CoCo Sala

I tried CoCo Sala for the first time for happy hour recently, and it was pretty much exactly what one would expect from the area's first chocolate lounge.

The drink menu was relatively inventive with a number of interesting looking cocktails, and a beer selection that went beyond the standards. In what became a theme for the evening, the prices were a bit steep. 7$ for an Amstel Light, even downtown, is quasi ridiculous.

The menu is largely laid out for nibbling, there are small savory dishes, multi-course dessert tastings, and a fromage menu. The shrimp mac and cheese was a definate order again, while the bacon version was just overwhelmingly smokey. The best dish we tried was actually the beet and goat cheese salad - the terrine presentation was well-suited to this type of dish.

Now, I'll admit, we didn't try desserts at the chocolate lounge. Having said that, all of what we did try was underwhelming for the price. A few cocktails (beers) and a few small plates later, the pre-tip check was triple digits. In the end, CoCo Sala would be a really good place to grab dessert with a date after catching a movie at Gallery Place, but I'm not sure it'd ever enter my normal rotation.

Citronelle to leave DC

Citronelle, unquestionably THE landmark fine dining restaurant in Washington, DC, will leave the dated hotel space it currently occupies in Georgetown and move to the suburbs soon. It was just announced today that it was taking over the space formerly run as Maestro, in the Tysons Corner Ritz Carlton. On the one hand, Citronelle's dining room was badly in need of an upgrade and I'm sure the Ritz in Tysons and providing top notch space. On the other... Tysons? Really? With the recently opened Inox also out there, Tysons is becoming quite the place to wine and dine...

Craft Atlanta

I have some concerns with celebrity chef restaurants... too frequently these are places where the celebrity "chef" is involved only in as much as their name is on the sign, but they are rarely if ever actually in the kitchen, and the quality suffers. Mario Batalli's restaurant in the Venetian in Vegas is the classic example. (Emeril's at the MGM. however, was very good)

So it was with some trepidation that Rosa and I went to Tom Collichio's Craft restaurant in Atlanta. His places are generally very well respected for highlighting the highest quality ingredients in their dishes, so I was eager to try their easter brunch.

When you pull up to Craft (in Atlanta's wealthy Buckhead area), you valet with a shared service with a swanky hotel across the courtyard... think Real Housewives of Atlanta with a line up of Porsche SUV's and Bentleys outside the door (they parked our Pontiac underground...) The restaurant is two levels with a very open design. Service was good but not great, our primary waiter was a bit unattentive but the backups picked up the slack.

The bread basket was ok, if nothing spectacular... but the amuse bouche was a chicken liver mouse with a red wine reduction on brioche toasts. The red wine reduction did a nice job of cutting through the richness of the liver with just a touch of sweetness. Luckily Rosa doesn't like liver so I got 2 portions.

The brunch menu comprised of first courses, mains, side dishes, and desserts - both a selection of breakfast and lunch items were available. Among the firsts were fresh oysters, a range of salads, and a seafood cocktail. I had the Crispy Sweetbreads with Kumquats ($17) as my starter... probably my all-time favorite dish (bumping my previous favorite, the lamb at 1789, to second place). Imagine the best orange chicken you have ever had in your life, then take it to the next level by using sweetbreads and kumquats instead of... oranges and chicken. I sopped up every last bit of the incredible sauce with the bread.

For our mains, Rosa had the scrambled eggs with wild mushrooms and fava beans (18$) on what seems to be a piece of brioche toast. Eaten altogether, this dish would make anyone change their minds about scrambled eggs - they were incredibly buttery and rich, though the fava beans provided some good balance. I had the baked eggs on a wagyu beef hash with roasted spicey peppers. The yolks were just to the gelatenous stage, so they didn't run all over, but also weren't too firm. The hash had large chunks of the shredded beef on top of roasted fingerling potatoes with the peppers providing a nice kick.

For sides, I had the most incredible roasted fingerling potatoes that can be imagined, which came with chunks of pork belly and onions in a reduction - my only complaint about these was not from a taste perspective, but I wish the server had let me know that my main came with essentially the same thing, so I wound up with two different renditions of roasted potato. Rosa had the richest and creamiest grits I've ever had.

We skipped dessert, opting instead to drink another mimosa because by this point we were both stuffed to near-nausea. Before the check, the kitchen did sent out four little cookies - poppy seed and almond.

Overall, this meal was hands down the best I've ever had. Each and every dish was creative and perfectly executed. I'd be curious to go back sometime at dinner, some sitting near us ordered off the protein list, and while I'm sure the salmon was fantastic, it looked a bit... meager for the price.