Thanh Tong - Falls Church

Thanh Tong is located in the West Saigon wing of the Eden Center, one of several interior "malls" squirreled away in the recesses of this center of Vietnamese commerce. A small store front, Thanh Tong literally feels like a mom and pop hole in the wall minus the pop. The proprietor is a friendly, middle-aged Vietnamese woman who speaks halting English. She had two others helping her while I was there, one Vietnamese, the other Hispanic, both of whom spoke less English than the owner. Luckily, the language barrier only poses a small problem; all you need is a finger to point out the #9 Bun Bo Hue entree on the menu, and after that, pantomime and smiles can carry you for the rest of the day.

The #9 Bun Bo Hue is the specialty of this restaurant. What you get is a deeply flavored beef noodle soup filled with a texturally diverse array of Vietnamese sausage, beef, sliced pig's knuckles, and, if you're lucky, blood pudding (unfortunately, we came late and I believe they ran out of blood pudding for our bowls). Each bowl of Bun Bo Hue comes with a huge platter of bean sprouts and fresh herbs. It goes without saying that you should fill your bowls up with veggies because the crunch of vegetables and tang from the herbs provide an essential counterpoint to the chew of the meats and offal in your soup.

The noodles are of a thicker variety, quite dissimilar from the vermicelli you get in pho. These noodles had a pleasing bite and managed to soak up the beefy broth quite well. I would also recommend you take a spoonful of the fermented shrimp paste and stir it into the broth...it adds a certain indefinable something, part saline, part maritime, that enhances the overall dish. The hot sauce available on the table was also delicious, milder than Sriracha, but somehow gouleyant in quality, I was eating it by the spoonful unaccompanied by food, it was that good. I recommend taking a spoonful and stirring it into the peanut sauce if you order fresh summer rolls. It provides a nice lift and spice to the peanut sauce without overwhelming it with heat.

While the ambiance of Thanh Tong is starkly minimalist, the restaurant still has a charm that only an austerely functional ethnic restaurant can have: the promise of an exquisitely unique meal that comes at the expense of flashy decor and style. For a meal as comforting, homey, and delicious as the #9 Bun Bo Hue, that is an expense I would gladly pay.

Thai Square - Arlington 10/15/2011 Update

Having been here several more times, I would say that the most important thing to bring to Thai Square is a Thai friend. My first meal here was excellent, but having returned with non-Thai friends and ordering randomly, I must admit that there are a lot of subpar items on the menu.

Their curries tend to be sweetish, overly-unctuous, and bland. Essentially, they are no different than curries found in your local neighborhood Thai restaurant. Many of their noodle dishes seem quite Americanized to my palate as well. Also, after eating their crispy duck dish some more times, I can't get over the fact that all you taste is batter and honey and no duck. It was like eating dessert.

On the other hand, their papaya salad with pickled crab is one of the best dishes in Virginia, period. But, of course, it is off menu and I would never have ordered it if I wasn't with my Thai friend. I am beginning to think the popularity of Thai Square has caused it to dumb down its dishes for their increasingly non-Thai clientele and that they only really serve the authentic stuff for their Thai customers. It is a shame, but I guess that is what happens when you try to get Asian food on the East Coast (outside of New York, that is).

XO Taste Restaurant - Falls Church

This is probably one of the most authentic Cantonese restaurants in Arlington. However, even though the dishes are all authentic, from their "barbecue" meats, to their noodle soups, right down to their casseroles, I came away slightly underwhelmed. Fundamentally, the problem with X.O. is one of execution: dishes came to us either under-seasoned, over-salted, or over-cooked.

The mixed barbecue platter of roast duck, BBQ pork, and soy sauce chicken was merely ok. While the BBQ pork was nicely prepared with a subtly sweet marinade, the soy sauce chicken was pretty ordinary while the roast duck was tasteless. Our steamed flounder with ginger-scallion sauce was overcooked, dry, chewy, and bland. Similarly, the seafood and eggplant casserole did not have a lot of flavor. On the flip side, the congee with preserved egg was way over-salted. It probably isn't a great sign when the best dish is comprised of stir-fried snow pea leaves with garlic (which were very good).

