Spice Xing 100-B Gibbs St., Rockville, MD 20850 (301) 610-0303 Over the years, I’ve sampled garlic naan, naan stuffed with goat cheese, kashmiri naan with nuts and raisins, and, of course, regular ol’ naan blackened and blistered straight from the tandoor. But until I dined recently at Spice Xing, the new Rockville restaurant opened by [...]

Rasika 633 D St., Washington, DC 20004 (202) 637-1222 Rasika has done something to Indian food that it seems like no one else has: It’s made it modern. And, apparently, that’s what people have been dying for. “I lunched at Rasika for Restaurant Week and was extremely pleased.” “From the modern décor, including glass chandelier [...]

Indian Ocean 4221-B Connecticut Ave., Washington, DC 20008 (202) 362-4444 If any man has reason to reign in the fattier excesses of Indian cooking, it’s Raj Kapoor, owner of Indian Ocean. Kapoor’s 67-year-old father died in 1994 from a heart attack, followed shortly thereafter by his 41-year-old brother, who dropped dead at the breakfast table. [...]

Bombay Curry Company 3110 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria, VA 22305 (703) 836-6363 British street food still hasn’t enjoyed the renaissance that British haute cuisine has enjoyed in the past decade—want fries with mashed peas on top? Nope, me neither—but damn do I miss me some onion bhaji. The palm-sized fritters, called pakoda by some, are—probably [...]

Pho Saigon 6795 Wilson Blvd, Falls Church, VA 22044 (703) 677-0523 The first time I visited Pho Saigon in the Eden Center, at the urging of a Vietnamese acquaintance, I sat there listlessly over my bowl, wondering who or what was most off: my friend, my thin pho, or my tastebuds. Turns out that Pho [...]

Present Cuisine 6678 Arlington Blvd, Falls Church, VA 22042 (703) 531-1881 The early word on Present in Falls Church was almost too good to be true. Such praise tends to, at least for me, set the bar impossibly high, especially for a transplanted Vietnamese chef who’s just beginning to understand the American palate and the [...]

Sea Side Crab House 6799 Wilson Blvd, Falls Church, VA (703) 241-2722 Gulf Coast dishes—Alabama crawfish, Texas blue crabs, Cajun shrimp, and Louisiana oysters—dominate the right-hand side of the menu at Sea Side Crab House; the left-hand side features a list of wok items, including a number of seafood dishes tossed with garlic and scallions. [...]

Dogfish Head Alehouse 6363 Seven Corners Center, Falls Church, VA (703) 534-3342 Think of the Dogfish Head Alehouse less as a place to eat than as a food trough to fill your stomach so you can enjoy more of the Delaware brewery’s high-alcohol, highly addictive craft beers. The Falls Church ale house, the second locally [...]

Waffle Shop 3864 Mount Vernon Ave, Alexandria, VA 22305 (703) 836-8851 The Waffle Shop, which occupies a strange, triangular peninsula of cement, like Alexandria’s own tiny Flatiron Building, is one of the city’s few 24 hours a day/7 days a week operations. A few years back, the Alexandria Gazette Packet wrote a story about the [...]

Bob & Edith's Diner 2310 Columbia Pike, Arlington, VA 22204 (703) 920-6103 Bob & Edith's offers, depending on how you count them, five or six different steak-and-egg combinations, in addition to breakfast platters that include turkey, bologna, and half-smokes. Such a wealth of wacky options allows you to never order the same thing twice, but [...]