The fish slick with olive oil, fragrant with cardamom and fiery with mitmita does what the chef, Senait Mimi Tedla, intends: It makes you feel good, she says of her enlightened version of the Ethiopian classic, whose flames typically come from spiced butter. Review. No utensils necessary, chowhounds know; the extra scrolls of spongy injera in your order are all the scoops you need. My lifeline throughout the pandemic is owned by a native of Guyana who bought it from a Black couple who opened the place 53 years ago and still live above the shop. A special pop-up becomes a permanent fixture, Entrees $17 to $21, $49 for family platter. Word seems to have spread. Portioned as if leftovers were expected, the entrees come with a choice of two sides, all of which would look at home at a church social. Customers asked for breakfast and chef-owner Tsehay Beferdu delivered, with a menu offered daily until noon. Alone, the stewlike wild boar, cooked with onions and tomatoes, hums with mustard powder, chili powder, lemon juice and sage. Proof of vaccination required. Light pours through the windows, which take in a spacious patio outside. Biscuits are baked every 30 minutes or so, and the side dishes are first-class. Braised brisket framed with caramelized green plantains and black beans dotted with cubes of white cheese is a feast made finer with grill-striped arepas, corn cakes destined to be split and stuffed with the slow-cooked beef. The entree, accompanied by a carton of couscous and slivered almonds, was sufficient to become lunch for two thereafter. (The crackle comes from the mahogany skin. Which reminds me, theres no better place to be a regular. A salad showcasing white flower mushrooms prompts an anecdote about the last trip the owners took to Myanmar, three years ago. Since his Greek standard-bearer opened in 2003, he has been tinkering with pies, says his wife and business partner, Anne Marler. Last winter, Blend 111 served meals in a parking lot turned Andean outpost. Owner Michael Biddick promises the return of the attractive heated space, along with one of my prized pandemic purchases from any restaurant: $12 blankets woven from cotton and recycled fibers. Lunch Tuesday through Friday, dinner Wednesday through Sunday. Knowing that Tyler and her colleagues, chef Jon Sybert and wine maven Bill Jensen, are also behind the nearby Tail Up Goat is reason enough to pay respects. A bite of fried bread followed by a taste of daikon sweet followed by savory and decidedly sour wakes up the appetite. Dig her kachumber, a restorative salad and hat tip to India. Aim for a counter stool and the chance to watch the staff shape rounds of dough on a surface of durum and maybe meet Valerie Harding. The first is an appetizer of fried mashed eggplant, bright with mint and sweet with fried onions. Consider just the ssam board, DIY tacos assembled from ribbons of rosy marinated short rib and ruffles of spring-green lettuce (ssam is Korean for "wrapped"). Dinner Thursday through Saturday. From the bar flow some of the most beautiful and delicious drinks around. Consecutive doors at the entrance make it easier for wheelchair users to go in through the patio. Lately, Ive been killing two birds with one stone by ordering simultaneously from Happy Gyro and the owners neighboring Thai eatery, the winning Little Serow. I want to be the change, she says. Comforts abound. Would you like to sit outside, on a covered patio or in a cabana resembling a Japanese teahouse? Possibly it was the sting of the orange gazpacho, poured from a slender plastic flask, or the broad metal pan used to ferry the seafood-scattered paella from Penn Quarter to my doorstep. Whatever the detail, takeout from Jaleo, among my hall of fame picks, places me back in the dining room, alive with color and energy in happier times. The only way to experience Padaek is over and over. Check out the swordfish kebab, cooked over coals and painted with a sauce made vibrant with green chiles, cilantro, caraway and more. Return the paella pan and you get $10 off your next meal. Adler stands in front of the visible kitchen, inspecting plates as they go out: some of the best, and most photogenic, pesto-sauced pasta, veal cutlets and shrimp scampi in memory. Im crossing my fingers, looking for four-leaf clovers, rubbing rabbits feet and booking more time here. Fiola DC named #2 Best Italian Restaurant in the World by 50 Top Italy. Ask Tom: Dining during the pandemic - The Washington Post Which is a long way of saying pretty much everything on the menu created by chefs Lisa and Peter Chang is something you dont want to miss. Share. So I asked experts how to minimize it. is a cross between Neapolitan and New York-style pizza based on a dough thats fermented at least a day, cooked in an oak-stoked oven and simply dressed with toppings that show thought. Make that whole branzino cooked over a wood grill or pasta draped with the chefs wonderful white Bolognese, what she calls a warm blanket of veal and beef cooked in chicken stock and milk and finished with sage and butter. That shatter you heard is a pork belly skin in Rockville, Sandwiches, bowls and combination