Tag Archives: Arlington

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Silver Fountain and DC Dim Sum in General

Thumbing through some of the mental notes about the eating life in beloved DC, it occurred suddenly that I have criminally neglected Dim Sum.  Of course, Dim Sum is the original brunch – where Chinese restaurant provides many small plates etc etc etc.  Obviously, we don’t live in New York – so the pickings are destined to be a little slim.  That said, recently when we visited Silver Fountain in Silver Spring, we stumbled upon what was pretty clearly my favorite Dim Sum experience.  But I’m not going to put a full review here – it’s Dim Sum, and at Silver Fountain ALL of the major blocking and tackling elements were good (shu mai, pork buns, congee, turnip cake) – but sort of work through the major elements that have shaped my view of the discipline in the area.

  • Obviously, DC proper is worthless for a real get your hands dirty experience.  Ping Pong Dim Sum in Chinatown is good, but also very gringo-focused.  The food is good, but on the pricey side, and meant to provide the motif of dim sum, but when you sit in a douchey DC bar decor, you know that this is a fancypants impostor.
  • A&J in Rockville has the Northern Chinese dim sum.  I’ve been twice – well once to their Virginia location – and liked it both times.  That said, the dim sum items were on a menu, and not on carts hurtling through the restaurant.  That is a bit of a bummer.  In a related story, I am shallow.
  • This starts veering me towards what had been our standby for years – China Garden on Rosslyn, located in the ABC 7 building.  This screamed dim sum to me – the very Chinese crowd, the enormous line after Church, the carts and the indecipherable markings as items are ordered.  It used to be uniformly excellent but in recent years it has slipped.  Things like the sticky rice end up having too much Chinese sausage and end up wallpapering over a less appealing texture.  On this side of the river, it is still the best – but the craving to do it has ceased mostly.
  • Silver Fortune we were lucky to get there for opening as the line exploded after we sat down.  The carts were in full force here too.  But between this place and China Garden, the food was just better, every dumpling, every leaf wrapped sticky rice, every Chinese broccoli, it all works.  The service was – well I would not say “spotty” but it felt weird to wait so long for the shu mai to show up – but once it did, order was restored.
  • Obviously, like any Sunday brunch, this really benefits from being with friends.  It is very much a communal operation as people stop carts and take stuff and you get to sample tons of things.  It is a slow, steady trip towards a serious food coma.
  • And no, I still can’t do Chicken’s Feet.
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Hunan Gate (Huh? – It’s Not Gringo??!!)

Well, well – we meet again Hunan Gate.  This is the first time I’ve reviewed a place twice – but really it is like two restaurants?  How is this so?  Indeed, I can remember a while back when I made a somewhat condescending journey to a plain jane Chinese place.  I can almost picture it now:

Wow!  It has been a long time since I had been to an honest to goodness American-Chinese place.  Sichuan?  Check.  Shabu-shabu?  Check.  Stuff with black bean sauce all over it that looks an awful lot like spaghetti and asphalt?  Check.  But the General’s Chicken and Beef and Broccoli bit?  Actually, it had been a longer time than I could ever remember.  After a day of gaming in the Ballston area, we decided to check out Hunan Gate in Ballston – I am still not precisely sure why.  One of my friends said this was one of the better places in the area – and one of my Noo Yawker friends pontificated about how spoiled he was compared to here.  Personally, if the menu does not have at least one somewhat frightening item on it, it’s all the same.

Clearly, I have you – intrepid reader – excited and aroused at the possibility of Hunan Gate – with all this snark and elitist claptrap.  Oh, there are no chili crabs!  But – putting aside the obvious – this place actually is pretty solid as far as these things go.  The hot and sour soup – actually was both.  It was clearly a pretty conventional hot and sour soup – but in a way that is educational.  It is the sort of the blocking and tackling of American Chinese – if the hot and sour soup sucks, chances are the rest joins in the suckitude.  The entree I ordered was the twice cooked duck – unfortunately given how tough the duck was, it was cooked perhaps one time too many.  I understand the twice cooked thing (once for the sear, once to actually cook the meat).  Alas, I was hoping for it to have kick (being that it was starred on the menu) but it didn’t.  The sesame chicken had similar non-spicy issues (more sweet than anything).  However the kung-pao chicken had solid depth and heat considering.  The broccoli with garlic sauce though was tasty.

