Recap of Evelin's Birthday

I cut out of work a little bit early because I was riding Metro yesterday and I wanted to get home in time for us to go to dinner.

Sunday night, Evelin'd looked through the places offering Restaurant Week deals and nothing that popped up tickled her interest (at least nothing that had a 7:00 or so seating available), so we started thinking of places we hadn't been to yet that we'd wanted to try. ZΛYTINYΛ came up and Evelin opted for it.

Zaytinya is part of José Andrés's D.C. restaurant empire, along with Jaleo (one of our favorite places) and Café Atlántico. It's the same basic idea as at Jaleo, but with a Greek-Levantine twist. Instead of tapas, the menu features a variety of mezze, but the effect is the same.

Since my mother was in town, we were able to get a good number of mezze to try, and most of them were excellent: the manitaria saganaki (wild mushrooms, green onions and shallots topped with Kefalograviera cheese) and yiyavtec (giant beans in tomatoes with red onions) really stood out.

Since my mom had hung out at home while Evelin and I were at work (we both had projects going on that we couldn't skip out on), she made a chocolate cake for Evelin's birthday, so we'll have to wait for another trip to try Zaytinya's desserts.