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Heritage India, Storied North Indian Restaurant Moves to Wisconsin Avenue and Macomb Street in Cathedral Heights


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it was nice to see this place almost full on sunday night, although i'm not sure exactly why business appeared to be way up, though wondered if it had anything to do with russians coming down the hill.

in a recent visit to passage to india, we ran into tough samosas and lamb and bitter eggplant. all three, based on recent experience, were superior at heritage, though there is still more intrigue and depth to the cooking in bethesda.

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Waitman & I had lunch at the Dupont Heritage last week. Conn Ave's lunch options are a depressing parade of the Cosi/Chopt/Chipotle variety. Heritage is a civilized oasis in the midst of the cramped takeaway joints.

The lunch specials are a good deal, and quite a lot of food - don't bother with an appetizer if you plan to get one. Papri chaat, & pappadum were very tasty, but too much before the vegetarian & lamb lunch combos. Service was not especially fast, but we were busy gabbing so it didn't really matter.

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Maybe out of desperation to drum up some business, there was finally something to gnaw on at heritage this weekend in a curry of stewed goat in a fairly peppery though not blazing cashew sauce ($19.95). we were advised that we would have to pick up the bones to get at the meat, but most of it had dropped off in tender hunks into the sauce, which was smooth and married well with the sweetish flesh, a fair substitute for lamb. there were enough knobs on the knuckles of bone that were spooned clean and white to the surface that grasping them wasnt nearly as messy as tangling with hot chicken wings, though you still wouldnt feel confident about handling them without a napkin on your lap. If its the meat you are looking for, there are only a few strands left, but there is some satisfying sinew and fat to chew on, which opens wider the faintly mysterious flavor of the goat. There were also some indications of marrow, but getting at any that might have been in there would have been difficult even with a small knife, and I had to quit before getting too carried away, like in a George romero movie, and scraping off the surfaces of expensive dental work (which I know enough to avoid, having accomplished this before with duck and ruining the entire meal). Osso bucco this is not. We have been coming here regularly now for several years, and even with more competition moving into the neighborhood, most of it disappointing to various degrees, heritage remains one of the best restaurants in the few blocks mounting the hill up to calvert street, tied in my mind with sushi-ko across wisconsin avenue. Specials are something new here, and I have no idea when, if ever, goat will pop up again, but in a clinch, if you are looking for excitement, you can always fall back on the lamb vindaloo. Just let your server know that your mouth is coated in asbestos and you are ready to handle the anguish, which lasts as it travels.

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There remains a great deal of continuity in this skilled kitchen, but you can’t help but notice some subtle changes around the edges now that the previous chef has moved up the street to higher ground in tenleytown. The samosas lately have been packing more heat, though not smoldering, the pastries impeccably fried, crisp and light. The minced lamb and lentil filling in the shammi kabab is being ground into a sandier paste. And intriguing specials are appearing regularly on their own short menu. Billed as street food, but elegant in its simplicity (if there is such a thing in Indian cuisine considering its elaborate use of spices), aloo tama kut ($11.95) was on the menu recently, a lighter, wet alternative to aloo gobi, the potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce. Our aloo were undercooked, not terribly, but still slick and not given enough time for their starch to do its thing. Kadhai chicken ($16.95), which is cooked with some steam, also comes in a tomato curry, though not in the same bath as the potatoes, so you can easily distinguish between the two gravies on the same plate. Without its creaminess, this dish seemed, deceivingly, not as rich as the butter chicken or chicken masala, the cubes of dark meat more transparent. Even traveling on the lighter side of the menu, this was a filling meal. We built up a healthier tolerance for alcohol over the holidays, so our departure down the stairs was easier than usual even though the martinis here are just as mean as ever. A hopeful sign, in two recent visits, both dining rooms have been crowded.

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Went to Heritage Monday night and, for all the love Sietsema showers on Ashok Bajaj's various joints and the recent Masala Art boom-let here, I'm thinking it's still the best Indian in the city, particularly if your taste runs towards the slow simmery stuff. Half priced wine Monday-Thursday, as well.

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Went to Heritage Monday night and, for all the love Sietsema showers on Ashok Bajaj's various joints and the recent Masala Art boom-let here, I'm thinking it's still the best Indian in the city, particularly if your taste runs towards the slow simmery stuff. Half priced wine Monday-Thursday, as well.

I've read others extol the virtues of the hawker's menu at the Dupont location (mostly on CH) and I've heard it sucks. Does anyone have an updated report?

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I've read others extol the virtues of the hawker's menu at the Dupont location (mostly on CH) and I've heard it sucks. Does anyone have an updated report?