Ultimately Hunan Gate is a very solid choice for this sort of thing – although I still like Panda Bowl if I EVER wanted this stuff delivered.  The review might seem lukewarm – but let’s face it, we were kind of destined to tepidness.  I miss Hong Kong Palace.

Funny thing is, you go into the restuarant like we did, and it’s still the same old deal.  The old man who seated us gave us the standard menu.  But then on the advice of the place to get advice on these sorts of things, we waved frantically and said “Manchurian, special menu”.  The man lit up and smiled and then got us a much more colorful menu with pictures and names which were kind of not descriptive at all.  I’ve never had Manchurian food – or at least I would not recognize it as such, but like the shifted bookshelf that leads to the Batcave, we have been transported into a totally different experience than what we had in our previous journey.

We started with the shredded potato salad – a nice touch, especially served with the pickled vegetables they served on the side.  But the star of the appetizer portion was the pan fried chive dumplings – which were actually freakin enormous.  It is really more a chive empanada – but the chive flavor really really shines through but not obnoxiously.  Our entree choice was the Chicken and Mushroom stew (see, so descriptive).  The stew is highlighted by the clear noodles which are a little chewier texturewise but work.  But the broth is seasoned well, lot of star anise and the chicken was incredibly tender, although a little less chunky than you’d want.  The baby bok choy was solidly prepared and of good quality.  In any case – I am not sure if this is the menu I’d go back to, but there is a ton of potential here and more than enough reason to go back as a rotation spot mealwise.  It’s nice to see that there’s more to life than moo goo gai pan.

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District Taco

Well, clearly somebody likes District Taco.  Indeed, a lot of somebodies judging by the swaths of humanity whenever I’ve tried to get food here.  After seeing the crowds and hearing the stark raving gushing from friends of mine, you would expect District Taco to have been an eye opener.  There was once darkness but now I can see – stuff like that.  However, when considering El Charrito – our standard bearer for this sort of thing – District Taco works out as a pretty massive disappointment, sort of the difference between visiting the Grand Canyon and staring at a picture of the Grand Canyon.  Sure, the picture’s nice – and it resembles the thing, but when you sit on the ledge and stare into the ravine … come on now.

When I did get a shot at going to District Taco, my main investment was in the Burrito Mojado, which was a meat burrito of some ilk (I went with barbacoa – just like at Chipotle, the best of the meats in theory), covered with salsa chile black beans, cheese and such – basically turning a burrito into something more like an enchilada.  It was interesting since the salsa was allegedly authentic and “Yucatan Spicy” whatever that means.  Personally, it looked a lot like the Yucatan people liked chile con carne by what the salsa chile was.  Also the heat level was really relatively minor – and so you are left with a chile covered burrito the size of my head.  The beef was surprisingly muted flavorwise for something like a barbacoa.  Similarly the life partner’s spin with chicken and carnitas tacos were similarly unremarkable.  In all of these cases too, spicy salsa was in a bar a la chipotle with a variety of toppings of one’s choosing.  This is all well and good, but alas – you don’t really get much of a flavor of the enterprise and not much differentiation with stuff like California Tortilla (granted it is much much better than THAT).  El Charrito with the corn tortillas and more authentic seasoning and meat selection just blows it away.

