Del Merei Grill...the name conjures images of...the Spanish-English online dictionary. What did it tell me? That Del Merei is Spanish for...the merei. A google search reveals Merei to be the name of a zorgmanager in the Netherlands and a commune in Romania. I have no idea what Zorgs are or why they need managing - I like to think they are oompa loompas mixed with the Star Trek: Next Generation 'Borg' race - but this would mean that Del Merei fills the sorely empty niche market for coerced Romanian cooking. Given how these Transylvanian commie dwarf-managers run their restaurant, I'd say 'Del Merei' really means 'good idea, poor execution'.
The meal started with average if overly salty appetizers, a solid if unimaginative salad, and a delicious sweet potato soup. Anything sweet potato is usually good, so compliments should go to nature rather than the chef. The wait between appetizer and dinner was forgiveably long but noticeable and in general the service was unobtrusive.
Del Merei's real draw is its grill option menu, which lets the customer select their meat, sauce, and two sides, including a side menu of mashed potato mix-ins. It's a great idea - let the customer make the meal they want. The mashed potatoes shone - my mash w/ goat cheese and sundried tomatoes was excellent. Unfortunately, the main course was unimpressive - the filet mignon was fatty and gristly and the chicken as dry as Amish country on Sunday. The duck was good though.
The biggest disappointment was the meat sauces. Rather than braise them on the meat or present them as a clever element of the dish's arrangment (which was otherwise elegant), they come in a pub-style metal thimble. It's one step up from the paper things you use for tartar sauce at Long John Silver's. Worse, the sauces did not taste good. It made me wonder if they'd bought them in bulk and were trying to dump them on unsuspecting customers. There are millions of meat sauces in the world to chose from - I guess someone has to stock the bad ones but in the future, in the spirit of the restaurant, I'd like an option of having good sauces IN ADDITION TO the bad ones.
Deserts were solid, the current rage for donut-based deserts getting a solid treatment. The menu's hidden gem is an obscenely cheap muscato. Indeed, the booze list was impressive and very reasonably priced. Del Merei might be better served as a bar. The zorgs could pitch in and sing little songs whenever someone passed out about the evils of drinking.
In sum, Del Merei is a good idea that needs a better meat chef and someone to buy up a bunch of sauces from the local market and sample the lot of them until they find some worth including. Until that time, I'll take my Romanian commune cuisine dollars elsewhere.
~ JK
So, as you read, the food was average at best, though the idea behind the restaurant is indeed a good one. The MDC forays into the District again this October, and hopefully, DC will serve up something better than Del Merei ...
