Playing Catch Up - Good Bets

Okay, now that I've gone through a few places that you want to avoid, let me touch on a couple of places that I happen to like. Some of these you've heard of before, some of them a bunch. Some of these you've probably never heard of before. Although since almost everyone who reads this blog tends to go to restaurants with me, you've probably heard of all of them.



Anyway, here go the good ones:



Del Merei Grill (Del Ray, Alexandria): I've wanted to write about this one, but I've never gotten around to it. Del Merei is a good steakhouse/variety restaurant in the Del Ray neighborhood. It's also near that wonderful custard place The Dairy Godmother, although not as close as the other Del Ray places. It's actually in this weird shopping center at the bottom of an apartment building along Mt. Vernon Rd. It's not terribly far from where Mt. Vernon changes from Arlington Ridge Rd. It is quite unassuming from the outside, but when you get inside, it is a series of well spread out tables with a certain elegance to them, dim lighting with some a gentle feel to it. You could hear very easily in the place despite the fact that it was pretty crowded. We had a reservation, but there was a decent wait if we didn't, which is surprising for the difficult location. I had a tenderloin steak and my friend had a small tenderloin/crab cake surf and turf. The steaks all come with your choice of sauce as well as your choice of sides (I know I had mashed potatoes). We also had some creative deviled eggs as an appetizer and a homemade cinnamon doughnut as a dessert. I remember all of this and it was quite a while ago when we went. The steak was phenomenal, I was told the crab cakes were good as well. The deviled eggs were pretty good, but i gave them points for being unique. I don't think they were that special, but they hit the spot. The doughnut was surprisingly good, especially since it was a toss up between the doughnut and the custard place. The doughnut was very fresh and definitely large enough to share and be quite satisfied. It turned out to be a little more expensive than I was going for, but to be honest, it was worth it. I'm pretty sure that we had wine though. All in all, it was a good experience and I'd recommend it. That said, you may still want the custard.



Taqueria Poblano (Del Ray, Lee Harrison Shopping Center): There are two locations of this taqueria and it's perhaps more unassuming than the last one. I've been to this one pretty recently a couple of times. My boss took me there the first time and I brought my roommate the second. The restaurant is pretty low rent and relatively authentic. They start you off, like any Mexican place, with chips and salsa, but the salsa manages to be very good without being super spicy. The chips are very good too. They have a full menu for a pretty good price in general ($3-$5 solo tacos and $12 combos). Both times, I chose to get a Mahi Mahi Taco and a duck carnita taco with a side of mexican rice. The people I was with also got tacos, usually a little more standard (beef, chicken, steak). They are all fantastic. They also have bean/veggie tacos and a large plate of other mexican favorites which I'd guess are also quite good. The service was nothing spectacular, but it served its purpose. The tacos are just really good and very worth the price, so is the rice.



Guajillo (Courthouse/Rosslyn): Same shopping center as Ray's and Ray's Hell Burger (or so I'm told it's called). It's got a slightly low rent atmosphere. It's a very thin restaurant with the ducts showing and the chairs are rather inexpensive and a little uncomfortable, but they do decorate the walls with some authentic decorations and the food is worth it. The sangria is the second best in the city in my opinion (see Taberna Del Alabardero). They have fish tacos and lamb tacos that are amazing and I particularly enjoy their soft chicken tamale appetizer. Their salsa is a bit of a smokey tomato salsa with a little kick. Their specialty, however, is the chicken mole. It is a delightful cocoa sauce on a very moist chicken. If you like mole, you'll definitely enjoy it. Guajillo boasts a very large, authentic Mexico City Mexican menu. It has wonderful items from the tacos and mole to fish to great tamales and vegetarian items. It's a great place tucked into that unsuspecting shopping center and the prices are a lot less than you'll pay for food at a comparable place like L'Oreal Plaza.

Breadline (Metro Center): If you work in the city, you've probably already tried Breadline, but if you haven't, you should go there whenever you're around for lunch. Breadline is not exactly one of Washington, DC's best kept secrets, but it does make really good sandwiches from mediterranean style pitas, to deli meats, to an eggplant sandwich to chicken salad, they have it all. The name is correct though, it's not about what's inside the sandwich, but the bread that makes it good. When you go in this place, you'll see a lack of decoration, it's a very industrial design. They are extremely efficient and can get through a long line in no time flat. You will feel like you're at the "Soup Nazi" from Seinfeld. Make sure you know what you want before you get to the front of the line. They may not throw you out, but you'll feel pretty bad about it. It's also quite cheap, around what you'd expect for a sandwich. Try it for the bread and try it for the experience.

