that comes from roasting your own shells, not using the bright pink crap from SYSCO. [Don't laugh, I worked in a white tablecloth place in Baltimore that added MSG to the SYSCO stuff, garnished it with canned lobster meat and sent it out the door for $15.] It was a silky, luxurious, uniform consistency punctuated with a few tender lobster morsels. The tarragon and sherry nose gave way to the sweetness of the lobster, which was held in check by the bite of the chervil. The champagne was an excellent pairing, with the bubbles and crisp acidity clearing the palate for the next course.

Our second course was a departure from the set Valentine's Day tasting menu. It was poached salmon with black truffle braised yukon potatoes, black truffles and truffle vinaigrette paired with pinot gris. Here a barely poached cube of glistening, fatty salmon perched on a bed of alternating slices of yukon gold potato and black truffle. This was in turn encircled by a moat of black truffle vinaigrette which formed a yin and yang with a another sauce that I believe was a white truffle oil (I don't have a copy of the menu so I am going on memory alone here). Everyone knows truffles like fat - that is why they are so often paired with butter, egg yolk or oil. This was the first time I had ever seen truffles brought to life with just the animal’s naturally occurring fat. The tender, opulent salmon melted in your mouth and provided a more than adequate conduit for the truffles. The sweet, tender potato wafers were a stark contrast to the thick, earthy truffle shavings and the acidic tang of the vinaigrette was an exclamation point at the end of every bite. The pinot gris, like the salmon, was from Oregon and served as our second excellent pairing of the night. I am not a big pinot gris drinker, typically finding them too thin, oily and inconsistent to merit any serious attention. This one was different, with significant body and acidity. It cut through the truffles and fat better than coffee beans at a perfume counter.

For our third course, we returned to the V-Day menu for some caramelized sea scallops with sun choke, melted leeks and lemongrass sauce paired with a white burgundy. The scallops were expertly prepared, with a crisp outer skin and a uniform firmness that stopped just short of cooking the tenderness out of them. They were topped with a dollop of caviar and fixed to the plate with a smear of sun choke puree. This formation was flanked by some melted leeks and a sauce of Meyer lemon and lemongrass. Here again, chef Krinn combines a dizzying array of flavors and textures that all work together harmoniously, but challenge the diner's senses to keep up. The hard saltiness of the caviar collides with the tender sweetness of the scallop, played out against the backdrop of the creamy, herbal nuttiness of the sun choke and the lingering citrus notes of the Meyer lemon and lemongrass. The Louis Jadot Mersault smelled amazing - a big bouquet of flowers and hay - but was too thin and tart. In fairness, if you were a wine, would you want to follow a mouthful of caviar, scallop, sun choke, Meyer lemon and lemongrass?!?!

For our fourth course, we were served a miniature cast iron Dutch oven full of risotto, topped with black truffles and paired with a red burgundy. This was a very simple, but well executed "mid-course" that allowed us to catch our breath. The creamy risotto absorbed the heady truffle scent that was further echoed by the earthy notes of the burgundy.

Chef Krinn re-emerged to check on us and ask how we felt about a foie gras course. We all nodded enthusiastically, undid our belts and eagerly awaited our fifth course - another deviation from the set menu - seared foie gras with saffron glazed apples paired with Sauternes. The foie was lightly pan seared, but rare to medium rare in the middle and plated with a fan of orange glazed apple slices. Apples and foie are a classic pairing - with sweet tartness of the apples a worthy foil for the nutty, fatty elegance of the foie. In this preparation, the saffron glaze adds an extra dimension to the canvas - an ethereal, fragrant high note that flits around the palate alternately playing with the foie and the apple. The Sauternes (and forgive me, I don't remember the producer) worked perfectly. Nobody will ever win an award for creativity by pairing foie with Sauternes, but the one selected here was younger, racier and more acidic than most. A heavy, syrupy-sweet version would have crushed the dish, where this accentuated it, emphasizing the apples and still packing enough punch to wash away the foie.

For our sixth course, Krinn stayed with the duck theme and served us duck breast in a cassis and huckleberry sauce with shaved almond, caramelized fennel and candied orange paired with a Barolo. I will pause to let you read that again. This was a perfectly rare roast duck breast fanned out in slices against a caramelized fennel bulb and topped with all of the other ingredients. The duck/almond/huckleberry/orange combination gave me flashbacks to Thanksgiving. The tartness in the candied orange and huckleberries kept the richness of the duck and the sweetness of the fennel in check. The anise notes of the fennel and the depth of the cassis sauce were a perfect match for the Barolo which, mercifully, was a lighter, kinder and gentler version of the wine as opposed to the tannin bombs some producers release.

