Hocus Opus

We liked both our starters: eggplant patties ($9) and chopped salad ($9). They evidenced enough spunky innovation to keep our hackles smoothed. Casciato, a peripatetic Philadelphia boy who has worked with Rapoport in many guises, including at the much-loved and now-defunct Prezzo in Palm Beach Gardens, adds pine nuts, white raisins, and bread crumbs to his mashed eggplant so the dish resembles a fancy, vegetarian version of crab cakes. Served with truffle-oil aioli and a balsamic reduction, they're scrumptious — soft, sweet, with a mild bite from the eggplant, a rich mouthful with the aioli and vinegar. And the chopped salad certainly wasn't more of the same-old. Carrots, celery, purple cabbage, cucumber, sure. But the addition of seaweed salad, miso-ginger dressing, and big silky leaves of pale-green butter lettuce made this dish a happy event that I'd like to be able to reproduce at home, along with that summer martini. Also available: a yummy-sounding vegetarian minestrone with asparagus, baby spinach, and artichoke gnocchi; and truffled portobello tart with goat cheese and balsamic syrup.

We ordered the ruby trout ($23) just for the novelty of it. And duck with "wild rice," apricots, and pomegranate reduction. Ruby trout is a newish diversion in restaurants these days, basically farm-raised trout that's been fed with the same "naturally colored" fishmeal they give farmed salmon to turn it pink. It looks pretty, and at Opus 5, it's rolled in an almond crust, filleted open so it covers nearly the entire plate, and served with a buttery lemon and vanilla sauce alongside a few crisp asparagus spears. Everything is sublime — presentation, sauce, veggies — but for the fish, which is almost entirely flavorless, often the case with fish raised on meal. Not that you really notice when the trout is swirled around in plenty of that delicious vanilla butter lemon sauce, but even so, a good wild, plain ole white rainbow trout would have really made the difference.

I'm all about duck these days, so I was thrilled with my two little Maple Leaf Farms duck thighs and legs. They'd been lovingly roasted so that they were full of moisture and that dense, dark, mushroomy flavor. The skin could have been a mite crisper, but it was savory and luxuriously fatty. Paired with apricots and a reduction of pomegranate, a bit of sweet and sour to cut the fat, and a buttery pile of rice pilaf (not "wild rice" as advertised), it was fine eating.

We should have skipped dessert, maybe, but we wanted to stick around to watch the girls who had apparently been bussed in and/or bribed to provide the evening's entertainment. At any rate, a whole tableful of lovelies, all wearing the de rigueur uniform of halter-tops, jeans, and long straight hair cut precisely to mid-back, got up around 10:30 and danced with one another (in that semi-suggestive, so-not-gay way) to the tunes the DJ was spinning. It was a transparent attempt to draw horny bachelors in for a late-night drink at the bar or to persuade diners to party. We spooned up our Prezzo-(un)inspired apple tart with cinnamon ice cream (so not a bargain at $9) and our tired scoops of sorbet (raspberry or something, $8 — save your money). There's also a cheesecake lollipop tree with bubblegum whipped cream, which sounds hideous, but for all I know might be just the thing you're craving; and a coconut layer cake, which I very well could have loved. And although our waiter half-heartedly murmured something about why didn't we hang out and dance awhile, the prospect, in this now-rapidly emptying restaurant, was too weird and depressing. Rapoport has been quoted as saying he wants Opus 5 to have a South Beach-via-New York feel, but unlike those cities, the carriage steeds in Boca all turn into dormice at midnight, the glad rags become sad rags, and the town rolls over and plays dead. If it's a late-night party you're looking for, I suggest you point your chariot southward. But for an excellent, earlyish dinner in a refined and relaxed atmosphere, Opus 5 hits all the right notes.