FarrahOlivia

During my almost three and a half weeks in the U.S. I did manage to go out to dinner once or twice. The biggest dining event was at FarrahOlivia in Old Towne Alexandria, Virginia. I was joined by my favorite fun dining friends, Martha and Janine.

I've spent quite a bit of time, too much time in fact, contemplating the overall experience. I finally decided that all that time validates my opinion that it was a mediocre experience, even though expectations were high.

The first disappointment was the service. We were promptly greeted on a Sunday evening and seated. Our waiter came over, answered some questions and with his cell phone ringing departed the table...never to return. He did eventually return to the dining room, but we sat ready to order for entirely too long before a new person arrived, nodded a brief apology and took our order.

The three of us ordered the seven course tasting menu, Janine and I had the vegetarian version with wine pairings, while Martha had the standard tasting menu, but only a glass of wine since she had volunteered to be the designated driver. Throughout the evening, the service remained a little too catch-as-catch-can, though it was certainly more attentive than our initial reception.

The food scored very high in creativity, but I found myself thinking, just because it's creative doesn't make it amazing, palate-pleasing or even fun. This was reinforced by the wine pairings. Janine and I have no qualms about going head-to-opinionated-head with each other so when our opinions align strongly we usually feel safe that we're in the right. The wine with either the second or third course was a total mis-match. It wasn't that we didn't like the wine, it was just plain wrong, clashing with the food on our palates making neither taste good. We noted that the leftover sips in our glasses went excellently with the course that followed. And, while the wines were all solid, like the service and the food, nothing wowed.

Frankly, I go to restaurants like FarrahOlivia to be wowed. All in all, I left feeling that there were many other restaurants I'd have preferred to have spent the evening.

I can't recommend it and I can't say that I'll give it a second chance, which if you've been reading my food entries in the blog you'll know is pretty extreme.