meals, $7 to $13. The beauty of American cooking? Keep in mind that the chefs used to cook at the nearby Curry Leaf in Laurel, and order the haleem. Production and photo editing by Jennifer Beeson Gregory, design and development by Madison Walls. Best restaurants in the D.C. area: Tom Sietsema's favorites in August The cafe Yellow adjacent is just as great for coffee and wonderful baked goods. Check. Fortunately, theres plenty of flavor, too. I used to work at Montmartre, the much-missed French draw on Capitol Hill, he tells us. No barriers to entry; ADA-compliant restroom. The chef is a discerning shopper. Introduced as a pop-up in what used to serve a Greek-influenced tasting menu, the takeout, which also highlights plant-based dishes, seems destined to stick around. Takeout and delivery. Other delicious options include spicy steamed shrimp, fish and chips staged in a fry basket and tacos (pork or fish) distinguished by their two-ply cradles: a soft flour tortilla lined with a fried corn tortilla. Dinner and lunch daily, brunch Sundays. Just removing the aluminum cover of the vivid assembly, including tomatoes and dipping sauce, is enough to slap a smile on my face. Theres nothing I dont crave seconds of on the menu. No takeout or delivery. Tom Sietsema spotlights 48 DC-area restaurants, including his 10 favorites Line cook Sam Hoefer works at the dessert station in the open kitchen at the Dabney in Washington. The one that calls loudest is kwati, a soup prized by the Nepalese as much for its health benefits as its heartiness. While Ive experienced his cooking only as takeout, the food inside the bags and boxes is arranged just so, as if waiting for a photo shoot. The tomato sauce a touch sweet, a little tangy comes from an old family recipe; the bacon is made in-house. No takeout or delivery. Yet his preaching is subtle. APRIL 30, 2018 / Washington Post . Her contribution. Entrees $19-$45; prix fixe $79, wine pairing $49. The executive chef at Anju in Washington, whos spent half his 32 years in the industry, is no Ted Lasso. The green comet tail on the plate? Dressed with scarred walls, white brick and live plants, the space is home to servers who bring, say, a bowl of rice carpeted with folds of dewy salmon, pea shoots and pineapple puree bibimbap scattered with raw fish and aptly introduce the shimmering beauty as Instagram-worthy. When guests asked for more vegetarian options, Anju responded with dishes including wangmandu, big crisp dumplings fattened with Impossible Meat and finished with a racy chile crunch. A&J offers its menus in Chinese and English, but fear not: The lists are the same, except for the fuller descriptions on the English version. Delicious now hop on your Peloton. Sure enough, his steamed egg custard, fragrant with sesame oil, gets finished with birds-eye chiles, fish sauce and lime juice a very Thai touch. Throw in a gracious staff and some of the best alfresco seating in the city theres no prettier alley than this one in CityCenter and you get something both refined and approachable, a delicious package deal. " Really, chef? From the brick oven come thin, crisp pies, including the Spotted Pig, decked out with wild boar meatballs, sopressata, a pleasantly sweet tomato sauce, fresh basil and multiple cheeses. Before the pandemic, it wasnt unusual for some customers to show up with their own containers. served its first pie and makes an ace ambassador, asking strangers where theyre from and letting them try as many of the beers on tap as they want. A: Tom Sietsema I've found Ethiopian stews, Indian curries, richer pastas and all manner of fish and seafood hold up well. Reservations required for indoor dining; patio first come, first served. In honor of Independence Day in Mexico last month, Irabien featured chile en nogada, a roasted poblano pepper stuffed with a treasure trove of ingredients ground beef and pork, tomatoes, walnuts, peaches, onion and pooled with a creamy walnut sauce. (Scott Suchman for The Washington Post). Smooth off the edges of a rough day with the Hari Daiquiri. For the steamed crabs, Jones buys only live specimens from the Chesapeake Bay, which he plies with a seasoning blend that runs a dozen ingredients long. We're counting down Post food critic Tom Sietsema's Top 5 restaurants in and around Washington for 2022 over the next two weeks, highlighting one restaurant each weekday until Tom's full. You havent checked off any restaurants yet! The biggest change at one of the top restaurants in town? Takeout Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday, no delivery. Competitors should check out the high bar he maintains in his own lair, where the meatless attractions include kale nachos, shiitake-filled batons of phyllo and tiptop chop, a sumptuous mound of shredded kale, quinoa, slivered almonds, pomegranate seeds and carrots rising from a plate of garlicky hummus. Because readers asked, the following reviews offer information on vaccine mandates and accessibility. "This is the way the world is right now," he says. [Rasika veterans serve memorable Indian-ish food and drink at Daru]. Chewy, foot-long noodles tossed with a vivid