It was "aged duck bomba" at Arroz, a Spanish-Moroccan restaurant in the DC.
The eye-catching rice dish was the best part of the dinner! Ok, let's go back to the beginning of the dinner. We came to the restaurant first time. We were celebrating our wedding anniversary!
A Champagne toast to us!
There were many kinds of "plates" that were like tapas. We ordered four different plates before the bomba. First one was
charred baby carrots - goat lebne, dukkah crumble, chermoula vinaigrette. They all were supposed to be just carrots while there were various flavors and textures on the plate. Very interesting.
The second plate was
foie gras parfait - sesame butter, macerated stonefruit, burnt honey, ras el hanout doughnut. Who would think about seeing foie gras and sweet fresh doughnut together? I didn't realize any special effect from the odd combination although each item on the plate was delicious.
The third plate was
salt cod croquetas - ‘salt & vinegar,’ fried quail eggs, boquerones aioli. Watch out! The inside of these cute small balls were super steamy hot! Because of salt cod, they tasted quite salty, but with the perfectly cooked little sunny-side up and creamy aioli, they were just fine.
The fourth plate was
octopus a la plancha - spicy chickpea, saffron potato, harissa bouillon. Like the carrot plate, this also amused us with various flavors and textures. There wasn't many pieces of octopus, though. I liked the chickpeas. They were so crispy!
Then, it was the time for
aged duck bomba - confit leg, spicy fennel, burnt cucumber, red onion lebne. The duck breast was beautifully cooked. The rice with more shredded duck meat was rich and flavorful. Surprisingly, burnt and fresh cucumbers that were all over the rice were so refreshing and went very well with the rich duck and well-spiced savory rice. The bomba was definitely the highlight of the dinner!
Any dinner should complete with a dessert. Although we browsed their dessert menu and a couple of things were interesting, I was too full to have any after the series of rich dishes. When I was sadly giving up having any sweets, our server, who knew we were celebrating our anniversary, brought a couple of little cookies and a complimentary chocolate ice cream with a candle! How sweet!
I managed to find some space in my tummy for the cookie and ice cream, sharing with J.
It was a lovely evening. Glad we chose this place for the special occasion. Very Happy Anniversary!
