Fast forward... Instead, Farrah Olivia will be reopening in the private dining room at Kora, the restaurant Ouattara co-owns in the Crystal City space that was once home to Roberto Donna's Bebo Trattoria and José Andrés' Oyamel. That's according to a tweet from Ouattara himself:

Due to popular demand, I have decided to reopen Farrah Olivia January 5, 2011 for 4 nights a week in [K]ora's private room.

Get those reservations booked!

Kora chef/co-owner Morou Ouattara has just launched a line of African spices as a nod both to his youth on the Ivory Coast and to his style of modern American cooking, last sampled at Farrah Olivia, which incorporates African ingredients.

Chef Morou, as he is known to his many followers, answered a few e-mail questions from Y&H about the spices, which will be sold under the Unikeats by Morou label and will be available both in jars and in larger bags. The edited Q&A is after the jump.

Why did you decide to launch a line of African spices?

Morou: People have always wondered where the background flavors of my dishes come from, and I have always thought that Africa has a lot more to offer, food trend wise, than what can be seen on the American market.

What spices will be available?

Morou: We will start with spices I used in my dishes at Farrah Olivia: white melon seeds also called egusi, African tail peppers similar to cubebs, alligator peppers, dried okra powder, smoked shrimp and smoked shrimp powder, and cassava couscous known as attiéké in the Ivory coast.

We will also carry our own label of tea and tea spice rubs.

Where will they be available?

Morou: All the spices will be available at Kora restaurant and on www.morou.com. The spices are available right now at Kora and will be online by January 1. The teas will follow two weeks later.

How much are the spices?

Morou: The jar goes from $3.75 to $5.50, depending on the spice and the pouch, from $8.50 to $16.75. [Y&H note: The full price list is below.]

How do you hope people will use the spices?

Morou: I hope people are creative with the spices. Most of the spices are flavor boosters that can be added to almost anything.

Are you including recipes with the packages?

Morou: Recipes will be included in shipped orders, but will also be found on www.morou.com.

Are African spices available anywhere else in the District? What are the spices best used for?

Morou: Some of the spices can be found in ethnic grocery stores in DC. The blends are best use in sauces, stews, and to season meat, poultry and fish.

Price List:

• Ground Smoked Shrimp, 1 oz. jar, $3.75
• Ground Melon Seeds, 1.5 oz. jar, $3.00
• African Black Pepper (Cubeb), 2 oz. jar, $5.50
• African Black Pepper, ground 2 oz. jar, $5.50
• Dried Okra Powder, 1 oz. jar, $3.50
• Kora Spice Mix, 1.5 oz. jar, $4.50
• Smoked Giant Shrimp, 4 oz. bag, $9.50
• Ground Smoked Shrimp, 8 oz. bag, $15.50
• Cassava Coucous, 14 oz. bag, $8.50
• Ground Melon Seeds, 8 oz. bag, $9
• Whole Melon Seeds, 8 oz. bag, $9
• Alligator Pepper, 4 oz. bag, $16.75
• African Black Pepper (Cubeb), 8 oz. bag, $15
• Dried Okra Powder, 6 oz. bag, $12.95
• Kora Spice Mix, 8 oz. bag, $12.75

Brunch is never my preferred way to sample a chef''s cooking, but I have to say, as far as brunches go, this is a dandy one. It's three courses for $20, and as for the fare...I'd call it Italian by way of Morou and Amadou Ouattara's fertile imaginations.

Or maybe by way of Wolfgang Puck, if you're talking about Kora's take on Spago's famous smoked salmon pizza. The Ouattaras' version is less glam, as you would expect from a place so far removed from El Lay. It's not as dense with slices of salmon, it features no caviar, and its crust isn't as sweet as the honey-drizzled dough Wolfie prefers. Yet all in all, it's a solid pie, though I do think the Kora pizzamaker could stand to leave the rounds in the oven a few seconds longer.

But the dish that really blew me away was something even further removed from Italian cooking. It was the eggplant gazpacho with "tomato pearls," a holdover from Morou Ouattara's previous restaurant, Farrah Olivia. This Spanish import is, in a word, spectacular. I could taste fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and eggplant, I guess, if I thought about it really hard. But I could taste about a 1,000 other ingredients, too, which made me curious about the recipe.

