Agora Restaurant

Hi friends! As promised, I have a second restaurant review for you. Last Tuesday I ate at Agora Restaurant in the Dupont Circle area of Washington DC. Agora is a mediterranean restaurant focusing on Greek and Turkish food.

I went with my coworkers Mike and Julia who were very excited to discover that I write a blog and wanted to be a part of my post so here they are :)

I started out the night with a glass of riesling.

Our waiter followed with the pita bread and an olive tepenade dip. The bread was hot right out of the oven and it was like soft pillows of heaven. I wish I could buy pitas like this at the grocery store.

Agora is a tapas style restaurant, so it is recommended that you order at least 2 plates per person. The three of us decided to order a few appetizers to start. The first was the Cacik, which is a yogurt, cucumber, dill, vinegar, garlic, and olive oil dip.


















Friends, there are NO WORDS. I wanted to take a bath in this dip. If you ever find yourself at Agora, you MUST order this dip. I practically saw the future. The second appetizer we ordered was the Kasar, which is an aged sheep milk cheese served with an orange marmelade.

The marmelade was delicious, but I did not love the cheese. The flavor was much milder than I had expected. The third and final appetizer we selected was the Imam Biyaldi, which is stuffed eggplant with onions, tomatos, pine nuts, and garlic.

This dish had a lot of flavor, but I didn't love it. I did like the different textures, however. For the first of my two entrees, I ordered the Kibbeh, which is ground beef and bulgur dumplings, stuffed with ground beef, lamb, almonds and pine nuts over yoghurt sauce.

The Kibbeh was fantastic. The tart yoghurt sauce with the fried dumplings was a party in my mouth...literally. Often with ground meat inside of something else I get the sensation that I am eating cat food, but not in this case. I would most certainly order this again.

Agora has a selection of flat breads that I read good things about on Yelp, so of course that had to be my second entree. I decided on the Peynirli Pide, which is a wood fired flat bread stuffed with feta and kasar cheese and tomatoes.

By the time I got my flat bread I was starting to feel pretty full, but once the waiter set the flat bread down in front of me, I knew I would find room. This dish did not disappoint in any way. I was too full to finish it, but I really really tried. The sharpness of the feta with the smoothness of the kasar cheese was perfect.

Of course, no meal is complete without dessert. After very careful consideration (it's so hard to pass up baklava) I ordered the walnut stuffed apricots. The apricots were drizzled with caramel on top of a bed of sweet cream frosting.

This I managed to finish. There was no way I was not going to finish it. I also scooped up every last drop of that frosting too...so as you can tell I didn't like it at all ;)

Clearly, the dairy experiment when RIGHT out the window for this meal. I can honestly say it's one of the best meals I've had and I can't wait to go back the next time I'm in DC.

Do you like mediterranean food? What is your favorite dish?