I heard that this place was owned by the same people as Full Kee in Chinatown, and the menus are very similar (X.O. eschews many of the Americanized dishes found in Full Kee). The eggplant casserole, for example, was almost identical to the casserole I got once at Full Kee (they even use the same casserole dishes), except the one at Full Kee had more flavor. It feels odd to recommend a DC Asian restaurant over a NoVa restaurant, but to be honest, the kitchen at Full Kee is probably a little bit more skilled than the one at X.O., and the dishes are pretty much the same. So, you might as well get the better prepared dishes at Full Kee and save yourself the trip to the burbs. I think this is a testament to the sad state of affairs of Cantonese cuisine in the greater Washington metropolitan area.

Shamshiry - Tyson's Corner

Shamshiry is a sit down Persian restaurant located in what appears to be a nondescript office park in the middle of Tyson's Corner. I ordered the salmon kebabs with scented rice. The salmon was well-seasoned, if a little well done and dry for my taste. The scented rice, on the other hand, was intriguing. It was perfumed with dill, which you could smell as you took a forkful of rice and put it in your mouth. It was actually fascinating because the aroma of the rice enhanced the flavor of the salmon as a whole (an interesting example of the olfactory sense affecting one's taste, much like a fine wine's flavor being enhanced when you inhale deeply from your glass while sipping the wine). Slivers of fava beans were also mixed into the rice, giving the dish some welcome heft and heartiness.

In sum, I am not sure this is worth a detour to go to, but the food was generally well done. The rice was the best part of the meal and I would be interested in coming back one day and trying out some of their other rice dishes.

Yechon - Annandale

Yechon is an Annandale institution. It is a consistent, reliable standby that serves a wide variety of Korean staples 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Most non-Koreans probably come for the BBQ (which I have yet to order), but there are plenty of items to choose from on the menu for bold epicurean or even the slightly less adventurous palate.

For those seeking to expand beyond Korean BBQ, try the dolsot bibimbop. It essentially is rice served in a hot, stone bowl with various vegetables, both pickled and fresh, tossed in with a portion of Korean BBQ beef (bulgogi). When mixed together with the hot pepper paste and a little sesame oil, you get a nice melange of earthy spiciness, piquant acidity from the vinegary vegetables, and the heartiness of toasted rice. I would also urge you spend the extra money on the hot, stone bowl: the slight crust it develops on the rice really elevates the dish. They also have bokumbap, which is a Korean fried rice dish, that is a little softer and less sauced than Chinese fried rice. The stir-fried noodle dish (japchae) is also well made and an utterly correct rendition.

For the more adventurous, I am a big fan of their oxtail soup (kkori gomtang) which is essentially just a milky beef broth made by slowly boiling beef bones and oxtails for several hours. It is a very refreshing dish, though many would probably characterize it as bland. But, throw in some diced scallions, salt, and red pepper, and it becomes a marvel of simplicity. On the other end of the spectrum you have the spicy buckwheat noodle dish (bibimnaengmyung) which is served cold. Traditionally a summer dish, I think it is still suitable for the fall.

The gratis banchan dishes are all solid if unspectacular. The radish kimchi (kaktugi) is good, though I find the cabbage kimchi (baechu kimchi) a little bland. The potato salad and bean sprouts are nice.

All in all, I ate with two other people and we got a huge spread for $40 plus tip. Service is efficient and polite and the ambiance is quiet and sedate (though I hear that it is quite hopping late night on weekends). It is a good place to go to try Korean food for the first and you really can't go too wrong with any of the Korean dishes they have to offer: probably one of the more consistent menus I have tried in Annandale.

N.B.: One amusing detail my sister noticed as we left: the staff were eating Domino Pasta Bread Bowls for dinner. I guess even they get tired of Korean food (though I suppose it shows that we generally can't really kick our love for carbs).

Thai Square - Arlington 5/29/2011

Thai Square has renovated recently and now has a clean, spare dining room with a red color palate. Luckily, the kitchen is still the same and they still deliver good, authentic Thai food.

