Last night, Jason and I wandered around the Kalorama neighborhood for a bit, taking pictures of the mansions and embassies as the sun was setting. Having worked up a little appetite, we made our way down Connecticut Ave. in the direction of the circle, to see if anything caught our fancy for dinner. I found myself mildly interested in Sette Osteria, but there seemed to be a bit of a crowd waiting to be seated, so we ventured onward. To my surprise, Dupont's new-ish bistro, Circa, didn't seem overly crowded, and to my further surprise, we were able to score a table on the patio, no problem.
Since it seemed like a sort of neighborhood wine bar/bistro place, I decided wine was the way to go, and ordered a glass of Chilean Malbec, which was quite good (and, as I would soon find out, its sharpness was a nice contract to the cheesy doughiness of pizza I would order). Jason got a formidable-looking cocktail called The Ultimate Mojito.
Circa's got a nice little cocktail list and a good wine list, but I must admit, I was mildly disappointed by the food menu. I guess, given the sophisticated palates of the surrounding clientele, I was expecting it to be a little bit more inventive, and it just seemed very...pedestrian. Crab cakes, mac & cheese, bistro steak, etc. Ah well, I suppose t'is better to do simpler things and do them well than to take on too much. They also probably get a lot of tourists walking in because of the location, and I suppose a really exotic menu might not do much to lure in casual passers-by.
In any case, I'd heard good things about the pizza, so I ordered the Capriciosso pizza - ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, mushroom, basil, and prosciutto. The pizza was pretty good, despite showing no signs of the aforementioned basil. In spite of my Chicagoan connections, I prefer thinner crust pizza, and Circa's was slightly thick for my liking. Hard to go wrong with prosciutto and lots of cheese though, so I did a pretty good number on it. Jason got the Free Range Chicken pizza, with sundried tomatoes, artichokes, chicken, mozzarella, and basil. I swiped a piece, and it was decent, though the sweetness of the tomatoes verged on cloying for me.
Service was sort of meh. I got the impression that our server was trying to emulate the understatedness of servers in really haute cuisine types of joints, but the end result was just sort of awkward. Think lots of weird silences and halted, barely audible responses. Overall, though, it's a fine place to grab a casual meal, if you're not expecting much in the way of culinary revelation. I think I'll have to give it a couple more tries to see if we caught it on sort of a blah night.
Good to know:
Circa is located at 1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW, practically right across the street from the Dupont Circle Metro stop on the Red Line. Just exit on the North side, and cross Connecticut as if you're going to Kramerbooks, but hang a quick left on Connecticut instead. It's right on the corner.
The atmosphere is super casual and anything goes. There were families in shorts, tee-shirts, and tennis shoes, and there were glitterati in sparkly dresses and strappy heels and both fit right in.
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Our waiter's real problem, as we discussed, was that he was rejected from the Serbian national basketball team. His deep-seated grudge inhibited his ability to be attentive and courteous.
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