Tarting It Up

Rose Restaurant

Shamshiry has previously been our go-to restaurant for Persian cuisine, but Tyler Cowen's recent review of Rose Restaurant in Vienna inspired us to try out the new(ish) Persian spot in Vienna.

We'll have to make a couple more visits, but we might have found a replacement for Shamshiry.   Here's M's disembodied head floating towards the entrance:

I took these photos with E's new iPhone.  Be warned that my sense of composition leaves something to be desired.  The bread that came out was hot and pillowy, and was accompanied by yogurt sauce and spicy green sauce.

E and M both ordered the chicken kabob, and both thought it was excellent.  The chicken breast is moist and tender, and the entire kebob tastes as if it's been slathered in a buttery sauce (likely because the kebob has been slathered in a buttery sauce).  In our experience, Shamshiry's chicken tends to be cooked to a significantly higher temperature, and it isn't so saucy and flavorful.

In a slight bummer, Rose doesn't seem to feature all of the different rices that Shamshiry does.  However, when a table near us ordered zereshk polo (sweet and sour rice studded with dried berries), the waiter informed the table that they didn't have the rice that day.  Aha - a secret menu!  (or just my inability to fully read a menu)  I'll have to try to order it next time.

Also - the garden salad at the bottom was simple and good.  It's early September, and the tomatoes really should be excellent, right?  These were.  A garlicky dressing was served to the side.  It was worth having again.

I ordered the salmon, which was accompanied by rice infused with dill and studded with fava beans.  I stirred some of the yogurt sauce into the rice.

That picture turned out poorly.  The rice is seasoned superbly - dill and fava beans are perfect foils for the salmon.  No crisp tah dig though, and according to this Chowhound thread, it's not available even if you want it. 

Like the chicken, the salmon was cooked to a much lower temp than at Shamshiry.  I've never had a piece of salmon cooked anything but well done at Shamshiry.  Without my specifying the cooking temperature, the fish came out what most restaurants would call medium-rare.  I enjoyed the salmon but found it underseasoned.  A a healthy squeeze of lemon and schmear of the yogurt sauce woke up the flavors of the fish.

 

Our bill for 3 salads and 3 dinners came to $57 (sans tip).  This restaurant is a great new addition to the Vienna restaurant scene.

Rose Restaurant
126 W. Maple Ave
Vienna, VA  22180
(703) 255-2557

Caribbean Breeze

... doesn't that sound like it should be a luxury yacht cruising the islands?  Instead I give you...

... one of Arlington's newer restaurants located a block from the Ballston metro.

Since J. is out of commission until the bar exam in late July (we were chanting Virginia's 8 Bases for Long-Arm Jurisdiction on a recent walk), I met up with some friends for lunch last Saturday to celebrate both of their birthdays.  We were toying with the usual lunch options, when I suggested this place, a restaurant that opened its doors just over a year ago and which touts itself as Neuvo Latino Cuisine.  Frankly, I've been curious for a while.

Our experience started off a little shakily as we waited to be seated.  There were maybe three other parties in the restaurant, and we happily waited for the third member of our party to arrive.  And she did!  And we talked and anticipated our nuevo latino lunch.

And then we waited.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.  Um, hello?  L. had to walk up to the bar and actively request that we be seated in this nearly-empty restaurant.  Como se dice, "inauspicious beginning."

Did you ever watch Top Chef?  My boyfriend, Harold often sneered (endearingly) "pssh, is it fusion, or CONfusion?"  (get it?)  This isn't exactly fusion, but it's a melange of All Foods Equatorial: caribbean, mexican and cuban cuisines.  Jerk chicken, quesadillas.  Hmm. 

L. had the Plantain Crusted Soft-Shell Crab with Lemon Vinaigrette. 

Colorful, no?  According to L., the crisp-fried plantain worked nicely with the...er...crisp-fried crab.  The accompanying corn salad and lemon vinaigrette were wonderfully light. 

Crisp and Juicy

Northern Virginia is awash in good places for Peruvian rotisserie chicken.  At school, waddle out the front door, and El Pollo Rico beckons from across the street.  Turn your head 40 degrees to the left, and Pio Pio calls to you.  A little further afield, though, Crisp and Juicy is our favorite of all.  Oddly enough, we were first introduced to the place as a treat after our weekly Saturday Weight Watcher's meetings aerobics classes.  We visit even now that we're not so into, ahem, aerobics anymore.

And just look at how welcoming!  Don't the saturated golds and reds on the walls look pretty?

