I had much the same experience. I was interviewing with Steve Rosenberg at KL Group, and he asked me a question about Java coding. "Here," I said, pulling out a sheaf of papers, "is the source code for a small Scheme interpreter I wrote in Java..."

He waved me off, that was good enough for him. The rest of the interview was then about cultural fit and ability to ship software on time without drama.

(And no, what I wrote is not in the same league as Clojure, much less the same ballpark. But it was good enough to demonstrate some basic understanding of Java and familiarity with undergraduate-level Computer Science.)