I went there with a Thai friend who ordered for us. Generally, all the dishes were good. The green papaya salad with pickled crab was fantastic. My friend had the foresight to order it less spicy than normal because even toned down, I found it incredibly fiery. Nonetheless, paired with the coolness of shredded papaya and the tartness of the dressing and pickled crab, it was a wonderfully refreshing starter for our meal. If you want to get it with the pickled crab, you have to ask for it specifically. But, I should warn the squeamish: it's raw, so don't get it if you have an aversion to raw shellfish.

The other entrees were nearly as good. My friend ordered a beef hotpot soup with meatballs, shredded beef, and greens, which were liberally seasoned with cilantro. Since I'm a cilantro junkie, I thought it was very good. Another dish we ordered was the crispy pork with Chinese broccoli: generally a solid dish anywhere, but the crispy pork skin that came with it imparted an interesting texture to the dish. Sort of like a side of pork rinds with your greens, which I heartily approve of.

Probably my favorite entree was the softshell crabs with chili-tamarind sauce. The softshell crabs were pan-fried and you have the option to pour the chili sauce over it. What you get is the inimitable crunchy texture of softshell crab and the fiery and subtle sweetness of the chili sauce. My one criticism would be that the sauce is so pungent that it can drown out the flavor of the softshell crab, but the sauce is so good that it makes up for that one shortfall. This entree is a special, and will be taken off the menu once the softshell crab season is over, so get it while you can.

One of the house signature dishes, the crispy honey roasted duck with basil, was quite good. Each small nugget of duck was covered in batter and smother in a sweet, piquant sauce that was not too spicy. My one issue with this dish is that you get a mouthful of batter every time you took a bite and couldn't taste the duck. It was still a good dish, but I wish the duck flavor was a little bit more pronounced.

All in all, a very good Thai meal. As my friend told me, this is probably the best (and only place) to get authentic Thai in NoVa. Just be forewarned: it gets extremely crowded on weekends and there is limited parking.

Piola - Rosslyn 5/26/2011

Piola is an Italian pizzeria chain, which is to say that it is a pizza chain based in Italy, though most of its branches are located in South America. Initially, I was a little leery about going here, but in the end, I have to say I was won over. I ate outside on the patio, which was lovely, but managed to get a peek inside: high ceilings, self-consciously trendy decor, and a weird red toned color palette. But, I've seen worse.

The pizza itself was actually pretty good. The thin crust had a nice bite...not too chewy, but not too soft. Moreover, unlike many other pizzerias, they held back on the cheese and sauce. The Piola pies had just enough of the creamy mozzarella and the tomato sauce to prevent the crust from being too dry, yet also avoided being too gummy with excess cheese or being soupy with excess sauce. Unfortunately, I ordered a pie that came with smoked salmon and ricotta on top of the mozzarella and tomato sauce, and while the salmon was actually good, the ricotta was piled on too thick. I had to scrape the excess off. But, having tasted the underlying pie, I would imagine that ordering a more traditional pie from Piola would provide a rather satisfying gustatory experience, especially for a restaurant located in Rosslyn.

Tachibana - McLean

Located in the middle of NoVa strip mall hell, Tachibana looks like your typical suburban Japanese restaurant. The clientele is a mix of McLean locals and Japanese expats. A highlight is the broiled salmon collarbone, embedded with succulent pockets of crispy salmon flesh. The raw fish dishes were also consistent and fresh. The various maki rolls we ordered were all well made and filling. But, for me, the standout dish was the $11 Chirashi bowl, filled with several generous slices of sashimi. An absolute steal of a deal (and only available during lunch).

A great place to get sushi, especially for those in the McLean area. That its menu also has several off-beat Japanese dishes only makes it that much more appealing.

Faccio Luna - Clarendon 3/4/2011

Faccio Luna is a pizza parlor which self-proclaims that it serves the best pizza in Virginia. While I wouldn't go that far, it isn't bad. If it weren't for the inexplicably long waits, it would be a nice place to pop into if I was in the neighborhood to grab a cheap meal with friends.

As noted, the place primarily serves pizza, but I also shared a salad that was pretty flavorful and some meatballs, which were a lot more forgettable. The pie we ordered had sausage and pepperoni, and the toppings and sauce were generally enjoyable. However, texturally, the pizza wasn't interesting and it lacked the hint of bitterness a nice, charred crust imparts on a pie. Indeed, the dense crust somehow managed to pull off the hat trick of being simultaneously bready, friable, and dry. While this may sound unappetizing, I actually enjoyed it...it reminded me of the pizzeria in Connecticut that my family used to get take out from. Ah...family memories, though whether being comparable to a suburban pizzeria is a compliment, I leave that up to you to judge.

