Tag Archives: Arlington

Thai Square

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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.

Ravi Kabob I

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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.

Hunan Gate

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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.

Chez Manelle

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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.

Saran

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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.

BGR: The Burger Joint

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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.

Snowmageddon 2010

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As you have probably heard, in DC, it snowed. It REALLY snowed.    It REALLY REALLY snowed. The snowiest winter on record in fact. Seems pictures are sufficient here.

The view from my window: 10:00 AM

The view from my window 1:00 pm

my garage

view as i head out the door

a car that can't escape

a city snowed under - sort of

Costa Verde

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Costa Verde was one of those places that I had passed numerous times on walks between the Clarendon and Ballston areas of North Arlington.  Tucked in amongst the many, many Pollo a las Brasas joints that line this area, Costa Verde looked surprisingly reputable i.e. non-divey, and the word of mouth was pretty good.  I am no expert on Peruvian food, but I have tried it before at El Chalan in Washington DC – so I was prepared for flavorful, spicy profile – and the possibility of tasty fish.

The place itself is located poorly.  It is not that it is off the beaten path streetwise – it is indeed very easy to find.  However, it does not announce itself being on a sidestreet – you have to remember that it is there.  Indeed the decor of the restaurant was pretty first rate.  While by no means a Morton’s or anything, the tables were clean and seemed to evoke a family friendly atmosphere (well as family friendly as a place with some of the visual joys of Univision on the TV in the background can be).  The place was empty on a Saturday night – but I think that had more to do with the location than anything. (and the general market for non fast food Peruvian)  Also the service was no great shakes – not bad, but decidedly slow.

The food though did hit on the mark.  A recommendation I was given in researching this was to make sure I have the seafood – and indeed their menu was chock with options.  I had the Octopus and Squid in a Garlic Wine sauce with potato and rice.  The seafood was cooked nicely so there was some tenderness and not overly sinewy – the common refrain ripping those particular choices.  The sauce was not especially fiery, but definitely a good solid flavour – and when added to the green sauce (some sort of salsa verde) it had plenty of depth and  kick.  The ceviches also looked attractive, but unfortunately nobody at the table took the plunge, so that will have to be a mystery to uncover at a later date.  El Chalan seemed to have a little more variety – especially in terms of innards and some of their dishes were legitimately fiery.  However, Costa Verde does not take a back seat, and being a 20 minute walk from home – it is a terrific option, at least for me.

Me Jana

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Restaurant Week for winter 2010 ended taking us up to Me Jana in Arlington, Virginia.  Me-Jana was seen as a fine Lebanese restaurant – a cuisine I was somewhat unfamiliar with beside Lebanese Taverna and the like.  I mean, we all know hummus, baba ghanoush etc, but how familar are we with that stuff done WELL?  So I sat down with great intrigue.  I arrived for my reservation a bit early then sat down at the bar from a drink waiting for the party – served by a legitimately pretty bartender (not that I was looking).  When the reservation time came, we sat down at a nice table with good decor with both chairs and a mini couch setup.

The Restaurant Week menu at Me-Jana was very limited, which worried me at first.  There were only two choices for appetizer, entree and dessert.  That said, the waiter we had was very assertive and told us “this is what you want”.  Upon the strong recommendation, I had the Appetizer Sampler, the Chilean Sea Bass and the dessert which I cannot remember the name of (milk pudding, phyllo dough, rosewater and fruit).  The sampler was tasty and generous (perhaps too much so).  Everything, the hummus, the baba ghanoush and the lamb fritter were delicious.  The fatoush (a salad) was a little less, but certainly not bad.  I have had comparable versions elsewhere for sure.

But really the star of the evening was the Chilean Sea Bass served in a tomato-mushroom gravy on manchiego polenta.  This ranks as one of the best dishes I have had in recent memory.  The polenta melted in my mouth, and the fish of course is a fattier fish (in other words, tastier), and fit with the sauce beautifully.  The combined perfect bite was remarkable.  The dessert was also good, fruity, good creamy-crunchy-rosewater texture.  It was tasty, a good way to end the meal – but the entree was the star and truly delicious.  The fish was so delicious that it warrants coming back to Me Jana to try the many small plates, which is a promising tapas experience.

Update: Well, January 2011, we DID make the follow up for small plates.  Alas, disappointment abounds.  While some dishes were not bad – other dishes were real problems.  When we ordered shrimp, it was overcooked despite a tasty sauce.  The baba ghanouj lacked the horsepower it did the first time.  Finally the dessert was a disaster – what should have been creamy sweet cheese in a fritter, turned out to be a mozzarella stick from hell.  I can’t believe this place turned into a thumbs down, but with the price point – I cannot justifiably recommend it with Chez Manelle down the street.