Now is District Taco paying a sin here for not being the best taqueria I know?  I suppose it is – I can’t say that it’s BAD in any meaningful sense.  But on the other side, can I sit here and give it rarefied hype for POSSIBLY being better than Chipotle?  I like Chipotle – quite a bit actually – but if the goal is to justify the hype and legend of District Taco, simply being a Chipotle peer doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

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Thai Square

Once upon a time my friend Andrew from school days gone by theorized a product lifecycle.  First, it’s disgusting (Who’d eat THAT??!!), trendy (wow, it says in the society pages, that people are eating this), mass produced (you can get it pretty easily in cities at least) and then a commodity (in your supermarket freezer section!).  Obviously Thai food at this point is a commodity.  Who doesn’t know Pad Thai, Green Curry, Tom Yum – it is a cliche at this point.  As such, Thai is sort of depressing to consider in the santizied, Americanized version of it.  Another restaurant, another set of drunken noodles and more basil.  Like getting beef and broccoli, you can laud execution, but the inspiration is just about nil.

So when an authentic Thai place pops up, or at least alleged Thai pops up, I go in with a sinking heart.  In the case of Thai Square in South Arlington, such pessimism is gobsmackingly unfounded.  We went here for a late-ish dinner while waiting for Marc Maron’s standup show to begin – I’d read some good reviews, but it’s Thai – so who cares, right?  However, from the very first bite of the papaya salad to the Floating Market Soup which I cannot discuss rationally, this is as good a Thai restaurant as I have ever been to – and with its relatively modest price point, perhaps the best value proposition.  The combination of spice, complexity and real finesse with flavors makes this restaurant experience as good as you can get in Arlington.

The first impression upon arriving here is that – well, it’s divey, or at least storefronty.  That said, while the outside lacks sex appeal, the inside is tastefully done – Yelp indicated that there was a renovation done on the space.  The menu itself is fairly busy – a combination of your typical Thai standbys, but I wanted to aim a bit higher, so we looked at some of the more authentic pieces.  The papaya salad, as we noted, came out first.  This was shredded green papaya with a really hot, but subtle chili-lime juice combination.  The acid and salad combination was compulsively noshable, and the heat sneaks up on you.  It is a really great first course.  For our entrees, we got the Green Shrimp Curry and the Floating Market Soup.  I know, I mentioned at the outset of this piece that the Green Curry was a Thai cliche, and so it is.  But here is one unusually good version – as the sauce was so smooth with subtle flavors, not just an avalanche of coconut milk.  I could eat it all day.  But the real star was the Floating Market Soup.  This is a meatball and beef soup in an unctuous beef broth.  The flavors are hard to discuss – just pure beefiness.  It had the feel of a braised beef soup or a really good  – hey words fail here.  The heat is solid, but does not overpower the show at all, and the noodles are cooked nicely.  But the real star was in its presentation, where they put a few pork rinds on top – which end up functioning like the bestest croutons on earth (vegans vomit now).

Pretty clearly we’ll be going back to this place again.. I’m not sure how many hankerings I’ll have for Thai vs Sichuan or Lao, but if this is Thai, sign me up.  I could use more Floating Market Soup now, come to think of it.

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Ravi Kabob I

What happened??!!  Ravi Kabob, Arlington’s kabob powerhouse for as long as I’ve lived here, was one of the surest things in the area.  There are the two locations, on opposite sides of Glebe Road.  Recently I had the chance to take some take away from the original location.  Considering that this was Ramadan – the expectation were high – and the place was certainly bustling.  Customarily I don’t look at them not having any Chapli Kabob as a red flag – they don’t seem to carry too many of them around.  However, this time was different.

After the Chapli disappointment, I ordered the lamb kabob – basic blocking and tackling for these sorts of deals.  To go with the typical accoutrements, I got a samosa and a salt lassi.  The lamb was good.  The meat was well cooked and seasoned, and paired nicely with the traditional yogurt sauce.  And that is the extent of the good things I can say.  It is weird to rant and rave about a restaurant’s terribleness when the meat was actually done well, but it feels like Ravi Kabob was content with just satisfactorily checking the box.  The samosa was kept at much too low a temperature.  Combined with the lack of seasoning, it might have very well been the worst samosa ever made.  The chickpeas in gravy (I’d call it masala, I don’t know what you’d call it) also seemed to cleverly lack seasoning of any sort.  It just provided some texture with the rice and meat, but it brought nothing to the table otherwise.  It was unusually bad.  The salt lassi fortunately was decent.

