Mie N Yu Restaurant Review - Georgetown
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Reader Review Submitted by Tomrigid - February 2009
Restaurant Details
Address: 3125 M Street, NW Washington DC (202) 333-6122
Cuisine: Contemporary American with flavors from Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean
Mie N Yu Restaurant Review
It's Restaurant Week, that magical time when cheapskates get to sample the pricier fare of Washington's better eateries and DC's best chefs take on the challenge of impressing them with prix fixe values.
On tap last night was Georgetown's hip Silk Road caravanserai, Mie N Yu, and if they wanted to get another meal out of us they fell far short of the mark.
It's a busy place, full of pretty, stylish professionals whose voices bounce off the high, dark wooden beams of the bar and foyer space. The walls, adorned with decoration in keeping with the Central/South Asian theme, sprout bits of copper and curling snakes, Vedic and Mongol images that evoke a lively and chaotic time and place in keeping with the mood of the clientele. The restrooms overdo it a bit, with individual stalls set around a hitching-post arrangement of beaten copper basins and a solicitous memsahib pushing soap and paper towels. Nothing evokes exotic flavor in DC like tipping a man for handing you a paper towel. The trip to the back room upstairs felt like Scorsese's scene in the Copa from Goodfellas, a forever-jaunt through a live dioramic display of crowded rooms and large parties eating in such a welter of styles and settings that one almost expected a camel's nose to poke around the next corner.
Such experiences are rare in a DC restaurant, and rare is almost always good, but eventually the food must be judged and that's where Mie N Yu's pretty tapestry begins to fray.
Our wait-staff was well numbered, with three people in regular service to our party of seven, and I never had to ask for water. Our drinks were promptly delivered and nicely done, with tableside prep for one diner's vodka-white wine-lychee concoction, but the consensus ran to weak and small. The Dancing Shiva, an off-piste julep with an uncertain Hindu provenance, was watery and pale, with too little Bulleit for the proper bite, and one began to suspect a cut-cost mentality at work. The appetizers were promptly served, and though dispatched with equal haste by hungry guests they were roundly dismissed as warmed-over, poorly conceived, and essentially drab. The Afghan selection, resembling ground lamb dim-sum, had clearly been heat-lamping for some time, as the doughy pouches were stiff, cracked, and dulled off color. The ahi tartar, boasting a Caribbean spice rack and a sandwich cracker arrangement, was awkward, confusing, and unforgivably bland, and if there were any other standouts at the table there were no voices raised to proclaim them.
Drinks were empty and wallets wary by the time the entrees were delivered, but here the results were somewhat better. A "Moroccan" beef dish, featuring a sweet and slow-cooked chunk of soft roast, pushed a broad, pleasing flavor across the tongue, with the fibrous roast providing a wonderful mouth-feel. Strong hints of North African citrus and nuts pervaded the meat and sauce, and made this presentation the only true winner of the night. The other entree served, a Rajasthani Josh (Gosh?)resembling various bits of lamb stewed in lavender broth, was adequate but uninspired. One finished from hunger and habit rather than any eagerness to refresh the taste of the dish as it faded, and a peppermill was sorely lacking at the table for the benefit of this dull effort. Of the desserts there is little to say: The chocolate cake was well-advertised but came off the fork as darkly sweetened sawdust. The pumpkin cheesecake is almost certainly still in its beta stage, unless the dissonance between the sugared chevre frosting and the crumbly toffee crust was meant to resemble the sort of unhappy accidents that might occur when wagons from different parts of the ancient world crashed mixed their wares. "You got your coffee in my goat cheese!" "You got your goat cheese in my coffee!" If one likes a happy accident for dinner, there are better bets in DC, if Restaurant Week is any indication.
Have you dined at this restaurant? Share your own experience.
Visit Their Website
Visit Their Website
Reader Review Submitted by Tomrigid - February 2009
Restaurant Details
Address: 3125 M Street, NW Washington DC (202) 333-6122
Cuisine: Contemporary American with flavors from Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean
Mie N Yu Restaurant Review
It's Restaurant Week, that magical time when cheapskates get to sample the pricier fare of Washington's better eateries and DC's best chefs take on the challenge of impressing them with prix fixe values.
On tap last night was Georgetown's hip Silk Road caravanserai, Mie N Yu, and if they wanted to get another meal out of us they fell far short of the mark.
It's a busy place, full of pretty, stylish professionals whose voices bounce off the high, dark wooden beams of the bar and foyer space. The walls, adorned with decoration in keeping with the Central/South Asian theme, sprout bits of copper and curling snakes, Vedic and Mongol images that evoke a lively and chaotic time and place in keeping with the mood of the clientele. The restrooms overdo it a bit, with individual stalls set around a hitching-post arrangement of beaten copper basins and a solicitous memsahib pushing soap and paper towels. Nothing evokes exotic flavor in DC like tipping a man for handing you a paper towel. The trip to the back room upstairs felt like Scorsese's scene in the Copa from Goodfellas, a forever-jaunt through a live dioramic display of crowded rooms and large parties eating in such a welter of styles and settings that one almost expected a camel's nose to poke around the next corner.
Such experiences are rare in a DC restaurant, and rare is almost always good, but eventually the food must be judged and that's where Mie N Yu's pretty tapestry begins to fray.
Our wait-staff was well numbered, with three people in regular service to our party of seven, and I never had to ask for water. Our drinks were promptly delivered and nicely done, with tableside prep for one diner's vodka-white wine-lychee concoction, but the consensus ran to weak and small. The Dancing Shiva, an off-piste julep with an uncertain Hindu provenance, was watery and pale, with too little Bulleit for the proper bite, and one began to suspect a cut-cost mentality at work. The appetizers were promptly served, and though dispatched with equal haste by hungry guests they were roundly dismissed as warmed-over, poorly conceived, and essentially drab. The Afghan selection, resembling ground lamb dim-sum, had clearly been heat-lamping for some time, as the doughy pouches were stiff, cracked, and dulled off color. The ahi tartar, boasting a Caribbean spice rack and a sandwich cracker arrangement, was awkward, confusing, and unforgivably bland, and if there were any other standouts at the table there were no voices raised to proclaim them.
Drinks were empty and wallets wary by the time the entrees were delivered, but here the results were somewhat better. A "Moroccan" beef dish, featuring a sweet and slow-cooked chunk of soft roast, pushed a broad, pleasing flavor across the tongue, with the fibrous roast providing a wonderful mouth-feel. Strong hints of North African citrus and nuts pervaded the meat and sauce, and made this presentation the only true winner of the night. The other entree served, a Rajasthani Josh (Gosh?)resembling various bits of lamb stewed in lavender broth, was adequate but uninspired. One finished from hunger and habit rather than any eagerness to refresh the taste of the dish as it faded, and a peppermill was sorely lacking at the table for the benefit of this dull effort. Of the desserts there is little to say: The chocolate cake was well-advertised but came off the fork as darkly sweetened sawdust. The pumpkin cheesecake is almost certainly still in its beta stage, unless the dissonance between the sugared chevre frosting and the crumbly toffee crust was meant to resemble the sort of unhappy accidents that might occur when wagons from different parts of the ancient world crashed mixed their wares. "You got your coffee in my goat cheese!" "You got your goat cheese in my coffee!" If one likes a happy accident for dinner, there are better bets in DC, if Restaurant Week is any indication.
Have you dined at this restaurant? Share your own experience.
Visit Their Website
