Sundae in the Park

It's still good! The eggplant bharta is not quite as smoky as I remember, but it's still smooth and tasty. That pistachio sauce is special and the butter chicken is fine. Samosas and naan have a pleasing crunch and delicacy. Even with all the excellent Indian food in Fairfax, I miss this little place!

Details, please!

Gneiss! I second the Blue Ocean rec. There's been some chatter lately about Indian City Grill on Main street in Fairfax City, but I haven't been yet. In that same plaza there was a great little papuseria - haven't been in ages, but it served a wonderful, greasy product cut with tart yellow cabbage slaw. I like Pad Thai on Lee Highway across from the K-Mart plaza - great little mom and pop (well, brother and sister, I think) Thai for when you don't feel like driving back to Arlington. A&J is THE place for all the time Taiwanese (my mom even likes it! Says it reminds her of home. Which is Taiwan.) snacks. The Vina bakery has incredibly crappy bubble tea and rude service, but their asian pastries (both savory and sweet) are pretty spot on. There are usually snacks to try at Super H and you can take out a variety of foods from there, including Korean fried chicken if you don't feel like going to Annandale. Give it a chance! There's lots of good things if you hunt around.

To clarify: stock of goods.

I was telling an out-of-town chef friend about their stock and he was So. Jealous...

I found the tamarind duck dish to be overly sweet. The sauce was much more than a glaze and the duck was very messy to eat. Maybe SSCs are better at tempering the sweetness, or I just got a heavy-handed batch. The only other warnings I have are that the unflavored tofu dish(es?) is very bland, though expertly fried, while the flavored tofu dishes are very strongly flavored and perfectly fine as a vegetarian entree; and the smoked eggplant is VERY smoky and is great as a side dish when paired with rice and something else - perhaps a meat dish. Also, you can't get the Thanksgiving duck without asking in advance (it's not on the menu and takes a day to make). Other than those warnings, seriously, everything is good. Just enjoy reading the flowery descriptions and don't be afraid to ask the staff for suggestions. They speak more than passable english and are happy to talk about the food.

Eh, tourist season is upon us and the Penn Quarter has one of the most convenient sets of restaurants coming in from the Mall. It's not ideal but it is to be expected, particularly at this time of year. I remember dining at Corduroy in the old location and seeing lots of families obviously staying at the hotel come in dressed in very casual attire...

There isn't much decor at this place, but the food is terrific and a great value! We tried a whole slew of dishes with some officemates, and, other than some slightly dry lamb kabobs, everything (chicken, lamb, ground meat kabobs, felafel) was wonderful. The meat is very tasty and the chicken kabobs were juicy. The sides to the main dishes (not the sandwiches) are plentiful and colorful (veg and rice).

Sounds great! Can't wait to try it. Did you happen to get a sense of whether the weekend buffet is significantly different from the weekday buffet, a la Minerva?

I like Jaipur for service and decor, but I like Minerva's food better. Jaipur always has coupons in the local Clipper magazine, though. Woodlands in FFX is also good, particularly if you want vegetarian food and dosas. Delhi Club is great rec for North Arlington and there is a coupon for DC from this year's Entertainment book (been meaning to get back over there...)

It isn't bad as a brunch place, either. With a big group, it really doesn't hurt to have 10 different variations of eggs benedict PLUS lunchtime options and lot of pie and cake. When we called to make reservations, they told us, "Sorry, we don't do a brunch." Which was met rather quizzically by our, "Isn't the whole menu available all day and night?" When answered, "of course!" we told them that we were coming in, then, for breakfastlunchdinnermidnightsnack at 11 AM. Note 1: their drinks are very, very weak. Both in terms of alcoholic content (presumably, based on taste) and in terms of their mixology. Watery, weak juice will kill any breakfast aspirations of championhood. Note 2: They are quite busy during brunch time. There was a small line continuously formed during our 11 AM-1 PM weekend window.

