Around the World in 80 Minutes
Published 7:00 am Monday, October 9, 2006
Some people are born to suit their namesMarjorie executive chef Tyler Boring must be glad he’s not one of them. His menu’s pan-continental cuisine, created under the tutelage of owner Donna Moodie, is as vivid and multihued as the restaurant’s newly remodeled interior.
Having split from her former husband and partner Marco Rulff, now sole owner of nearby Marco’s Supper Club, Moodie has reconfigured the Italian hideaway formerly known as Lush Life into a cobalt-walled haven, lined with recessed wine racks and presided over by a ceiling curtained with brilliantly shaded raw-silk Mondrian shapes. It’s a credit to the owner’s taste and experience that the color explosion doesn’t feel overdone; warm lighting makes it more inviting than jarring, and even the women’s bathroom seems made for relaxing in, with kelly green walls and a purple silk chaise longue placed enticingly near the doorway especially tempting after a full meal in the front room.
A late visit on a rainy Saturday in February yielded a near-empty room and lackluster energy; by mid-March the dining area was close to capacity on a Tuesday night and filled with the sound of laughter, calypso on the stereo, and clinking silverware. The music certainly matches many aspects of the menu, like Miss Marjorie’s Steel Drum Plantain Chips ($7), a high, crispy pile served with not enough of the delicious mango-laden guacamole, or the Steak Frites ($23), a succulent chimichurri-rubbed hanger steak served with plentiful (if exceedingly starchy) yucca fries and spicy banana ketchup.
Other items explore the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Asian subcontinent: steamed mussels in a light Thai broth of coconut, chiles, and cilantro ($10) perfect for bread dipping; grilled tofu spring rolls ($7), served with a nicely sharp soy dipping sauce, though the thick, chewy layers of their rice-paper wrappings tend to overwhelm the filling; and Sri Lankan curried eggplant ($15), another coconut-based dish with chile-roasted yams, basmati rice, and the fresh house-made chapatis.
Europe-centric dishes are treated with the same flamboyant hand as their more exotic menu counterparts, with a few mixed results: The fleur de sel roasted chicken ($17) isunsurprisingly, given the namerather heavy on the salt, but the accompanying baked golden apples, braised cabbage, and sour cherry jus complement each other beautifully. An earlier visit yielded a salad of spinach leaves, roasted golden beets, and grapefruit ($8) so tart it probably would have done better with a soft, mild cheese rather than the scanty fresh Parmesan shavings it got. The chef must have agreeda subsequent visit saw it paired with a much tastier creamy chèvre. The saffron butter pumpkin and potato tagine ($15), meanwhile, is an explosion of flavor and color, though one dining companion liked it best paired with the protein anchor of his tablemate’s steakafter a few bites, the tagine tends to come across more like an amalgamation of delicious sauces and less like a dish in itself.
Not so for the Southern-style bourbon-glazed pork rib ($18), tender, trimmed, and boneless in a wonderfully smoky-sweet sauce, piled over tart collard greens and a dense black-eyed pea cassoulet with a cob-shaped piece of light, spongy cornbread.
Another unqualified success: the tender Alaskan halibut with wok-seared vegetables and crispy chow mein noodles in a double black soy sauce ($22)but good luck getting the wiry nest of noodles in your mouth in any kind of sexy, sophisticated way.
FEW DISHES ON the menu could be mistaken for light spa fare, but even after salad, appetizer, and entrée, it’s hard to stay away from the dessert list if you have any kind of sweet tooth. For those feeling a little tight in the waist area, the tart-sweet blood orange sorbet is a nice compromise, though it’s even better paired with a scoop of the vanilla bean ice cream ($6), and the dense lemon chiffon cake with lemon curd and sliced strawberries ($7) is light enough to feel virtuous, even with its decadent swirl of edible gold foil.
Marjorie’s service can be a little absentmindedyou might wait a while for your first glass of water or bread platebut it’s always genuine and friendly, and the hostess’ wine recommendations are spot-on. There’s a familial, intimate feeling to the whole place you won’t find at the many conglomerate-owned restaurants in town; when servers and even the owner come over to ask how your meal was, it honestly seems to be because they want you to love what they love. The menu continues to evolve and change, as it should in such a young spacerecent additions include handmade baked ricotta ravioli and a quatro-formaggio pizza, and the steak is now served with creamy buttermilk mashed potatoes instead of the starch-heavy yucca fries. But such tweaks and adjustments seem nothing more than the fine-tuning necessary for a place that could, and should, be around for a while.