In some ways, the review might be unnecessarily harsh.  But I have very high expectations here, and Ravi Kabob has usually delivered.  Sadly, this time was a crazy misfire – bad enough that one wonders if there is a deeper underlying flaw.

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Hunan Gate

Wow!  It has been a long time since I had been to an honest to goodness American-Chinese place.  Sichuan?  Check.  Shabu-shabu?  Check.  Stuff with black bean sauce all over it that looks an awful lot like spaghetti and asphalt?  Check.  But the General’s Chicken and Beef and Broccoli bit?  Actually, it had been a longer time than I could ever remember.  After a day of gaming in the Ballston area, we decided to check out Hunan Gate in Ballston – I am still not precisely sure why.  One of my friends said this was one of the better places in the area – and one of my Noo Yawker friends pontificated about how spoiled he was compared to here.  Personally, if the menu does not have at least one somewhat frightening item on it, it’s all the same.

Clearly, I have you – intrepid reader – excited and aroused at the possibility of Hunan Gate – with all this snark and elitist claptrap.  Oh, there are no chili crabs!  But – putting aside the obvious – this place actually is pretty solid as far as these things go.  The hot and sour soup – actually was both.  It was clearly a pretty conventional hot and sour soup – but in a way that is educational.  It is the sort of the blocking and tackling of American Chinese – if the hot and sour soup sucks, chances are the rest joins in the suckitude.  The entree I ordered was the twice cooked duck – unfortunately given how tough the duck was, it was cooked perhaps one time too many.  I understand the twice cooked thing (once for the sear, once to actually cook the meat).  Alas, I was hoping for it to have kick (being that it was starred on the menu) but it didn’t.  The sesame chicken had similar non-spicy issues (more sweet than anything).  However the kung-pao chicken had solid depth and heat considering.  The broccoli with garlic sauce though was tasty.

Ultimately Hunan Gate is a very solid choice for this sort of thing – although I still like Panda Bowl if I EVER wanted this stuff delivered.  The review might seem lukewarm – but let’s face it, we were kind of destined to tepidness.  I miss Hong Kong Palace.

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Chez Manelle

Restaurant Week earlier this year got us a chance to get to Me Jana, a lovely Lebanese place in Arlington.  I waxed poetically about that already, and I have no reason to think it has gotten any worse.  HOWEVER, it is pricey – that’s why we went during Restaurant Week.  That is the whole point.  When dealing with the large net of Middle Eastern-North African cooking (and I am certainly not trying to paint with a broad brush – or maybe I am, being such an ugly American and all).  However, besides that, this side of Dearborn, I have not found cuisine in that range that I found delightful without thinking about Restaurant Week or Groupon or whatever.

So it was with great anticipation I wandered into Chez Manelle, a Tunisian joint almost literally across the street from Me Jana in the Court House area of Arlington.  Tyler Cowen, who for an economist is a darn good restaurant critic, raved about it – and he is usually not wrong on these sorts of things. (indeed more of an authority than in other places).  If the goal is atmosphere, Chez Manelle does not have it – and that is a sincere compliment.  When we went around 6, it had barely started to fill up (and it’s a pretty small place) and the place definitely had the “ethnic hole” sort of look that portends a treasure.  The wait staff was friendly and pretty patient (although that was more on evidence of his talk with a more inquisitive couple next to us).

We started with three appetizers.  First, a salad – which was good, although in a fairly standard way.  The vegetable beef soup was wonderful – with a thick, rich broth with body, flavor and well done.  But that was all just a setup for the Brika, which I almost mistyped as birka.  The brika is this fried crispy phyllo stuffed with potatoes, tuna and egg and capers.  I know, this does not sound good.  Certainly with the tuna I was worried, but this was absolutely wonderful.  The tuna did not seem overly canned tasting, the potato was good, the phyllo was crispy in a way almost evocative of dosa.  But the real star of the show was the egg, a fried egg, so when the yolk is pierced, it gives the whole thing a crispy creaminess.  The egg almost acts like a cheese that way.

