Cityzen?

Opinions, experiences from dining at Cityzen? Any other restaurants that might provide similar experience in terms of cuisine, price, and atmosphere? Thanks!

spiffytriphy wrote:Opinions, experiences from dining at Cityzen? Any other restaurants that might provide similar experience in terms of cuisine, price, and atmosphere? Thanks!

Spiffy,

Cityzen?

How about just a wee bit more info, city, state, country might be a good start. What about the place has interest/appeal to you?

Gary

I'm not sure about the food, but here's what I was able to find about Cityzen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Lancs_Cityzen

Can't speak to how the food is on one of these things.

Sorry! Cityzen in D.C. I was preoccupied and forgot to add those details. I'm planning on visiting a friend who's interning at the capital over the summer. He's turning 21 in July so this is going to be a celebratory meal. One friend wants to go to Cityzen but I was just wondering if there were other restaurants with similar dining experiences? Also, anyone know of hip bars? Thanks!

I have not been to Cityzen, but in the same price/haute-ness ballpark I can recommend Komi, which is a prefixe Med spot on 17th street. The food is sort of 60% Greek/40% Italian, but it's pretty phenomenal, especially for DC, whose restaurant scene generally seems to consist of 2000 versions of Lettuce Entertain You restaurants. He does great pastas--particularly a linguini with guanciale--and the entree dishes are usually inventive spins of fish and pig, reminiscent of Stephanie Izard's work at Scylla.

If memory serves me correctly, it was $72 for four courses...though after an amuse, there was a table spread of several meze, so we certainly tasted a lot of things.

A notch down on the fine dining scale, but another restaurant I can recommend heartily, is Blue Duck Tavern in West End, which just made Concierge's list of the hottest new restaurants in the world. If you're into "haute barnyard"restaurants like Craft or North Pond--you know, ingredients-first New American cooking--then you'll love it.

Washingtonian magazine usually does a '100 best restaurants' list...

I ate at CityZen last July and it was a fantastic meal. Here's the detail from my original post:

Dinner was the highlight of my weekend. I ate at the lounge in CityZen and enjoyed the $45 three course fixed menu with the $25 wine pairing. For my appetizer I had the ragout of snails which was served with garlic mousse (phenominal flavor!) and pernod butter. My entree was the shoat with grits, spinach and mushrooms (I'm forgetting the exact menu description which does better justice to the entree) and for dessert I had the peppermint patty. I highly recommend CityZen to anyone going to DC. The deal in the bar is definitely something to take advantage of. Raved to the staff about the garlic mousse in the appetizer and one of the hostesses arranged for the chef to come out and explain their preparation to me. Nice touch!

For more detail check out the CityZen threads on DC's version of LTH: http://www.donrockwell.com

I've eaten at CityZen now twice, and both times it was excellent, though too expensive for its excellence. There are plenty of other places within reach of DC that are significantly better at the same price point: Citronelle, 2941 (a drive), Restaurant Eve (simply the best food in the mid-atlantic at the moment, sit in the tasting room not in the bistro), and Vidalia.

chezbrad wrote:I have not been to Cityzen, but in the same price/haute-ness ballpark I can recommend Komi, which is a prefixe Med spot on 17th street. The food is sort of 60% Greek/40% Italian, but it's pretty phenomenal, especially for DC, whose restaurant scene generally seems to consist of 2000 versions of Lettuce Entertain You restaurants. He does great pastas--particularly a linguini with guanciale--and the entree dishes are usually inventive spins of fish and pig, reminiscent of Stephanie Izard's work at Scylla.

If memory serves me correctly, it was $72 for four courses...though after an amuse, there was a table spread of several meze, so we certainly tasted a lot of things.

A notch down on the fine dining scale, but another restaurant I can recommend heartily, is Blue Duck Tavern in West End, which just made Concierge's list of the hottest new restaurants in the world. If you're into "haute barnyard"restaurants like Craft or North Pond--you know, ingredients-first New American cooking--then you'll love it.

Washingtonian magazine usually does a '100 best restaurants' list...

