2007-05-04 Capital gains: D. C. s dining scene has come of age

Dinner for two usd. 170) is by now an institution, a restaurant mentioned in the same breath as many of the countrys finest. A few years after opening it in Georgetown as an outlying appendage of his Los Angeles-based Cal-French empire, chef Michel Richard ditched the West Coast to stay in D. C. full-time. The dining room, with its woozy color-shifting glass wall, is unrecognizable from my days there searing fish. But the high-wattage clientele is still the same (evidenced by the Secret Service entourage spied in the driveway). The waiters, in black suits and crisp white shirts, are as properly stiff as any at JFKs favorite French spots, but Citronelle is not your grandfathers French restaurant. Richards food is as vivacious as ever: bracing creations like cuttlefish fashioned into "fettuccine" and showered in trout eggs

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The meal began in a rush of tiny tastes. A chocolate truffle oozed foie gras. New-wave bar snacks -- pork rinds in maple syrup, sweet lotus chips in star-anise dust -- gave way, in a spray-bottle spritz of mojito, to an endless procession of astonishing bites. What were those specks on pineapple slices that crackled at the back of the mouth Pop Rocks Riceless sushi rolls were filled with blue