The Oral 'O'

Don't you love expense account restaurants? I do. Today I took a source to lunch at Ceiba, the new darling of the Washington restaurant scene.

This nuevo Latin American restaurant is a stone's throw from the White House and U.S. Treasury, and its cool, modern decor and blue, elliptical dome ceiling is very calming.

The place was full of suits in mid-chow when my source and I sat down. It's a popular place: We could only get a 1:30 seating, which was fine, since both of us were working late.

Lunch was a bit of a performance. We both ordered the gazpacho, and the waiter set down two long narrow glass bowls with a scoop of tomato sorbet in the middle, a small mound of peekytoe crab ceviche at either end, and finished with a garnish of julienned greens. Then he picked up two small white pitchers and, with a flourish, poured the thick golden soup into the bowls.

The source and I talked business - who's going to the Democratic and Republican conventions from my newsroom and her company, blah, blah blah - but what I really wanted to do was to bend down my head close to the bowl, gaze greedily - almost pruriently - inside, and start gobbling the gazpacho.

After the soup, I ate a grilled octopus salad with a gazpacho vinaigrette and an olive aioli. At this point, my eyes started to glaze over from food lust.

The octupus was perfectly done, not too chewy, and the vinaigrette was piquant but smooth. Swooning inside, I kept a modicum of self-control, and nodded alertly whenever the source made a point.

We cleaned our plates, then shared a slice of chocolate cuban coffee cake with coconut ice cream and a passion fruit jarabe. Oh, heaven.

Not that I often go to power-lunch restaurants, mind you. When I'm on business trips I'm often so short on time during the day that I grab a bite at Subway or even forgo eating. During one trip to Kansas City, I ate at Blimpy's five days in a row for lunch just because it was convenient.