The entree was much more standard.  We got their Couscous Manelle, steamed couscous with vegetables, lamb and merguez sausages.  This is less of a discovery than the Birka certainly – but the execution was very good.  The couscous is the best that I’ve had – a nice soft texture that worked with the vegetables and sauce nicely.  The lamb was cooked well, even IF LG had the best piece of it – and the Merguez sausages, while a little overworked, were spiced perfectly.  All in all this was a complete success – definitely good enough to bring friends.  With entree prices being 9 to 12 bucks, this was much more middle class in terms of tab.  This is certainly a solid consolation prize to Me Jana.  In fact, it doesn’t take a back seat – it’s just it’s own thing.  There.

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Saran

After the disaster that was Saravana Palace, the quest for quality vegetarian Indian food takes us to Saran, located on Lee Highway and George Mason.  What is interesting about Saran is that – while they have an extensive South Indian menu – it is pretty clear that authenticity is lacking.  That said, this does not mean that the place is bad.  This makes for a peculiar review, but here we go.

If you are looking for decor, Saran is not the place for you.  In fact, it’s Lee Highway location definitely screams “Hole in the Wall”.  Walking in, they offered the dinner buffet, but the items looked unremarkable (Mattar Paneer, Saag) and kind of creepy.  So we turned to the menu.  First things first – they did have salt lassis – and they were pretty effective.  Not too thick, savory taste but not too thick – really a refreshing piece.  I ordered the tomato soup (not rasam), and that was also fairly solid, and bonda (fritter with potato) was effective, even if the batter seemed to evoke more an egg roll than anything.  I ordered the mattar mushroom (peas, and mushroom) while LG ordered a dosa with masala.  The dosa was good – it was competently made.  However the masala and sambhar were much more in the line of a conception of South Indian food.  The dishes were spiced in a much more North Indian manner.  Of course, I ordered a North Indian dish – and I have to admit it was tasty, though the mushrooms in some places were overdone.

Ultimately this is definitely a thumbs up, though the search for great South Indian continues.  Minerva is still at the top.

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BGR: The Burger Joint

After a meeting out and about, had the chance to descend upon the Arlington location of BGR: The Burger Joint.  I had been passing it over and over again in trips to the Italian Store and whatnot, and finally I couldn’t help it.  Upscale burgers around here had sort of become a quasi-fad (like cupcakes) – and I have had my share. (foreshadowing)  Now BGR has its supporters.  I am not 100% sure where the original location was (I think DuPont), but apparently their lamb burger appeared on Bobby Flay’s throwdown.  Unlike Ray’s Hell Burger, BGR’s menu goes all over the map, not just ordinary burgers.  That said, my goals were pretty modest – so I stayed with a basic cheeseburger with their lunch special.  The burger was served with their special sauce (your typical mayonnaise-ish thing).  Unlike Ted’s Bulletin (which missed the mark on medium), BGR gets the cooking order I gave correct – and hit medium-rare on the button.  The meat was clearly pretty high quality, and it melted in the mouth properly.  The burger’s structural integrity is pretty solid with a toasted brioche bun.  Really, it’s quite good and for the $9.00 price, the meal with fries worked out pretty nicely.  The patty itself (for the classic burger) is actually not that large, although that is not necessarily a bad thing.  Really, this entry is fairly short – and that might make sense given the experience.  This is really a pretty good burger, and compared to Ted’s Bulletin, it’s a steal.  That said, Hell Burger is just in a different league as a total meat experience.  Of course, Hell Burger doesn’t deal in tuna burger or lamb burgers, so perhaps that is BGR’s value proposition.  On the evidence of their core offering, that might be worth exploring in the future.