In sum, Faccio Luna is a nice neighborhood spot that serves an eminently serviceable pizza (and if you think that is damning with faint praise, well, you might be right).

Huong Viet - Falls Church 5/15/11

The Eden Center can be overwhelming when you go there for the first time. It is rather huge strip mall filled with stores, restaurants, and bars that cater to the local Vietnamese community. While most of these restaurants are known for particular entrees (the noodle place, the soup place, the fried tofu place), Huong Viet is generally considered to have one of the more consistently good menus.

When we got there, it was fairly crowded, and while the crowd did ebb and flow, it stayed consistently busy throughout the day, with people waiting to get a seat. Now, consider that they did this when there must be at least 15 other Vietnamese restaurants within a 2 minute radius of the place (literally...if anything, this may be an understatement).

I've been here before and can say that the "bun" dish (basically a vermicelli noodle dish smothered in fresh vegetables with grilled pork on top) is something that everyone should try once. The grilled pork is extremely flavorful, and slight bitterness from the grilling interacts well with the refreshing acidic lift of the sauce on top of the noodles.

Today, I went family style with my group of friends and we got several dishes. We accidently ordered fried spring rolls (we were trying to get the fresh, unfried rolls, but it got lost in translation) which were crisp and not greasy. Delicious with nuroc cham, a sweet and sour Vietnamese fish sauce. We also had a beef salad that was really refreshing and filled with fresh herbs like cilantro. Our three entrees were a yellow curry with catfish, caramelized pork with black pepper, and grilled lemongrass chicken. All three were good, though the lemongrass chicken was something you could have gotten in a pan-Asian restaurant and probably isn't worth the trip (but you won't have any regrets if you order it...it was very well prepared). But, you can't go wrong with the caramelized pork which was absolutely delicious. I enjoyed the fish curry, though my friend wished the curry was stronger.

On your first trip to the Eden Center, go to Huong Viet. It is consistently tasty and you won't go wrong ordering blindly on that menu.

Lebanese Taverna - Pentagon City 2/16/2011

I was in the Pentagon City Mall Food Court, waiting for my friend and his cousins for dinner, when I looked over and noticed a Popeyes. I jokingly said we should probably just stay here for dinner. It was unfortunate that this joke would turn out to be a prescient recommendation considering my experience I would have at Lebanese Taverna.

The food was serviceable, although forgettable. The hummus solid actually. But the waitress was huffy. She dripped sauce on me when clearing the flatware (and held the dirty knives and forks right next to my face), and got in a tiff about packing someone's leftovers in a container. I could have gotten better service in an Applebee's. Pretty much killed the experience. Strange how terrible service tends to do that.

Crumbs Bake Shop - Clarendon 1/28/2011

Crumbs Bake Shop
2839 N. Clarendon Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22201

Having failed to receive the memo that cupcakes have gone the way of mesh trucker caps and Ithaca Is Gorges t-shirts, Crumbs Bake Shop, a New York based cupcake bakery chain, has recently opened in Clarendon (which clearly needs more chain restaurants and eateries). It is a little storefront shop next to a Red Mango, and its presence has now supplanted the tart Korean yogurt establishment as the most dated dessert fad on the block.

Clearly meant to cater to recent college grads and square state transplants who haven't yet become utterly wearied by the surfeit of cupcake shops in the DMV, it is a small, intimate space with about three tables shunted to the side of the store. After ordering at the counter and sitting down, I was glad to see the store live up to its name as I looked down upon a complimentary dusting of crumbs on the table.

I chose the Cookie Dough cupcake, a vanilla based cupcake with a huge wad of cream cheese frosting on top. It wasn't dry, though it wasn't exactly moist either. but the frosting was so confected and the cake felt so processed, I flashbacked to my days in college when I would eat a box of Entenmann's pastries as a chaser after downing a forty of Colt 45. Though not as pleasantly evocative of thing's past as Proust's Madeline, it was amusing to reminisce about times in my erstwhile youth when I had the metabolism to process the calories and chemical preservatives in this monstrosity of a sugar bomb.