So I called Morou Ouattara, who graciously agreed to share the recipe for Y&H readers, who can enjoy it at home before summer comes to a close. The tomato pearls may be tricky to make, if only because you have to purchase agar, but I suspect you won't miss that garnish much if you can't find the ingredient. This soup packs plenty of flavor by itself.

The recipe follows the jump.

Kora's Eggplant Gazpacho

6 to 8 People

For the Gazpacho

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 teaspoon curry powder

2 sticks lemongrass

2 lime leaves

2 eggplants, peeled and chopped

3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1/2 gallon water

1/2 sourdough bread, cut and soaked in water

6 tomatoes, chopped

1 medium English cucumbers, peeled and roughly chopped

1 green pepper, peeled and roughly chopped

1 onion peeled and roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, roughly chopped

¼ cup white wine vinegar

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 sticks lemongrass

3 lime leaves

4 tablespoons chopped basil

4 drops of Tabasco or more if desired

salt to taste

sugar to taste

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Saute onion until translucent. Add eggplant and garlic, sauté for 5 minutes. Add lemongrass, lime leaves, curry powder, and water and cook until eggplant is soft. Remove from heat and let chill. When cold, puree eggplant mixture, soaked bread, chopped cucumber, onion, garlic, peppers, lemongrass, lime leaves, basil and vinegar, a small batch at the time. With motor running, slowly add oil in slow steady stream, then blend until fully incorporated and very smooth. Strain through medium-mesh sieve, pressing on solids to extract all liquid. Discard solids. Season to taste with the salt, Tabasco and sugar. Transfer gazpacho to airtight container and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.

For the Tomato Caviar

2 cups of cold oil

1 cup tomato juice

1 sprig rosemary, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

salt and sugar to taste

1 teaspoon agar

***1 teaspoons agar per cup of mixture

Mix the rosemary, garlic and tomato juice and let sit for 30 minutes. Strain chinois. Take ¼ cup of solution and set aside. Whisk agar in the remaining 3/4 cups of solution. Let sit for 10 minutes. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Transfer to a squeeze bottle and drop in cold oil.

Bibiana Osteria and Enoteca, the latest entrant in the area's escalating Italian Restaurant Wars, will indeed serve pizza, just like a number of other combatants in this wide-scale skirmish, including Potenza, Ristorante Posto, and Kora. But owner Ashok Bajaj doesn't want pies to define his new place at 1100 New York Ave. NW, which will have its soft opening on Monday, Sept. 7.

Y&H spoke with Bajaj yesterday, and he told me that chef Nicholas Stefanelli's offerings will be purely regional Italian, none of this Italian-American silliness that creeps into some menus around town. The pastas, the owner added, would be made in-house, with prices ranging from around $14 to $20. Pizza will also be available, he said, but only at lunch and only at the lounge during dinner service.

So why downplay the pie?

Bajaj indicated that it's a matter of principle. He was envisioning Bibiana well before downtown D.C. became a competitive mecca for Italian dining — well before Potenza, Posto, and Siroc open their doors or even before Enzo Fargione transformed Teatro Goldoni into a mandatory destination. The owner has invested a ton of money into the project, both for talent and for the "high-style Milano design" of the restaurant itself, just to make sure Bibiana fits the Ashok Bajaj profile: an elegant downtown spot that can appeal to the fat cats and the alley cats (read: cash-strapped youth) alike.

"I don't want it to be known as a pizza joint," Bajaj said.

We here at Young & Hungry Central are always on the cutting-edge of new media and technology, which is just a clever way of saying that we, too, can steal shit from Twitter and pass it along as news.  Here's the latest from the 21st Century version of the AP wire:

From chef Morou Ouattara via his @morou account:

• kora is still not open. I am on my way to the restaurant to meet the building inspector. I missed him yesterday due to traffic. 7:19 AM Aug 6th from web
• kora's opening, once again has been delayed until next week. about 7 hours ago from web
• more imspections today. at least traffic is not bad at all. about 6 hours ago from web

From the guys at Capital City Diner via their @capcitydiner account:

