Food

Cheap Eats 2011: Cosmopolitan Grill

As soon as we saw something on the menu that needed to be ordered a day in advance, we wanted to know more. And after the server told us that those cheese, meat, or spinach boreks are made with hand-stretched phyllo dough, we wanted to come back.

In the meantime, there’s plenty to enjoy on this Balkan menu, which is heavy on meal-size salads and schnitzels. The trout salad is a grill-charred slab of whole fish simply dressed with chopped garlic, lemon, and olive oil. Jaeger schnitzel, which can be heard getting a good pounding in the kitchen after ordering, is a thin cut of veal topped with a homey mushroom-cream sauce and served with a mound of sautéed vegetables such as carrots and zucchini. Ask for plenty of house-made bread to sop up the juices from the cevapcici, hand-formed oblong sausages that resemble onion-spiked meatballs. If you still have room, an espresso and the chocolate-walnut-orange cake make for a nice European ending.

Also good: Bosnia Burger; house-made bread with sour-cream/yogurt/feta dip.

Open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner.

Ann Limpert
Executive Food Editor/Critic

Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.