washingtonpost.com: Hibiscus Cafe

Publish date: 2024-08-08
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|3401 K St. NW
(202) 965-7170

Hours of Operation and Prices
Dinner: T-Th 6-11, F-Sat 6-midnight
Closed: Sun-M
Entrees: $11.50-$27.50

Other Information
• All major credit cards
• Dress: casual
• Reservations recommended
• Street parking
• Handicapped Accessible

Even after years, diners at Hibiscus Cafe tell owner Jimmie Banks how they miss Fish, Wings & Tings, his now-closed Adams-Morgan restaurant. Me, too. It was more convenient than Hibiscus, bargain-priced and open for lunch. Now fans have to seek chef Sharon Banks' cooking in a far corner of Georgetown. It's still the best Caribbean food in town, though, and the parking is easy.

More important, the two-level dining room, with neon art and electric colors, is every bit as much fun as the old space. And Sharon's larder has moved upscale to quail, rack of lamb, filet mignon and lobster (served with shrimp in a spicy coconut butter sauce). Her menu is as vibrant as ever, composed of adventurous adaptations of Jamaican classics with her own personal touch. Caribbean creole sauces are teamed with seafood and modern tri-color pasta or with blackened fish. Jerk seasonings are employed not just on chicken wings but on grilled quail and chicken salad with mango vinaigrette. Curry spices flavor sauteed vegetables or shrimp. Scotch bonnet peppers are a regular, but this is not food that sears the mouth: It's so refined that you can taste the salmon under its gingered black beans and mango vinaigrette, and the smoked lamb chops are delicate in their midnight-dark sauce.

I'd be happy to spend an evening just nibbling from an appetizer platter: the Jamaican bread called bake, lightened and stuffed with slices of shark, accompanied by pineapple chutney (fabulous), whole head-on fresh shrimp marinated with scotch bonnet peppers (easily among the best shrimp in town), seafood fritters that are an uptown version of Caribbean conch fritters (terrific), fire-eating jerk buffalo wings, crisp fried calamari and delicate rock shrimp tempura with a scotch bonnet dipping sauce. This is a meal (and a bargain). The only problem is, you'll probably need to make another trip for dessert.

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