Sign of the Times: Peaceful Yin Yang Appears in Chef Morou Ouattara’s Soup
Posted by Stefanie Gans / Monday, January 9th, 2012
I haven’t seen a yin yang since I carved one into my 4th grade desk. I asked my editor, a mother of two, the last time she saw one: her 7 year old son “tattooed” one on his arm just this past weekend.
The coolness of a 7-year-old probably trumps my what’s-in-knowledge, and considering that Chef Morou Ouattara is the father of young children, the yin yang just might be coming back.
Morou’s Italian restaurant, Kora, features “painted soup,” a (delicious) tomato basil and (bland) eggplant curry soup swirled into a yin yang. But the idealic graphic doesn’t stem from his daughters. Maybe Ouattara’s a hippy.
“It’s a peaceful sign, right?” laughs the chef, a student of taekwondo and what he calls, “peaceful integration.” Ouattara likes the idea of the complimentary soups “living next to each other peacefully.”
Plus, he wanted to please his Crystal City customers. “People deserved more than one soup,” says the generous chef, adding the dish is “a little more for the buck.”
Kora joins into this month’s Restaurant Week fun, but with a bonus: for every two people at dinner, the team will throw in a free bottle of wine.
Photo by Stefanie Gans
Tags: food, Gut Check, Kora, Morou Ouattaras, Northern Virginia, Northern Virginia Magazine, NoVA, painted soup, Restaurant Week, Restaurant Week 2012, Restaurant Week Winter 2012, soup, Stefanie Gans, yin yang