Tom Sietsema Finds Too Much on the Plate at PassionFish in Bethesda

In his quest to find the best food city in the country, Sietsema visits Houston. He’s surprised by its breadth of cuisines (even though it's one of the largest cities in the country), which includes outstanding Vietnamese, barbecue, seafood and several creative fine dining restaurants. [WaPo]

For his full review in the Washington Post, Tom Sietsema goes to the new location of PassionFish in Bethesda. He awards the seafood restaurant one and a half stars. He prefers simpler sushi to their towering combinations of spicy tuna, mango, avocado and tempura rock shrimp. He also thinks the regular dishes combine way too many ingredients. He writes:

"If PassionFish Bethesda were a movie, a smart director would be calling "cut!" every other dish. Some dishes make me wonder if the staff ever sat and ate it as customers would. I’m thinking of the herb-paved halibut in a moat of buttery potato puree made richer with a saffron-lobster sauce. The individual components are fine, but together? A couple bites in, I mentally raise a white flag." [WaPo]

Don Rockwell takes a risk going to Rose's Luxury at 8 p.m. and manages to get a seat at the bar. He's merely satisfied with the charred carrots with harissa, yogurt and pearl onions and calls the chitarra with caramelized cauliflower and sofrito "uninspired." He also finds problems with Vadouvan curry with sweet potato and caramelized banana. But he finally concludes:

"Rose’s Luxury is an excellent restaurant...and is certainly one of the Top 10-20 restaurants in the Washington, DC area – I say that as a high compliment and honor, even though people will read that and want to approach my house with pitchforks and torches, and burn it to the ground for committing heresy" [DR]

THE BLOGS: FooDCrave lucks out at Momofuku CCDC...Capital Cooking would go back to L’Homage Bistro Francais...Nest Café satisfies the DC Ladies.