University City Dining Days was July 15-29. In keeping with my history of procrastination, BB and I went on the last night to Distrito, one of Jose Garces' places.
Forgive me in advance for not adding accent marks to the Spanish. I'm just not that kind of motivated.
I should have had an inkling of what to expect after viewing the website's primary color scheme, but I wasn't prepared for the pink. Very, very pink. Pink walls, pink t-shirts, pink napkins, pink plaid chair coverings. You get the idea. The whole space is pretty kitschy, what with the wall of luchador masks, glittery tabletops, and the Beetle that is a booth, but it's (surprisingly) not overwhelming. It is, however, a loud space. I don't know if the place is always packed on a Thursday, but there weren't many free tables upstairs.
Dining Days, for those of you who may not know, is when restaurants in a specific area offer fixed price menus. Much like Restaurant Week in any given city. Distrito was offering three courses for $30. I will mention that Distrito's menu descriptions veered dangerously close to Elements-style, but was saved by adding slightly more information. Example: sangria sorbet, as opposed to simply sangria, or grape.
First course was ceviche; yellowtail and octopus. While I enjoyed the octopus more than I thought I would, the yellowtail was fantastic. Very citrusy with a slight, lingering burn. There was also refrieds (I tried them but really not my thing), and guacamole. The guac was tasty enough, but oddly salty and a little light on the lime. Bear in mind that I'm a little sensitive to saltiness, so what I call salty is probably perfectly acceptable to many other people (I'm looking at you, JR).
Second course was queso fundido with shredded duck and peppers, head-on shrimps with a raisiny sauce, rabbit with a pineapple mole, and diver scallops. The fundido was gooey and delicious, served with silver dollar tortillas. I'll admit that the shrimp eyeballs threw me off a bit, but I was a brave little soldier and just chopped them off. The spice rub on the shrimp was, again, a bit salty, but otherwise subtly spicy. There was no sucking of the head though. The salsa served with the scallops was fruity and yummy and the rabbit...well, the rabbit tasted like chicken. The mole was tasty.
Dessert was chocolate flan and tres leches cake. The flan was more of a bitter chocolate pudding, but it did have the spicing of Mexican hot chocolate. The tres leches was very good, with a brown sugar crunchy topping and tropical fruit accompaniment. Oh, and there were drinks: white sangria (white wine, orange liqueur, apricot brandy) for me, and Dock Street Rye IPA for BB. The sangria was good, but the beer was on the bitter side (OK, super bitter) and didn't have much character. Then again, I don't like IPAs, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me.
The bathroom situation is a little unique at Distrito. There are 4 individual stalls; 2 men and 2 women. Or so I believe. I didn't really inspect all the doors, so there could have been a handicapped stall I didn't notice. Anyway, there's the stalls, and then a central handwashing station that is in full view of the dining room. I'm wondering if it's Garces' way of shaming people into washing their hands. Even weirder, I was telling my coworker, Mo, about the bathroom situation, and she said the only other place she saw that type of set-up was at another Mex place. Is it a Latino thing? Can I apply a sterotype here?
There were many other things on the menu that looked worth trying, so I would like to go back at some point. There are some chef's tasting options which are probably worth checking out. How could I resist ordering a Frida Kahlo tasting?
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