I've had their vegetarian kati roll and thought it was fine, though not super flavorful (too many potatoes!). other indian friends i've been with have said their frankies/kati rolls are really good, so maybe the nonveg ones are better? the pani puri are fine. not great, but i don't know that there's a better version of them in d.c, (though i've never had the ones at masala art.) the only local version i've had that were better (though only a little bit better) were the ones at indaroma on little river turnpike.

nonetheless, since there are so few places in dc that serve the "hawker food" i'm quite glad heritage offers what it does.

at happy hour the "street food" is half off or heavily discounted.

ps-for my money, the best "hawker food" in the area is at 1) rasika--the ragda patties is a good rendition of a street food classic, imho not too far off from homemade or the original, and their palak chat is also a version of a classic street food and 2) indaroma in va.....

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There is a new sign at the Glover Park location that says, "Heritage Asia" Thai food, as well as a Thai menu on their website. (The Indian restaurant is still there, as far as I can tell.) I was just driving by so didn't stop to check it out but was planning to walk by this weekend out of curiosity. Does anyone know what this is about, and has anyone tried the new menu?

the last time i was there, maybe a month ago, the mandus, a special appetizer, were the best thing we ordered. they were indian, and really delicious, but not what i was accustomed to seeing on the menu -- more like something i would have expected to find at the small chinese restaurant downstairs that i have never visited even though i continue to hear good things about their dumplings.

anyway, it's hard to imagine serving thai and indian in the same dining room, so i am guessing that maybe the thai food is in the bar area downstairs, which never seemed to do any business and where the furniture was for sale. if that's the case, i'm going to have a hard time choosing thai over the reliably good indian cooking that is upstairs. if the two cuisines are being served in the same restaurant, maybe i'll just duck into the chinese restaurant.

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In case there's any confusion, Heritage Glover Park plans to remain open, and hopefully continuing to serve their fine meals; Heritage Dupont has closed, and is supposedly going to relocate somewhere else in the city (which, in my opinion, would be a shame because their inferior product was dragging down this restaurant's good name).

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In April, I had an ever-dwindling day where I just pointed my car in a random direction, and ended up going where I could find parking, only to go exploring. I saw a patio on the northwest corner of 19th and Pennsylvania with a sign up for $10 Moet & Chandon, if I recall. While I wasn't interested in the "Champagne," I was intrigued by this plucky new restaurant, and asked a gentleman where, exactly, it was. He pointed down a flight of stairs, and I went down and took a seat at the bar.

I ended up meeting and talking with Sanjeev Tuli, one of the owners of Heritage India, and simply couldn't believe what I saw when I opened the menu. This restaurant was a very large space, surely built to handle many hundreds of people, but the menu had everything, and I mean *everything* on it - I had never seen such an all-encompassing menu in all my life. Name any country you can think of, and it probably had representation - Indian, Central American, Spanish, West African, Ethiopian, Chinese - there was even a sushi bar. I remember thinking to myself that this was directly catering to the World Bank, just down the street, trying to be all things to all people - I played it safe and ordered a couple of Indian-based dishes (noting that one of the cooks appeared to be of Indian ethnicity), and liked them very much.

On the way out, I tweeted about the myriad of items of the menu, but then quickly forgot all about Crossroads until just yesterday, when a friend (who had seen my tweet) informed me that they had closed. No big surprise, I guess, but there was a lot that went into the opening of this restaurant, and there is no funeral for them; just ... silence.

I had a good meal, Sanjeev. Thank you.

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I noticed while driving by that the sign says Zanzibar & Heritage India.  

Then this sounds like a concept change; not necessarily a change in ownership.

Given the heritage of Heritage Dupont, it's not impossible - I just don't understand how a classical, first-rate, old-world Indian restaurant like Heritage India Glover Park could morph into something trying to incorporate bottle service and the club scene. It's not consistent.

There was also a Zanzibar on Water St. SW, but that closed awhile ago. Related?

The key question here is ownership - if they're the same owners, and just changing concepts (but not location), this thread will simply be retitled; otherwise, it will be split into its own.

Does anyone know?
 
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Edit: I read Rebecca Cooper's column closely, and indeed, it's a concept change by the same owner. According to this article by Linda Roth Conte in The Georgetowner, it's Heritage India during the day (serving a buffet), then turns into Zanzibar (a nightclub) from happy hour onwards.
 
Frivolities aside, this may well have a good lunch buffet.
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Same thing happened at another Indian place downtown like ten years ago. Usually Indian restaurants in DC will have fairly good lunch time business and catering on the weekends, but weekday nights are slow. Having 'night clubs' nights is a means to draw people in on those slow nights. 

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I love all the champagne-bottle and belt-buckle action. That must have been quite a night.