Like a boxer leaning on the ropes, we braced ourselves for a body blow - our seventh course - beef tenderloin with wild mushrooms, pomme macaire and a bordelaise sauce paired with a Saint Emillion. The tenderloin was tender, juicy, cooked perfectly, covered in wild mushrooms and served atop the pomme macaire. The macaire is like a twice baked potato patty. At 2941, it was seasoned with truffles and crème fraiche, though you often see this dish done with some combination of thyme or blue cheese in the mix. Anyway, the pomme macaire absorbs the bordelaise sauce from below and the tenderloin jus from above. The result is something the consistency of a firm polenta, but with a depth of character that would make it the envy of the entire tuber World. The bordelaise sauce was a deeply concentrated affair that lent both sweetness and acidity to the out and out, over-the-top gluttony of the pomme macaire and tenderloin tower. The poor mushrooms were somewhat cast adrift in this preparation, though they did lend moisture to the dish and provide taste buds with some shelter from the storm. The Saint Emillion was another great pairing - if you can't match a red bordeaux with a bordelaise sauce, what can you do?

After a brief standing eight count, we sipped our wine, compared notes on favorite dishes (each of the five of us had a different favorite) and contemplated some calisthenics to prepare for the pending dessert course.

For dessert, we had the coeur a la crème. This was a light, sweet, vanilla cream heart that was decorated with a thin chocolate heart, a sugar coated rose pedal and a passion fruit sauce. It was topped with a miniature heart-shaped chocolate well of raspberry sauce and paired with a pink, sparkling moscato blend. It was very clearly valentine's day, but the airy crème was a great way to end the meal. The dark chocolate paired well with the raspberry sauce and the passion fruit really brought out the vanilla flavor in the crème. I didn't take the wine seriously at first - a glass of light pink bubbles - but it was a surprisingly serious wine. The fruity telltale moscato nose and effervescence yielded to a sturdy acidic backbone to create a blend that actually works.

Just as we were about to push back our chairs, mignardises of pink cotton candy (cherry flavored), vanilla macaroons and lime macaroons arrived. The cotton candy joins the bread service as one of 2941's signature pieces. It is good cotton candy, but after eight courses paired with wines, it is more for amusement than for eating (though we all managed to cram in a few fistfuls of the stuff). The macaroons were outstanding - soft, chewy, almost too underdone. The vanilla version was an honest interpretation of the classic. The lime version was totally unexpected and when the lime paired with the coconut, it gave the macaroon almost a Thai flavoring. Traditional Jewish confections infused with Thai flavor - why not?

Perhaps owing to the fact that we had two pastry students with us - or maybe just because he was feeling generous, chef Krinn made one final departure from the set menu by bringing out an extra dessert course. This was a four-part dessert platter set in front of each diner. From top right, moving counter-clockwise, we had: (1) a napoleon of mascarpone and cassis mousse with quince paste, quince jelly and coconut ice cream; (2) a brown sugar brownie with rum raisin ice cream, funnel cake and roasted pineapple; (3) a chocolate jewel box with chocolate mousse, caramel and hazelnut brittle and espresso gelee; and (4) a chocolate cake "coulant" with chocolate tuille, dark chocolate caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

The sound you just heard was my pants ripping as I bent over to pick up the teeth that just fell out of my mouth. Seriously, does anyone have a spare insulin needle?

This was a dessert tour de force.

The napoleon was light and airy, with the mascarpone and cassis mouse layers evenly balanced by the quince. The coconut ice cream cleansed the palate en route to the next stop.

The gooey sweetness of the brownie paired with the bite of the roasted pineapple and the funnel cake was both an amusing visual as well as an outstanding tool for dredging up melted rum raisin ice cream.

Intensity built further with the chocolate jewel box - layers of hazelnut brittle studded chocolate mousse sandwiched between layers of milk chocolate, topped with a caramel wafer. It was easy to get lost in a chocolate/caramel/hazelnut fog, but a touch of that espresso geleé snapped you out of it.

The crescendo was the chocolate cake "coulant" - a soft center chocolate cake topped with a chocolate tuille and a touch of vanilla ice cream, surrounded by a pool of dark chocolate caramel sauce. As we worked our way through the preceding three desserts, the ice cream melted, trickling down the cake and mixing with the dark chocolate sauce creating a decadent marbled rye looking confection. The cake itself was moist, warm and sinfully rich dark chocolate though, to be perfectly honest, I could only muster a forkful or two.

I consider it the mark of a truly great restaurant when your experience has been so enjoyable that you don't even look at the bill when it comes. Maybe I am a sucker, but after truly command performances like this (meals at The French Laundry and Tru also come to mind) I simply hand over a credit card, not wanting math to spoil an otherwise lovely time. It is only when I feel like my expectations were not met that I scrutinize the tab.

All-in, for seven dinner courses and myriad dessert courses, with eight paired wines, our tab came to roughly $230 per person including tax, 20% tip, etc. This is not a bargain, but it is easily a market rate for the quality of the experience, especially in DC, where you can spend a lot more to get a lot less.