CityZen is now significantly more expensive than this- Komi is truly excellent though and should not be missed by any serious food lover in DC.

especially for DC, whose restaurant scene generally seems to consist of 2000 versions of Lettuce Entertain You restaurants.

Ehem...I personally feel that the DC dining scene is leaps beyond what it is here in Chicago in terms of quality and diversity. You guys may have some major players (Alinea...), but so many of the places here rely on over the top service and cheap gimmicks to attract customers. I have yet to find a restaurant in Chicago that feels truly unique without having to rely on some sort of gimmick to make it stand out. Do you think that it's any coincidence that there are only two Lettuce Entertain You restaurants in the DC area (none of them in the actual city..), and that the Mon Ami Gabi is scheduled to close in the coming year? I'm sorry that this is such an angry post, but if there's anything that DC's restaurant scene is, it's CERTAINLY NOT a cluster of dressed up, corporate owned restaurants relying on pretty colors and synchronized water pouring to attract it's customers.

I know I haven't been anywhere else in the country where a restaurant that serves crappy miniature sandwiches could survive right next to a mediocre hot dog stand that has lines out the door because the workers yell at you.

beige86 wrote:I have yet to find a restaurant in Chicago that feels truly unique without having to rely on some sort of gimmick to make it stand out.

beige86,

Welcome to LTHForum! I think you'll find that our group has a lot of great tips for places to eat in Chicago.

Personally, I have no interest in getting into a DC-Chicago pissing match. I lived in DC for 7 years and I understand the merits of both dining scenes.

While you're in Chicago, here are 60-odd gimmick-free restaurants I recommend you try.

Best,
Michael

Purity and Savory *** Washington, DC *** CityZen

Schools must exist in which aspiring chefs are taught to name their culinary domains: Alinea, Per Se, Moto, WD-50, and Washington’s CityZen – a preserve for citizens of a certain level of refinement and resources. CityZen is located in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington’s new Southwest side. And before we get to the cuisine, the restaurant, although quite pretty is pretty in the way of upscale, contemporary, luxury hotel dining rooms. Serviceable in a post-Millennium sort of way. Speaking of serviceable, service was more than serviceable, it was congenial and helpful.

There has been debate about the level of cuisine at the new venture of Chef Eric Ziebold, formerly at the French Laundry. The food is indebted to Keller with its attention to combinations of flavors and textures, occasionally borrowing from – or contributing to – an experimental cuisine. But how far can Ziebold push his clients? Can Washington ever have truly outstanding cuisine: is that the cost of living in a town in which the prime hunger is for power, not flash, flesh, or fowl? After a recent dinner, choosing the tasting menu, I am among those who rate CityZen highly – except for the bread, more about that later. While my meal was not always astonishing, it was in most regards of the highest order with several remarkable dishes. In comparison to Citronelle, Komi, Kinkead’s, or even Minibar, it is CityZen to which I would first return. Ziebold gives prime of place to simple, simply prepared proteins and surrounds them by zesty combinations.

We began with a pair of amuses, prior to the tasting menu parade. The stronger of the two was a nifty fungal symphony: A toasted mushroom egg puff covered with mushroom powder. This fritter was an earthy, but otherworldly, tribute to late fall. The flavors were deep and the multiple textures clever. It did what an amuse should do, awaken one’s senses to future surprises by the depth of taste.



The second small plate (is the second amuse still an amuse: when does it become an unadvertised appetizer?) was what I recall as a garlicky mousse-filled gougere situated on a lentil salad. The pastry was as flaky as one could desire, although perhaps slightly salty for my taste.



Our first course was as dazzling as a Miró canvas: carpaccio of Atlantic Fluke with Gans Ranch Fuyu Persimmon (even fruit has a provenance), Puffed Japanese Sweet Rice, Micro Peppercress and Pomegranate Vinaigrette. The fluke when cooked properly is a mild and subtle fish, more thrilling for its texture than its taste. Dotting it were the other ingredients, transforming each bite. This is a striking dish, witty and cunning. The taste of the fish ebbed into the background, permitting the vinaigrette a gustatory ovation.