pesto of garlicky arugula puree and rough-cut pistachios is as much fun in the eating as the reading: Think fusilli and spaghetti had a baby and somehow bucatini got into the mix, teases the menu. Cool detail: Those and other tastes can also be enjoyed from a cart parked in front of the restaurant, where the ice cream is scooped into housemade sourdough waffle cones. If you've tried Gypsy Kitchen's lovely herbed falafel or tuna crudo a shout-out to summer with chopped tomatoes, grilled corn and cucumber, plus shoyu vinaigrette you'll understand the plates I cleaned. This is top five, for sure.. The kitchen treats people who dont eat meat like VIPs. Shocked to see a tuna melt on a menu from former White House chef Frank Ruta? Im equally enamored of the slender lumpia, stuffed with ground pork and shrimp; sisig, the funky and fiery stir-fry of pigs ears, headcheese, Thai chile, garlic and cane vinegar; the pale-green, super-moist pandan cake made by the chefs sister; and some of the best fried rice for miles, this bowl enriched with crab fat and longanisa, sweet sausage thats made on site and that Fernandez plans to sell. To keep things interesting for everybody, Kuya Ja is selling Filipino soup kits, featuring weekend specials (whole fried snapper with peanut curry) and offering the occasional kinamot. The truth is, there are lots to like here: housemade sodas that change with the season (fall finds pumpkin pie and Concord grape), a small dining room decorated with old cooking utensils and Mason jars-turned-lights, and warmth beyond that of the oven. The beautiful salads capture whatever season were in corn, cucumber and nectarine in August and side dishes such as tomato-sauced Romano beans scattered with feta cheese are snapshots of the chefs childhood, both at home and on visits to Greece. Chicken liver mousse appears as creamy tufts on shards of toasted bread, along with bits of roasted peach that signal summer. Ive also yet to meet a pasta I havent loved here. Desserts are outsized. What we do is cook what we eat at home, says Rai. Meals unfold in a dining room dressed with paintings from Addis Ababa and offering live entertainment on Thursday (Ethiopian jazz) and Saturday (traditional music). Owned by Alex Manfredonia, who brings fine dining experience from San Francisco, Vin 909 has the reception down pat. The cooking, from chef Katarina Petonito, mirrors the setting. Indoor and outdoor seating. 6 reviews $$ - $$$ American Steakhouse. Its called unconventional for good reason. Dean's Cake House. No on-site seating. One reason to order chicken here is to taste how good the products are from nearby Upperville and Warrenton. Ditto Annies Paramount Steakhouse and the Hitching Post, which remain prized members of my collection of D.C.-area classics. With the gluten-free chicken comes cauliflower, baked with aioli and richer for it. Bread lands promptly. Surprise! A garland of ingredients that suggest salad Nicoise finds a spread of smoked trout replacing the traditional tuna. Not to worry. Try it, youll like it. He previously worked for the Microsoft Corp., where he launched sidewalk.com; the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; the San Francisco Chronicle; and the Milwaukee Journal. The most Belgian of them all, though, is a waffle chocolate, served with white chocolate whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Indoor and outdoor seating. The girls got their wish, and Bethesda gained something special, in May: a restaurant with the exuberance of his original Spanish tapas draw, but also a greater selection of comfort foods, including a section devoted to eggs, one of the famous chefs many passions. Turns out shes as much an artist as a chef. The result is skin thats crisp throughout and improved only with a bit of the chefs jerk sauce, whose heat sneaks up on you like an O. Henry ending. Entrees $25-$47 (for the signature duck). The weave of cumin, ginger, fenugreek, coriander and more is warm and wonderful. Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. Its the Goldilocks of restaurants just right. The sight of a tall hamburger being ferried through the long and narrow dining room has me rethinking my order, a thought dismissed as I tuck into tender hanger steak lapped with green peppercorn sauce. Seize the chance to taste a role model. [Shake up your dinner routine with a (short) road trip]. Limited indoor seating (two stools at a counter). Datta, responsible for the 12-seat bar, counts time at Elle, Columbia Room and the esteemed Rasika West End, where he met Sundas, the former tandoor chef there. 