My friends ordered a chocolate cupcake and a blueberry muffin. The chocolate cupcake was apparently, and unsurprisingly, dry. The muffin was reported to be edible, but it looked like something that came fresh out of Dunkin Donuts display case just around closing time.

I wouldn't completely write the place off. If you want to get a coffee and chat with a friend, this will do and is certainly better than Starbucks. There aren't many other options in the area.

Cafe Asia - Rosslyn 1/28/2011

Cafe Asia
1550 Wilson Blvd., Ste. 1
Arlington, VA 22209

Cafe Asia is a "fusion" restaurant...the type of place now ensconced in the better strip malls across the American heartland. As a rule, I generally avoid "fusion" restaurants for the simple reason that I don't fully understand the appeal of being able to order candied Pad Thai with a side of California rolls squirted with syrupy teriyaki sauce on top. But, as it so happens, I was meeting some people after work and since this restaurant is conveniently located in the hive-like catacomb of office buildings in Rosslyn, we all decided to come here.

The interior is of a minimalist design, de rigueur for this type of establishment. The walls are primarily glass, the open-air kitchen is composed of burnished stainless steel, the furnishings are made of blonde laminate, and the place is otherwise unadorned with ornament (the gigantic projection screen broadcasting a basketball game being the one notable and garish exception). The color palette of the interior is, much like the food, whitewashed. All we would need to complete this archetypal design scheme is a gigantic Buddha statue, a rock garden, and some bonsai trees surrounding a little electric-powered fountain with a cutesy spout.

The clientele is to be expected: young urban office drones wearing their Friday night best, sipping on industrial pinot grigio and gamefully spearing pieces of gamy spicy tuna roll on their chopsticks. Luckily, since it was a Friday, they kept their yoga mats at home, though every table had a Blackberry, Droid, or Iphone sitting next to the bottle of soy sauce and packages of Nutrasweet.

The cuisine was as I expected. I ordered a beef rendang, which the menu characterized as an Indonesian curry. I have had this type of curry before in Malaysian restaurants, and it is an interesting cross between Indian and Thai style curries: it contains the earthiness, weight, and deep color of an Indian curry while also having the creaminess and some of the brightness of a Thai curry. The sauce in this dish was actually pleasant and piquant; unfortunately the beef was not properly braised and thus insufferably stringy. After eating this dish, I can now safely report to any medical journal two surefire ways to contract lockjaw: stepping on a rusty nail and masticating the beef in this rendang.

I had a taste of my friends' dishes as well. One ordered the Lemongrass Chicken, which was fine. It was made out of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (vastly superior in flavor to chicken breast). It had a nice char, was moist, and surprisingly tasted like chicken (though I didn't taste any lemongrass). Nothing you couldn't get anywhere else.

My friend had Shrimp Pad Thai. It was bland and limp, which is actually a vast improvement to most other pad thai I have eaten because at the very least it wasn't saccharine and cloying.

Then there was fried rice. It looked fine. At least it looked like it wasn't prefabricated in a factory and reheated in a wok.

All in all, the one reason you would come to this place is that it is convenient and there is so-so people watching, if pasty-faced Rosslyn office workers tanned by fluorescent lamps are your thing.

Toscana Grill - Courthouse 1/23/2011

My future brother in law had a Groupon to this self-proclaimed "Eco-Friendly, Organic Italian Restaurant," so he decided to take me out to lunch. It is located in a development on Clarendon Boulevard that also houses the Velocity 5 Sportsbar and is located near the Ray's the Steaks and the AMC Courthouse movie theatre. Unfortunately, it isn't located directly on Clarendon Boulevard, so I spent approximately 10 minutes wandering through faux arcades and plazas with tessellated mosaic tiles before I finally managed to stumble upon it.

