After a year long hiatus from going out to eat at “fancy” places, Van and I decided to check out Bibiana in the Penn Quarter area of DC last Thursday.  It was extremely spur of the moment and not well worth it!  Since it’s been so long, I forgot what it felt like to eat a dinner with several courses over a several hours.  Looking back at it, I amaze myself with how often I was able to afford to eat like that.  Even with a shared charcuterie board and only one cocktail ordered, our bill still came out to more than $100.  Safe to say, now that I cut out eating like that on a regular basis, my wardrobe has expanded exponentially.

Ok, enough of that.  Now lets talk about Bibiana.

When I met up with Van in DC he mentioned going to Bibiana because he heard that their “black spaghetti” was worth checking out.  Having been out of the fancy food loop for some time, I had never heard of the place, so I immediately agree to go.  When we arrived, I quickly found out that they’re a sister restaurant to the very popular Rasika (another restaurant I have not been to yet).  From what I have gathered about this restaurant group, they’re all about upscaling Indian and American cuisines.  Bibiana however, is a more upscale Italian restaurant.  My only concern is that they spent so much time worrying about making it modern and contemporary that they forgot to make it Italian.  Even with the names of the food written in Italian, the food was far from it.

I enjoyed their charcutarie board that came with various pickled vegetables and Van’s Spaghetti Al Netro Di Seppia, or in simple terms, squid ink spaghetti.  But unfortunately that was it.  For my main entrée, I ordered their version of  bouillabaisse, Brodetto, per the servers suggestion.  However, I was not that impressed.  The broth was light and clear, but with all honesty it was not worth the money that I paid for it.  The rock fish that went with it was flavorless and the other seafood was underwhelming as well.  And as far as my dessert goes, the “crumbs” that came with it were too large and the texture was too hard to eat comfortably, though the flavor was on point.  When it comes down to it, I wish I had ordered everything that Van did, and passed over mine.

Perhaps I will go here again, but probably not.

www.bibianadc.com