Hot time in the old town that night, this passage is particularly amusing:

"When Investigator Jones went to the back room where the altercations had taken place, he saw several of the tables turned over, broken glass scattered all over the floor along with women's shoes left behind as well as pieces of hair extensions and wigs scattered on the floor."

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Heritage was the mothership for accomplished Indian cooking at outposts in Bethesda, Rockville and up the street in Tenleytown. Unfortunately, its business dwindled steadily over the past several years, and I'm surprised it survived as long as it did considering the size of the place. I don't think they used the sumptuous back dining room for years. Fit for a raj, it used to fill up on weekends. We watched the food drift downhill. Sometimes it was still worthy of the reputation the kitchen set in its golden era, but often it was not -- down to nan gone to flab. The Southern inspired Malgudi downstairs failed to turn the tide, and it too turned inconsistent, although it usually provided the best parts of the meal when it was sent upstairs to mingle with the Heritage menu. Blame it also on the service? Maybe. This place had a reputation for being mean, and you didn't dare cross the medical student whose family had forced him into servitude for his summer vacation. But that had mostly been ironed out, although I did occasionally overhear heated conversations. I suppose you have it coming when you make a simple request for white chicken meat only and try to send the dish back because you received a thigh. You may end up arguing half the night over what is considered dark. Heritage did, however, accomplish something new when they sent in the clowns to tend the tables at the new Malgudi. I wonder if the servers told Tom Sietsema that they only had beer and wine in order to avoid having to ascend a flight of steep stairs to avoid the bar where mixed drinks were being concocted. Or laughed scoffingly behind his back when he had to leave the table to find a clean plate. 

Heritage is now at the corner of Wisconsin and Macomb in the old Zebra Room, where it seems to be better suited to the snugger space. Week after week, I have been meaning to drop in and find out if it has managed to rekindle its flair for cooking -- in a market where Indian cuisine is a decidedly harder sell than burgers just about everywhere and the exhausted Tex-Mex at the Cactus C. My problem is it's just too hard to pass up 2 Amy's only steps away. I try to make it there almost every week. And believe me, last week among the little things was a crab salad that stood taller than anything I encountered the night before at Woodberry Kitchen, one of the many reasons for traveling the 50 miles to Baltimore, and for a much lower tab. (The competition continues to heat up near the National Cathedral -- at least if you are counting the number of openings and fairly new spots, and my guess is that the days of Cafe Deluxe may be numbered unless it starts to take stock of what it is doing.)

Tonight, unfortunately, I will miss another opportunity to revisit Heritage. I am finding it difficult to break from my habitual dinners at Masala Art, where the cooking continues to hold merit. 

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Cleveland Park and nearby has several good Indian restaurants (and some so so ones too) so it has been a very long time since I've been to Heritage India on WI Ave. However most of the better ones like Indique and Bindaas are not open for weekday lunch. When we Heritage India entered for lunch today around 1pm, it was completely empty. We actually thought it may be closed despite its website and hours on the door saying it is open for lunch. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who thought this as I think our table of 2 may have been their only or one of their only lunches served today. This is in contrast to a bunch of nearby places who had packed patios at the same time. Let me say this was everyone else's loss. We had a great meal today and enjoyed the nice patio in the warm weather.  The service was friendly, helpful, and brisk. The food was very good. They have good lunch combos but we decided to order off the regular menu to take advantage of some of the more less-standard DC indian options.

We started with golgappa - small thin hollow dough sphere/cup where the top is broken and filled with a bit of spiced potato and veg topped with yogurt and tamarind chuntey. Served individually on spoons you then pour a bit of spiced lemon-tinged liquid in the opening and eat it in one bite. I'd seen these before but never eaten them. The hostess asked us if we'd tried before and when we said no, she kindly explained the way to prepare and eat them. Really delicious - crunchy, sweet, tangy. a bit spicy and overall different than anything you'd normally eat. An order comes with 4 large bites. I would get this again. FWIW I have several times had Bindaas's non-traditional golgappa which has creamy mashed avocado instead of spiced liquid and while those are ok, these traditional ones were much better.

Then we shared bhindi/oka masala and aloo gobi masala (potato cauliflower) which came with white basmati rice. Both were good but the okra was the standout with a bit of heat and lots of flavor. 

They have a very large fresh bread section of the menu and we decided to try the non-traditional date-walnut filled naan. It was very good - sweet and filling and a nice contrast to the savory, spicy entrees. The hostess explained this is their americanized take on a coconut-jaggery sweet naan.

I also enjoyed my mango lassi which came out very quick.

Definitely worth a visit for very solid Indian, and with more lunch options, I'll need to add it to my lunch rotation.

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