There were only two or three other parties dining there when I arrived and we were quickly seated. The menu was slightly confusing; select items had random codes attached to their descriptions. It took me a while for me to find the key before I was able to decipher that VG signified vegan, VT was merely vegetarian, OR was organic, GF was gluten free, and SPICY probably meant spicy (just a wild guess...it wasn't in the code key). So, it is one of those type of places...you know, those crunchy, granola ridden holes that caters to people wearing sandals and hemp and who are otherwise too stoned to care whether the vegetable-based, factory-processed proteins (probably shaped by the hands of sweatshop migrant labor) are underseasoned and overcooked. My expectations duly plummeted. Unfortunately, then the bread came.

The bread was tasteless, dry, and slightly stale. I tried dipping it in the olive oil, but because of the huge blot of balsamic vinegar floating in the middle of it, the olive flavor was completely masked by the tart fruitiness of the balsamic. I resorted to the butter. Things weren't looking good.



Luckily, the actual entrees were better. My dining companion ordered the eggplant parmigiana (GF, VG) while I ordered the Shrimp Risotto (SPICY), one of the least coded items on the menu. The shrimp risotto was surprisingly not bad. The rice was toothsome, the tomato sauce was not tinny, overly bright, or ketchupy, the shrimp was not rubbery. and it had a nice tart flavor with a little SPICY kick to it. It reminded me of jambalaya, actually, and while this is a dish far afield from the Tuscan hills, I enjoyed it.



I tried a bite of the eggplant parmigiana and was not similarly impressed. The eggplant was bland, the pasta was overcooked, and the sauce was rather heavy and unimpressive. I only had one bite though, so perhaps it develops in flavor if you leave it on the table for a while (like a fine Brunello developing in the glass...right?).



We had some extra cash on the Groupon left over, so we ordered a chocolate cake. It was ok. A little dry near the edges, but the chocolate had a decent, dark depth to it.



The service was fine. The waitress was nice and the water was refilled with a satisfactory frequency. I don't know if I would go out of my way to try this again...it seems like the deformed bastard child that would spring forth from an Olive Garden crossbreeding with a health food store in Berkeley, but I wouldn't write the place off. I had no regrets dining here.

Astor Mediterranean - Arlington 1/21/2011

Astor Mediterranean
2300 North Pershing Drive
Arlington, VA 22201-1428
(703) 465-2306

Astor Mediterranean is a small local chain with two locations: one in Arlington and the other in Adams Morgan. Several friends decided to have a group meal and after much debating, balloting, cajoling, and vote rigging, we finally decided to go to the Arlington branch.

The Arlington branch is located in a rather dilapidated building which also houses a Army/Navy Career Center and is across the street from an abandoned strip mall currently being demolished by a bulldozer. The interior of the restaurant, despite the neighborhood consisting primarily of rubble, rusting I-beams, and other wonderful iterations of urban blight and squalor, is actually fairly nice. Astor Mediterranean seems to be primarily a takeaway place...a lot of douchy recent college grads in hoodies and sweats were coming in and ordering out, and for some reason they were all wearing cheap flip flops and sandals in 10 degree weather (to each his own I guess). Since Astor is essentially a deli, you order at the counter, receive a ticket, and wait for your ticket to be called. While there is no table service, there are several tables available for sit down, and they even serve the food with china and silverware if you choose to eat in. They also have some flatscreens where you can watch the crawl on CNN when you get tired of talking to your dining companions (i.e., a great first date place! Sure to impress!).

I went up the counter, checked the selections, and decided to order the kufta kabob. Essentially, we are talking about ground sirloin seasoned with several herbs and spices (like a Mediterranean KFC) redolent of the flavors and aromas of the Middle Orient (you know, cumin...maybe some salt). I had no complaints: the meat was well seasoned, had good flavor, and was moist. The rice accompanying the kabob was also seasoned and well prepared. There were some forgettable stewed chickpeas on the side and a leaf of braised cabbage, but they didn't detract, and the main players on the plate more than satisfied. The cucumber and tomato salad with yogurt sauce was also not bad.



Most of the people I dined with had the braised lamb shank which looked big enough for a caveman, smelled even better, and I am sure was delicious. It received plaudits from everyone who ordered it. Other friends had a salmon dish and a vegetarian combination platter, which they both liked. All of these entrees and the sides were less than $12 (mine was only $9).



I'll probably try the branch in Adams Morgan fairly soon, though it is smaller and doesn't have the lovely ambiance of urban decay that this one has. On all counts, I heartily recommend this place.