When not eating at home, I enjoy eating at the bevy of restaurants in the DC metro area.During the week of January 17th, we’re fortunate to experience Restaurant Week.I met up with a group of my girlfriends to enjoy Café Atlantico.A few of us of had been there in the past and for the others, it was their 1st time.This wonderful restaurant serves Latino cuisine and is owned by Chef Jose Andres.He is a chef who has made his name in the DC area as well as nationally and internationally. The restaurant is located in the Chinatown area and in honor of the usual dim sum that happens on the weekend in the nearby Chinese restaurants, they serve their version of dim sum for Sunday brunch! I’m a big fan of Chef Andres’ many restaurants and he has a PBS show called, “Made in Spain”.
To kick off our gathering, we ordered a guacamole to share, which is made tableside with your preference of heat.We like it spicy and quickly devoured it along with the tortilla chips.Since it was restaurant week, there was a special menu consisting of 3 courses for $20.11.We had a pescatarian in our midst and there were options for her within the special menu.
For the appetizer, we decided on conch fritters and sunchoke soup
Conch fritters
The finished product
Soup before they poured the broth
For our entrees, we decided on the trout and the open face jerk chicken sandwich:
Open face jerk chicken sandwich
Trout
For dessert, we had the option of sorbet or a warm chocolate cake. Although I enjoy chocolate, I really enjoy desserts that have citrus origins. My choices for the sorbet were passionfruit and coconut and I could also choose to get a little of both and that’s what I did!
Coconut and passionfruit sorbet
Warm Chocolate Cake w Banana Cream
The restaurant also makes wonderful cocktails both with alcohol and without. I chose to go with an alcoholic beverage and ordered a classic mojito while some of my friends decided on an agua fresca, a refreshing beverage sometimes made with fruit, cereals and/or seeds mixed with sugar and water. That day’s selection was a mango passionfruit. If it was 80 degrees, I would have happily ordered 2 but since it was below freezing, I was savoring my mojito!
Agua fresca
Classic Mojito
After all of that eating, we all felt like it was time for a nap! What are some of your favorite restaurants??
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