2009 Fall Dining Guide

By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009

Everything at this upscale Mexican restaurant works to make your day better than when you walked in. Hear the bouncy music? See the big jars of agua fresca, bright with juice from watermelons, cantaloupes and passion fruit? Just looking at the refreshments makes me feel as if I'm on vacation. A swarm of tin butterflies floats above the heads of revelers in the small orange-and-gold main dining room, underscoring the theme: Oyamel pays homage to the fir forests in central Mexico, the winter hideaway of millions of monarchs. The menu encourages you to graze beyond familiar borders. Salads run to slightly chewy baby cactus tossed with tomatoes, minced onions and lime juice. In addition to tacos made with shredded chicken and barbecued pork, there are tortillas wrapped around goat and grasshoppers (try 'em, you'll like 'em). The seviches, whipped up at a bar of their own, are sublime; my latest addiction involves pinrolls of blue marlin alternating with grapefruit segments and garnished with coins of jalapeno and threads of fresh mint. Here and there, Oyamel reminds us it's not perfect. The lounge stools are frayed, and the chips sometimes taste less than fresh. Yet whenever I need a pick-me-up, I tend to gravitate to this colorful party in Penn Quarter.