washingtonpost.com: Coco Loco
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 | 810 7th St. NW (202) 289-2626 Hours of Operation and Prices Other Information |
Choosing the churrascaria is bound to leave you groaning. First you fill a plate from the vast cold buffet: salads of red beans, black beans, white beans, corn and all kinds of vegetables, plus the inevitable pasta salads. Then you try to resist overeating from the bowl of soft, fragrant coconut rice and the wedges of crisp, oven-roasted potato. At the same time, waiters roam the floor with skewers of meats: heavily herbed chicken sausage, chorizo that develops a slow burn as you eat it, intensely moist - and deliciously greasy - chicken thighs, juicy and rare beef round with enough flavor to justify its chewiness, mild and fatty pork ribs and turkey wrapped in bacon, which doesn't manage to keep it dry or make it tasty. Individually, the meats are flawed, but together their munificence compensates.
But that's not the best of Coco Loco. The long list of Mexican tapas - some large enough and priced high enough to be considered a meal - offers great originality and painful excess of choices. Even the obvious - quesadillas, chiles rellenos - are here re-created grandly. Wild mushroom quesadilla is a puffed, fried, golden brown triangle rather than the usual floppy pale tortilla. Its two sauces, one hot and one creamy mild, are elegant. Shrimp is served atop a round of black, squid-ink rice and a fluff of fried parsley. Homely zucchini becomes a spongy, sweetened custard halfway between entree and dessert. From a simple salad to a mini-paella, sausage to lobster, the tapas would take a month to fully investigate, and it would be a delicious month.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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