• City approved our foundation today. We'll resubmit plans to @dcra probably next week with changes from their input received last week. 3:03 PM Aug 5th from web
• http://twitpic.com/cj5ne – Best diner cash register ever? We think so. So heavy no one can steal it! 2:23 PM Aug 2nd from TwitPic
• The unlicensed architect who scammed us is still out there...BEWARE!   about 21 hours ago from web

The folks at the veg- and vegan-friendly Science Club have a special need that they're trying to satisfy via @ScienceClub:

• Do you wanna tell 300+ppl what to do, and watch them comply? Science needs doorman tonight 6pm-3am ($100) Thx!! 33 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Serious Eats New York passes along a New York Times item via @seriouseatsny about a certain Georgetown Prep grad who's made it big in the Big Apple:

• BREAKING NEWS: Momofuku comes to Midtown this fall http://bit.ly/gIKXD

Somehow any piece of breaking news on the local food/restaurant front seems small and insignificant compared to the reports coming out of Mexico: Pig farming will kill us all!

OK, I exaggerate: The swine flu outbreak is merely, according to the World Health Organization, a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern." Capital letters are never good; it's a pronoun just waiting to attach itself to something nasty. WHO also told reporters the virus has pandemic "potential," a word usually filled with so much hope and promise, like when discussing the upside of the 'Skins first-round draft choice. Y&H is officially worried.

• Eating Liberally asks Marion Nestle if we shouldn't be concerned that Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, could be taken over by a massive Chinese company owned by the state, the same folks who brought us so many other tainted food products. After all, EL notes, Mexican officials believe the swine flu may be linked to the "clouds of flies that thrive in the manure lagoons of the Smithfield-owned industrial hog operations in Vera Cruz."

More news following the jump.

• Tom Sietsema at the Post reports that Mark Furstenberg will be opening a new restaurant this summer dedicated to street foods from around the world.
• Morou Ouattara sent out an e-mail yesterday, saying that Farrah Olivia will not be closing on April 29 as previously reported. Balducci's, the current landlord for Ouattara, has "allowed us to remain open while they figure out what is best for all parties concerned, in regards to our current location."
• The FDA warns not to eat those alfalfa sprouts! There's a salmonella outbreak tied to them.
• And perhaps the most important piece of news today: You can't get swine flu from eating pork.

Photo by Olddanb

Morou: Hit him with your best question

Given the apparently precarious nature of our local dining scene, we should all jump at the chance to poke and prod at one of the area's premier chefs, Morou Ouattara, who recently told the Washingtonian's Todd Kliman that he'll be pulling the plug on Farrah Olivia in Old Town on April 29.

And now we have the chance: Ouattara will be hosting today's 11 a.m. edition of Grill Warren at Northern Virginia magazine.

Not that Y&H is asking you to do his work, but here's what I'd want to know, if I got a chance to grill Morou:

• Was Old Town the right market for your brand of modern cooking or was it just the wrong address in Old Town? Or both?
• Does the current economy make it practically impossible to run a true, high-end restaurant?
• How do you feel about working with your brother at the planned new restaurant/bar/lounge in Crystal City? No sibling rivalry?
• Do you think the D.C. market is open right now for another go at Farrah Olivia? Or do you think you should wait to reopen the restaurant when the economy improves?

Following the closing of Roberto Donna's Bebo Trattoria and the impending closure of Yannick Cam's Le Paradou, news has broken of two more shutterings on the local restaurant scene.

• Todd Kliman at the Washingtonian reports this afternoon that Farrah Olivia, chef Morou Ouattara's Old Town outpost of modern American cooking, will be closing its doors on April 29 after failing to negotiate a new lease with the landlord, Balducci's, which is not immune to this closing business either. Kliman notes that Ouattara will be opening a restaurant/bar/lounge in Crystal City this summer and has plans to, eventually, reprise Farrah in downtown D.C.
• The good members of DonRockwell.com inform us that Mark and Orlando's, just off Dupont Circle, will be closing at the end of April, which elicited this response from the board's namesake founder: "This isn't fair."

Y&H wishes these fine restaurateurs good luck in the future. He also thinks we can officially stop saying that D.C. is recession-proof.