Grilled Atlantic day boat scallops with Belgian endive marmalade, citrus velouté, and lobster infused oil was another surprising dish in that, as with the fluke, the scallops, a mild seafood, furnished texture to savory supplements. Although scallops might not seem to be an ideal partner for a sour citrus, the addition of marmalade and lobster oil created a dish that was dreamy, if not dramatic on the plate. It was lush and tangy without being jarring or busy.



The third plate – Polly-Face Farms Poussin – was similar to the previous two in that it was based on a mild center and savory edges. Authentically produced in western Virginia with Michael Pollan’s blessing (despite the misspelling of Polyface Farms – not only green-card eateries that don’t spell-check), the poussin was paired with dried currant and Italian pistachio mousse with parsnip puree, sugar pie pumpkin and Swiss chard roulle. Simple and pure as the chicken was, the accompaniments made this dish special. The pumpkin and chard roulle was Chef Ziebold’s most memorable presentation of the evening. Again the chef maintains an austere urbane zen-like calm at the center of the plate while circling the center with pungent intensity.



The meat course was braised A1 Direct kuroge beef shortribs with marinated beets, cipollini onions and caramelized salsify (I don’t know what A1 Direct might be, but the firm seems uncomfortable like a company that attempts to cadge customers by being listed first in the Yellow Pages). The beef was itself more dramatically flavorful than the chicken, scallop, or fluke. However, the plate became innovative because of the surroundings, passionate beets and sumptuous salsify. Without the accompaniments this would have been a good dish, with them it was robust and flavorful.



Shortribs were followed by a nicely presented cheese course with some dozen cheeses of varying provenance (A1 Direct?). Since we talking cheese, bread comes to mind. The breads (raisin, bacon, sourdough) from Uptown Bakery were uniformly, uh, awful. CityZen Pain. A four star restaurant should not be serving bread that flirts with stale. I was informed that in 2008 CityZen will be baking their own bread, so clearly they understand their problem. Why an aspiring four-star restaurant would choose to serve bread this pathetic is a mystery. Are there no Ritz Crackers to be had? In fairness, the mini-Parker House rolls, prepared in-house and served with the shortrib, were terrific. They should have been on the table from start to end.

Of the concluding courses, I preferred the palate cleanser, pineapple sorbet with coconut foam and rum gelee. As refreshing as the taste, it was the compelling textures that make this piña colada appealing.



Dessert was cheesecake chiboust (a custard-textured cheesecake) with soft graham cracker and passion fruit sauce, a pleasant change from leaden cheesecakes, and like the earlier course, combined a mild middle with a tart accompanying sauce. However, this passion fruit sauce was not so dramatic as to raise the profile of the dish above the pleasant.



CityZen is a distinguished restaurant with a clever chef and clever name. Chef Ziebold has a style that combines a purity of protein with zippy purees, mousses, volutes, oils, vinaigrettes, foams, and marinates. Through his signature style, he forces us to recognize the perfection of central ingredients, even while informing us that there is wild culinary world outside the gates. This is a important message, even if it might permit us to recall the “just” chicken, seafood, or beef and slight the pungent skills of the chef that made it so.

CityZen
Mandarin Oriental Hotel
1330 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC
202-554-8588
http://www.mandarinoriental.com/hotel/535000039.asp

Vealcheeks

I ate a Cityzen a couple of years ago, so it undoubtedly has changed. Without notes, I recall one excellent course, followed by a series of courses that were not as delicious as I would have hoped. I do recall that, at the time, the chef seemed to be enamored of various salts and each course featured one or more exotic salt as a dominant flavor. This resulted in a meal that was a bit too salty for me.

The pictures Gary includes seem to indicate that the level of cuisine has progressed upward from my recollection.

Can't help but respond, if belatedly, to the Chicago/Washington blast. I have found that one can eat quite well in both places. If I had to choose, my choice would be for the richness and extent of Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods. But one can eat very well and with great satisfaction in either town.