1825 14th St. NW. Let the $55 tasting menu of classic and contemporary tapas a dozen or so small plates help out. P.S. Eric Ziebold sounds surprised when he hears the distance some people travel to taste his packaged cooking. Indoor and outdoor seating. And I cant imagine a Nepalese meal without momos. Delivery via Tock and Skip the Line. Crispy potatoes stuffed into pillowy housemade pita is a lot of carbs almost too much fun. A coffee shop and bakery by day, the Mount Pleasant storefront morphs into a lovely little restaurant at night, where chef Brad Deboy says his response to the pandemic has been having fun with food and being creative.. Patrons can still find filet mignon and lobster chowder longtime draws on the menu but Walsh has asked the servers to ditch their ties, and Johnson, the former chef de cuisine of the late Volt, is helping to fill seats with seared scallops, which at a May meal arrived dappled with a froth of buttermilk and staged with a green garden of asparagus, peas and fava beans. D.C.'s 38 Best Restaurants - Eater DC See what I mean? Hitching Post, promise me youll keep the lights on forever. Traditional diner food takes some surprising twists. This memory maker rolls up with a cart carrying an enormous dome of spun sugar hiding progressively smaller replicas inside along with dessert and a salutation on a marzipan ribbon. Ask Tom: Where to celebrate a Sunday anniversary, take a An earlier illness found the self-described mad scientist researching food that would restore his health. Theres more to explore: whole scored fried sea bass festooned with carrots, red peppers and onions that taste like theyre plugged in to an electric socket a beauty of a Jamaican escovitch and saucy curry goat heaped over steaming rice and peas. And this in a honey-lit, wood-bound dining room that factors in sheepskin stools for purses, local rocks to ferry the bread and tiny anvils with your partys name written on it. While it might seem ticklish to toast the restaurant scene, and some businesses are in flux as this issue goes to press, what better way to honor the community than by showcasing some of its best representatives? It's the Year of the Noodle. Youll want to swipe a bite of oh-so-soft lamb through a puree sparked with oregano, parsley, garlic, turmeric and red wine vinegar. Stick around for Rochelle Coopers desserts, a favorite of which is her ritzy twist on smores, its honeyed meringue teased into little flames.. The fetching chowda packs in fistfuls of clams whose shells collect smoked bacon, grilled sweet corn, diced potato, crisp scallions and hot cream. A host offers her a fresh shield from a basket inside, where shes led to her reserved table and handed how quaint a menu with a cloth-and-vinyl cover. Save. For now, their staff of eight is doing its best to accommodate patrons, who are reminded they cant camp out for the evening. Im a folder, says the owner. Your eyes widen with each bite. Open now : 09:00 AM - 4:00 PM. Those chopped collards have lots of garlic, ginger and red onion going for them. 2020 Fall Dining Guide by Tom Sietsema - Girasole Takeout, no delivery. Not only is the food unlike anyone elses, its packaged as if it were a gift right down to a note card inviting you to listen to a curated playlist. I dont care, says Smith-Davis, laughing at the memories of people trying to pass off her food as home cooking. Cubes of fish cooked with onions, garlic and rosemary demonstrate the chefs passion for Mediterranean flavors (in another life, she cooked in Israel). Dinner Tuesday through Saturday, lunch Tuesday through Friday. Its all as luscious as it looks. Patio seating. Even his more straightforward-sounding dishes sparkle at Daru. Takeout and delivery. For the full Anju experience, though, you have to order aged kimchi. The Best Bad Restaurant Reviews of 2018 - Eater Indoor and private outdoor seating. Because outside chef Amy Brandweins restaurant, along an alley of upscale shops, is a magical place to find yourself, sipping on a well-made cocktail, poking into an artful appetizer or twirling housemade pasta on your fork. Dinner commences with a temperature check and slices of ciabatta and focaccia from Piccolina, the restaurants casual offshoot across from where youre socially distanced from fellow diners. Or dense and delicious morsels of lamb rolled in a grass-colored paste of raw green papaya, ginger, mint and red chiles. Lamb chops are marinated overnight in garlic, Greek yogurt and green chiles elements that insert themselves into every nook and cranny of the meat and acquire a shower of crushed pink peppercorns after they leave the grill. If you liked dinner, just wait till tomorrow, $90 per person for two nights of meals, $120 per person for three nights of meals ($40 to $45 per meal). Consecutive doors at entrance; ADA-compliant restroom. The bounty of hunt country, served amid the trees. Vegetarians fly first-class here; kudos to the towering hearts of palm crab cake. Meanwhile, Mother Nature has a rival in the pastry team, whose hand-painted peach involves a sumptuous mousse. Chef Jeeraporn Poksupthong serves inspired Thai. Sign of the times: Ziebold says the most popular category of all is Indulgence. Guests who couldnt travel during the pandemic are spending their vacation money on luxuries such as caviar, truffles, Japanese Kuroge beef and his signature lobster French toast breakfast for dinner for $38. Chef Matt Hill and his business partner, Todd Salvadore, have worked at some of the areas best restaurants, and theyve incorporated best practices into everything they do at Ruthies, a tribute to the chefs late North Carolina grandmother.

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