At Zentan, a seesaw of a dining experience
Food, service and seating are all uneven

By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 25, 2009

You'd think five meals spread across four months would give a diner a pretty good idea of what to expect from a restaurant. In the case of Zentan, the new pan-Asian dining room in the mod Donovan House in Thomas Circle, I find myself alternately applauding and pooh-poohing the experience. A dinner so exciting you can't wait to try the cooking again might be followed by a lunch so middling that you wonder if the restaurant has changed hands since your last visit.

Zentan is up and down, down and up -- a head-scratcher.

Admittedly, the establishment got off to a bumpy start. It was originally scheduled to open in January as a place called Cha, with Boston chef Todd English directing the kitchen. When he pulled out of the deal, the owners of the hotel tapped another brand name, Susur Lee from Canada, who in June introduced Zentan and a menu of Asian raw fish dishes (crudo), fanciful salads and Mongolian lamb chops. (Though the Hong Kong-born maestro, whose imaginative East-West cooking I admired at the late Susur in Toronto, visits one week each month to check on his Washington team, his mug is always on display near the bar, where his cookbook is promoted.)

My first bites at Zentan, at a dinner in late July, left me craving more. Scallops singed from the wok and presented in a light sauce of ponzu and tomato vinaigrette revealed a nice balancing act of flavors, and my server's enthusiasm for what he was serving was infectious. "We're serving D.C.'s finest sushi," he crowed. "Put us to the test!" The buttery finger of raw yellowtail and the rich, roe-topped uni I tried were very good, if not the best; a pinch of yuzu paste on the yellowtail sets it apart from the crowd, however. Dry duck with doughy crepes were a letdown smoothed over that same evening by a crowd-pleaser: Singapore slaw, a fetching heap of 19 ingredients (according to the menu) shaped to look like a frizzy volcano in their big bowl and tossed tableside to the tune of a waiter's recitation of its many elements. Jicama, taro root, carrots, hazelnuts, pickled onion, tiny flowers and salted plum dressing, among other sensations, make for a rousing concert.

Jump to late September. Friends and I are gathered over a clumsy seafood roll -- was the name "brick roll" an inside joke? -- that looks as if a kindergartener had put the lobster, eel, scallop and rice together, and we're merely picking at the wan "Hunan style" pork ribs. Food is only part of the disappointment. Our table for four is so small that we have to surrender water glasses and condiments to make room for the incoming plates.

Return visits taught me that sushi is a better path than the rolls; salads tend to excel among the starters; lunch tends to be more chaotic than dinner; and fish tends to ace meat. Silken black cod draped with miso mustard sauce and garlicky chicken served with airy shrimp chips stand out among entrees, in part because they are the best edited. Lunch features bento boxes ($15 to $21) that are both pretty and satisfying. Juicy fried rock shrimp lashed with smoky chipotle mayonnaise shares its quarters with salmon crudo shocked with lime and cilantro, steamed rice and a julienned salad.

What you see isn't always what you get. One of the homeliest dishes on the menu is one of its most tasty. A clump of onions and mashed chickpeas bound in tempura and jazzed up with several fruity sauces is a bloomin' onion I could happily eat again. That garish red cocktail you see leaving the bar? It's a martini steeped with Thai chilies, fragrant with elderflower liqueur and splashed with cranberry juice. The drink's sweetness is delicate; its fire, potent. Don't bother with the beautiful bouquet of satays gathered in a deep bowl, however. The skewered shrimp smell faintly of iodine, the chicken suffers from the blahs, and the peanut and tamarind dips taste as sweet as candy. (As for the dozens of flickering candles suspended on a wood raft from the ceiling, look closely: The dance of light comes not from flames but from tiny bulbs inside the candles.)

Service is mixed. Some waiters are so distracted or absent that you have to lasso their colleagues to get another drink or add another dish to your order. Other servers bond, for better or worse, like Super Glue. After a companion and I listened to one of them go on and on about more dishes than either of us could possibly remember, my friend turned to me and said: "Who the hell wants a dissertation? I can read. I'm more interested in hearing about the restaurant."

Here's my brief: If you're sensitive to noise, ask to sit in a booth in the area beyond the earth-toned main dining room with its bare wood tabletops, tile-backed sushi bar and high ceilings that will make you wish for ear plugs. The three-sided booths allow occupants to catch the show up front but still hear one another -- if only the waiter will let us.

The Name Game: Zentan is a title that pokes fun at Washington, Susur Lee says. "It means 'spy' in Cantonese."