We've been eating the chili fish a lot lately, in addition to our standby eggplant hot pot and diced fish with pine nuts. It makes for a flavor- and heat-packed meal. I was getting takeout quite regularly but recently, we dropped by for an in-person meal. Wow! Quite a difference in attention to spicing (the eggplant had been getting greasy and bland-ish [hot without depth of flavor]) and cooking times (no more overcooked fish). Now we are strict dine-in people.

I made the reservations just before I found out that the Post's (glowing, I was sure) review would come out a few days before my event. I worried that the restaurant wouldn't be able to handle the onslaught and thought about cancelling, but the developing menu had caught my imagination and we went ahead with the rehearsal dinner as planned. We spent more time with the manager talking over the menu than we did for our actual wedding! I'd been a little concerned that the back tables wouldn't be private enough for a party, and there was an incident where some of our guests thought we were part of birthday party at the last big table (some interesting pictures were taken, as a result), but we mostly felt that we were in our own space and didn't bother (I think)/weren't bothered the other diners. We ate the imperial rolls, fresh vegetarian rolls, the Thanksgiving duck, shaking beef, shrimp on pineapple, fried rockfish, spicy fried tofu, smoked eggplant in fish sauce, and finished up with fruit plates. Everything was carefully prepared (beautifully fried! deeply flavored! expertly seasoned! served hot! meat still tender and nary an overcooked bite!) and thoughtfully presented. Both tables were taken care of with attentive service. I can't say enough good things about the food, service, and atmosphere (we had many remarks on the shiny new, pretty interior). Our mostly out-of-town guests were delighted by the exotic banquet and we were allowed to play the carefree, beaming hosts for a perfect evening. The food was even better (more attention paid to the seasoning) than it had been in our last few sampling visits! I had been worried, but Present brought its A+ game and delivered fantastic results. Thanks to Austin, Kevin, and the whole team for taking such good care of us and making us all feel so welcome.

Don't forget, I think you need to order that duck at least a day in advance.

It's a pretty big (and picky) group, so we're going to streamline from the banquet you did! Still, we are definitely going to ask for the duck and have the rockfish and flaming beef and at least one type of fried roll (loved the pineapple-as-a-delivery-mechanism presentation!). So I guess after adding shellfish (if you could only have one shellfish-featuring dish that must please a crowd, what would that be?), vegetable, rice, and noodle dishes and we're pretty much there!! I'll report back on the aftermath.

Oh crap! I decided to go with my event there (Thanks for the input, Joe!)...later that week. Hope it won't be too much of a madhouse.

Joe, your banquet sounds amazing! May I ask where you were sitting? Is the downstairs banquet space available yet or did you sit at the round tables in the back? If so, how was the atmosphere? I have some concerns about holding a formal meal at those tables due to server traffic. Thanks.

I grew up eating the Worthington brand of mock meat products. While I don't care for any of the roast-type products, I adore the vegeburger for use in dishes. It makes a mean vegetarian wonton or potsticker filling, and is great in fried rice. I also like the vegechili. As a main dish, however, I don't really like any of the mock meats. If you like this brand, it's typically 30-40 percent cheaper at the Potomac ABC than it is at Safeway or Wal-Mart (the only places I remember seeing them outside of ABCs). If the brand of item you want is on sale (changes every month), buying by the case = quite a steal.

Since I'm always such a cheerleader on this thread, I will agree with this to bring some balance. Since I usually get the same dishes, it's very easy to see incremental prices changes. The chili cod, in particular, has gone up several dollars ($3, I believe) since I first started eating it a few years ago. I've noticed less creep ($1, I think) on the noodle dishes. Everthing is still well worth the price, though.

