Rooster & Owl makes magic

Chef Yuan Tang works nights, and his wife and business partner, Carey, keeps day hours. Throw in the couple’s passion for animals, and Rooster & Owl makes perfect sense as a name for their debut restaurant on 14th Street NW. The space isn’t much to look at, but the lack of scenery hardly matters when the food starts showing up. Baby carrots take on the flavor of good barbecue, aided and abetted by a scoop of velvety cornbread ice cream, a combination you might question until it hits your tongue. Meat takes a back seat here, deployed more as a garnish than a featured player, an exception being fried baby quail glazed with miso, honey and yuzu juice and splayed on creamy grits fired up with red pepper relish. Tuesday nights give diners a chance to decide what stays and what goes on the four-course script. That’s when Tang introduces four new dishes for $35, giving diners the option of eating works in progress for less than the usual price of admission. Crowd favorites from a recent audition included cucumbers accessorized with yuzu gel, feta cheese and ginger-garlic crumble, and salmon sporting a crisp coat of falafel. Think of them as public votes of confidence to the benefit of future diners. One thing is for certain: Rooster & Owl has animal magnetism.