One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

This pho parlor in the Eden Center turns out stellar noodle soups. My most recent order came swimming with thin slices of richly fatty brisket, crunchy/chewy tripe, perfumed beef broth, and a garnish plate brimming with sliced jalapeños, Thai basil, bean sprouts, and even that rare saw-toothed leaf, culantro. Pho Saigon also pays attention to its noodles; they’re soft, supple, and so easy to slurp. This tiny shop, overstuffed with trinkets and pictures and boxes of kitchen supplies near the bathroom, would remind you of a crowded Vietnamese street stall if not for the overhead flat-screen TV set to the Speed Network, where racing school buses provide a little redneck comfort. Yep, you get a melting pot here along with your noodle soup.

Pho Saigon, 6795 Wilson Blvd., Falls Church, (703) 677-0523

The District’s latest pho parlor is not really one at all. It’s Wagshal’s Delicatessen on Massachusetts Avenue NW, where executive chef Ann-Marie James has devised an ingenious take-out version of the Vietnamese noodle soup. Actually, it’s less a take-out version, which implies that Wagshal’s pho is ready to eat, than it is the adult version of Lunchables.

The sectioned container includes a bowl of homemade beef broth, parboiled rice noodles, raw slices of prime eye of round, sprouts, jalapeno slices, raw red and Spanish onion rings, a small container of Sriracha and hoisin sauce, a wedge of lime, and leaves of cilantro, mint, and Thai basil. Once you get the package home, you remove the small bowl of broth and microwave it for a few minutes. While it’s nuking, you arrange your preferred ingredients at the bottom of the larger section of the plastic container and then dump the hot broth over them.

Voila, pho!

Read More “It’s My Pho in a Box” »

As I had noted in an earlier item, D.C. is not exactly awash in noodle shops. So I was excited to visit Saigon Bistro this weekend, a handsome new Dupont Circle operation that’s run, according to its Web site, by some folks who “recently emigrated to the U.S. after running an exquisite Vietnamese gourmet restaurant in their native homeland.”

I wasn’t as excited when I left the place.

Read More “Saigon Bistro: A Best of D.C. Contender or Just a Pretender?” »

It’s long been a truism that if you wanted good (or even decent) pho or ramen or soba soups, you had to drive to the ‘burbs, whether Falls Church or Rockville, to get your fill. But there’s been encouraging news lately for Washingtonians who want to stay closer to home for noodle soups.

Read More “The Sounds of Slurping: Get Ready for D.C. Noodle Shops” »