Tachibana (McLean): Tucked away on the corner of Old Dominion Rd. and a road I can't remember the name of is the best sushi restaurant on the East Coast (or so I've been told by several Japanese friends). While that would only qualify it as one of the top 5000 sushi restaurants on the West Coast, it's still a wonderful place to enjoy some sashimi prepared in very unique ways. The atmosphere is relatively close to any Asian food restaurant you ever go to. The tables are comfortably spread with larger tables in the middle of rooms and smaller tables along the sides. It's got a very calming feeling without any incredible designs and plain white table cloths on the tables. They let the food speak for itself. The sushi is pretty fresh and the menu is definitely more in depth than a lot of other places. Tachibana serves the traditional rolls, meals with a whole fish sashimi or the traditional nigiri sushi. They also have some interesting specials that include egg and vegetable sushis. There are more interesting vegetable sushis than I've ever seen anywhere before. If you're there, make sure to try the fatty tuna. It's not something that you can find everywhere, but it is excellent. Be sure you go at the right time though, Tachibana can have a long wait. Also, it's a bit more expensive than the average sushi place, so think of it as a $25-$30 sushi meal instead of the $18 you normally pay. It's worth the difference.

El Mariachi: Here is a place that I haven't been in maybe a year, but it pretty much defined the "fine dining" of my High School years. El Mariachi is a Peruvian/Salvadorian restaurant in Rockville in the Wintergreen shopping center. It used to be very small, but a few years ago, they had the occassion to expand and triple the size of their restaurant. They have opened up a second restaurant in Ashburn, VA (they seem to be following my parents). I went there for at least one homecoming and, I've been there much more recently and, as it turns out, it's not all that expensive. They have a very good ceviche (semi-raw sole cooked by the acid of lime juice) and a good selection of other appetizers. My favorite entree is the lomo saltado which is a Peruvian/Salvadorian tradition of beef with potatoes and other vegetables in a tomato sauce. I get this item at many different places (the aforementioned L'Oreal Plaza is one of them), and while they are generally good, none of them compare to El Mariachi. Machu Picchu in Bailey's Crossroads is a solid second place in this arena and you will get good Salvadorian food there, but El Mariachi in Rockville (and now apparently Ashburn) is definitely the best.

More Missed Places - The Disappointments

Okay, so I've tried to catch up some in preparation for the new restaurant week. I know I've been to a whole bunch of places that would be wonderful to write up, but alas, I can only do what I remember well enough to write up. I'll need to go back through Open Table and try to get to what I've been to.

3 (Clarendon): This place was a bit of a disappointment. It is owned by the same people who own Whitlow's on Wilson, also in Clarendon. I saw it being built and got to speak with one of the owners before it was prepared. When it was finally opened, I was quite excited to try it. It has been quite a while since I was there, but I was very disappointed. I don't particularly remember what I had there, but I remember not liking the wine, the service was average, the food was average and overpriced, the dessert was pretty good, but I think I was just in the mood for sugar. I don't recall my friend being overly impressed either. The only thing that I remember being worth the price of admission was the atmosphere. It was pretty well decorated and you were able to hear pretty well.

600 Restaurant (Watergate): The only thing I can say is don't go here. This restaurant has actually made me second guess 1000 point reservations on Open Table. Yes, it got me 1000 points on Open Table, but it wasn't worth it. I wanted a random nice dinner on a Friday night and I went there. I had a strip steak and I think my friend had a surf and turf. I think disappointed is the wrong word for it. This place had bad service, average atmosphere (you could hear very well because the restaurant was EMPTY). The food wasn't very good, although they did give us a decent amount of it. Dinner was far more expensive than it should have been as we somehow ended up paying $45 a person or so at a place that pretends to be moderately priced. Just consider yourself warned about slightly below average food for a high price. On the good side, it's right next to the Kennedy Center?

Evening Star Cafe (Del Ray, Alexandria): Okay, so this is a pretty cool place to hang out. The bar was kind of nice and their drink selection wasn't terrible. The location was in the hipster Del Ray right down the street from the Dairy Godmother, a fantastic frozen custard store. Parking is available, so that's pretty good. They told us that we would have a 30 minute wait, so we went up to the bar to sit down and have a drink. 90 minutes later, they finally took us to our table, which included very hard wood benches and an inability to hear anything. The service was average at best, partly because the restaurant was packed too close and they didn't have enough servers to deal with it. The food was okay, but it was far more expensive than it was worth and the menu didn't describe items very well. I do recall them having some fairly good desserts as well and somewhat creative. I didn't love it, but it wasn't the worst place I've been to. Not worth the trip to Del Ray, but if you're already there, you want to sit down and listen to live music or you can't get into Del Merei Grill, it's alright.

Tomorrow if I have time, I'll try to put out a couple of good bets.