By Todd Kliman – Washington City Paper
July 15, 2005

Fusion Reaction (excerpts)

“Dazzling you with a range of influence and a
wealth of allusion”

Take the name of owner David Winer’s Merkádo Kitchen—his third restaurant and second in the rapidly evolving Logan Circle. The clever substitution of a K in the Spanish word for “market” accomplishes two things: It alludes to the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado, underscoring the strong Asian presence on the menu, while also subtly alerting diners to the fact that, although the menu is loaded with such dishes as paella and seviche and nachos, this is most definitely not a Latin restaurant.

It’d be hard to come up with a more elegant term to convey the collision of cultures that makes up the restaurant

At this point, you’re probably expecting to cast your eyes on a predictable swipe at fusion. You’re not going to get it. For one thing, almost all cooking is a kind of fusion, the merging of disparate styles and methods that occurs as cultures mix and evolve. For another, when it’s good, fusion can be dazzlingly seductive. The reason it hasn’t faded from view like so many other food fads is that it can work wonders on the bored and the jaded and the preternaturally adventurous.

At Merkádo, where the mania for mélange extends even to the look—Japanese lanterns, ticking fans that recall a South American cafe—the mix-and-match approach is established from the outset. A basket of fried tortilla rounds is brought to the table, with specific instructions from one of the upbeat servers to add a few shakes of hot sauce “to bring it up,” followed by a few shakes of ponzu—a Japanese dipping sauce—on the next bite “to cool it down.”

Chef Edward Kim most recently presided over the well-regarded sushi restaurant Soigné in Baltimore, and the directness and simplicity that sushi imposes upon its practitioners were plainly evident in the tuna tartare: diced raw tuna slicked with sesame oil and molded into an upright bullet. Likewise, the Scallop Tiradito was clean and cool, a plate that would not be out of place at one of the city’s more interesting sushi bars. And a sweet-glazed salmon perched atop a mound of sticky rice, ringed with a gravy-like miso broth, and scattered with chopped green onion was so good as to remind you why chefs are tempted to experiment in the first place.

The servers (are) a bright, knowledgeable (&) efficient bunch.

“Great meals transport you”

Merkádo Kitchen, 1443 P St. NW, (202) 229-0018