Caught the jazz brunch a few weeks ago for my first visit here. We got there at 11 am, but it was already packed! I like the dining room's warm, neutral colors and rounded inner walls, but it was weird to be walking back and forth from the buffet in a more upscale restaurant, especially once the waiting area started to fill up and we had to push past them to get back to our table (in the bar area). Lots of decent steam-table brunch fare: crunchy french toast, potatoes, fruits, various salads and meat roasts (turkey, ham, and beef) with amazing cheezy grits (more cheese, butter, and salt than you'd ever allow at home, such that they could pretty much stand up on their own, and sheer heaven) and a to-order egg/omelet station. The middle "course", which is a served entree, is usually packed to go, so I took home the turkey meatloaf because I thought it would suffer least in being transported and eaten later. It was...ok. Kind of dry (could have been the transport factor) and not very flavorful (not the transport factor). I wanted to try meatloaf and I'm not sure this was a good introduction, but the collard greens were great! The dessert table was mostly cakey things, cookies, and bits you could dip in the chocolate fountain. I liked the fountain items for their novelty (chocolate dipped rice krispie treat!!!), but the desserts I tried - a brownie? thing and a lemon tart-like square - were pretty dry and very sweet. It's a LOT of food and the atmosphere is buzzing. An interesting experience.

It's still as good as ever. Chili cod, pad se ew, and fried catfish; yum, yum, and mildly spicy yum. If you're bypassing Thai Square for now, go here!!! Plus the servers got snazzy, new, gold-accented outfits. Shiny!

I agree, they serve an excellent, fluffy, LARGE mound of rice with your kabobs, and the kubideh is tender, juicy and not overcooked. The chicken kabobs are also flavorful and juicy. I'm not a fan of the pile of raw onions, but that's just me, and I really like the grilled tomato, but wish there were more of it. I also like that they take everything off the stick for you, which is not always the case at other places. The flat, thin bread is a disappointment if you're expecting a fresh piece of naan- or pita-like bread, but they give you quite a lot of it! Apparently service can be quite slow (they don't seem to have many people working at lunch, anyway), so it might be smart to call ahead for carry out, as we saw quite a few people picking their food up.

We went to see the space and try the food last night, and came away very pleased. We tried three of the four kinds of rolls (the fried ones, naturally). The summer roll is nice, very porky, reminding me strongly of lumpia, but eclipsed by the autumn roll, which is also full of of pork with a smidge of shrimp? It has that beautiful latticework roll that feels greaseless but is very crunchy. We also tried the dessert roll - the winter roll, which is an assortment of chopped fruits in vanilla icream, wrapped like a spring roll, and fried. Strange, but good in an interesting way. Sort of Asian meets Eamonn's. We had the shaking beef, grilled eggplant with fish sauce, and tuna something something swimming with the mangoes? (the names are fanciful and funny, but kind of hard to remember). The beef was flavorful and NOT OVERCOOKED (still reddish inside), served with onions on a bed of cress. I really liked the big plate of smoky eggplant with lots of mild, pleasant fish sauce, but my companion kept remarking "how smoky" it was. Or course, he kept eating it, so make of that what you will. This dish would have been slightly boring on its own, as the waitress warned me, but with the beef over some rice it made a fantastic combination. The tuna was a steak, pan-fried, served over shredded GREEN mango (a surprise, but fine) and covered with more fish sauce. The fry job was great - crispy edges without totally overcooking the fish and the mango provided a slightly tart accompaniment. All presentations were colorful (vegetable rosettes), clean (not overly fussy, but lots of carrot pickle!), and pretty. The service cracked me up - the waitresses were exceedingly attentive and volunteered suggestions to the point of pushiness. Still, everyone was extremely welcoming and spoke decent to excellent English, which is a nice change for an Asian restaurant. We spoke to a manager and they are working on building a banquet space downstairs, with completion expected in the next couple of months and plans to seat up to 100 guests.

Hi All, Does anybody know of lower key restaurants with private rooms or areas that can be cordoned off for dinner for 10-15 people? We're looking for Asian (Thai or Vietnamese), Italian, or nicer American food to accomodate picky eaters. It would be nice if there wasn't an extra fee to use the room, but we understand if that's not realistic. Looking for a moderate price point, to top out at ~$50/person/all inclusive. Fairfax/Vienna area would be ideal, but we're willing to branch out for great food. Does Ray's the Classics have a small private room? We were also considering taking a side area at Mihn's...Now I'm wondering about the new 4 Sisters and Present... Thanks!!!

Excellent information, thanks! Can't wait to get over there...