Mmm.  We've never strayed from the chicken offerings, though I hear the steak sandwich that they offer up is worth having as well.  If you're like us and never manage to stray from the chicken, you'll be happy.  Whenever we'd come to the restaurant after Weight Watchers aerobics, we'd all order the chicken breast sandwich:

Ok, the picture looks a little gross.  But it's delicious!  I promise.  Why can't chicken breast that I cook ever taste this good?  I brine it.  I marinade.  I swish it through a vinaigrette after I've cooked it.  I give it my all, every time.  I take a bite of my chicken, and I taste...

...

chicken.  Crisp and Juicy's chicken breast sandwich isn't like that.  The chicken has clearly been expertly brined, and it tastes of pepper and thyme.  While the sandwiches are great, you must try the quarter or half chicken.  It lives up to the restaurant's name and more, with flavor permeating the meat all the way to the bone.  Faaabulous. 

They offer up hot and mild mayonnaise-based sauces as well (our yellowy sauce above is the mild), but the difference between hot and mild can be subtle, depending on who's mixed up the sauces that day.  The mild can be alternately soothing and comfortable...or (annoying food review cliche)tongue-numbingly(/annoying food review cliche) spicy.

Crisp and Juicy
913 W. Broad St.
Falls Church, VA 22046
(703) 241-9091

Nielsen's Frozen Custard

Long time no see.  J. has been busy with schoolwork (last semester, woo hoo); E.'s been busy with work-work.  I'm going to spend the next twelve hours feverishly trying to complete a project, I'm behind, so I MUST PROCRASTINATE.  What better way to burn up precious pre-deadline minutes than to write about our recent visit to Nielsen's Frozen Custard?

Vienna's Church Street is a charming place, with lots of brick sidewalks and little shops that call themselves shoppes.  Nielsen's Frozen Custard, which some hail as the best custard in the area, lives on Church Street as well.  It's an upmarket custard place: the interior is....well here it is.

Kinda Arts & Crafts movement-looking with faux tin roof ceilings and fireplace.  It's warm and welcoming, and my GOD do they serve great frozen custard.  It's delicious and somehow enigmatic: I've heard that frozen custard actually contains less butterfat than premium ice cream.  Yet it doesn't really melt.  Go ahead: visit Nielsen's, and you tell me if your ice cream melts.

That's M.'s oreo cone and J.'s vanilla cup.  Those who wax critical about ice cream joints always say that ONE judges the quality of the place by the quality of the vanilla.  Try this, it's great.  It tastes like nothing but fresh cream and vanilla bean.  The vanilla flavor reminds me of myself somehow: high quality, honest, pure, and 85+% fat.

It's delicious, but we don't go all that often.  I have to say it: we have a couple of minor quibbles with Nielsen's.  First, isn't it fun to go to a place like The Dairy Godmother, eagerly anticipating the flavor of the day?  I love the surprise of discovering cool new flavors there: snow angel, tollhouse cookie, Chocolate raspberry bavarian cream...isn't it fun just reading them?  And don't even get me started on the sorbets they serve up: lemon ginger, cucumber, apple cider, they're all transcendent.

You won't experience that particular thrill of the hunt at Nielsen's.  Nielsen's features three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla, and the flavor of the day, which is always pedestrian: oreo, coffee, lemon, raspberry, cherry, egg nog.  Ho hum.

Also, you walk into an ice cream shop, you want to smell waffle cone, right?  Or hot fudge a-bubbling.  Or cookies baking.  Or coffee percolating.  At Nielsen's, thanks to the menu that contains non-frozen-custard items, there's an unpleasant aroma of fried food that permeates the place.

Nielsen's Frozen Custard
144 Church St., NW
Vienna, VA 22180
(703) 255-5553

Woo Lae Oak

I don't want to appear tacky by name-dropping my professional successes, but well, maybe just this once. I was once a cashier at Bed Bath and Beyond. Twice, actually. Don't believe me? Lemme rock a little Bed, Bath and Beyond harmony for you:

"Attention Bed, Bath and Beyond Shoppers, the time is 9:30 and the store is now closing. Please feel free to continue shopping and browsing, as our registers will remain open for your convenience. Bed Bath and Beyond will reopen tomorrow morning at 9:00 A.M. Have a pleasant evening, and thank you for shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond."

Sad confession: I felt like a celebrity whenever I made the store announcement. The cigar haven steakhouse Sam and Harry's used to live next to that Bed, Bath and Beyond, but now Woo Lae Oak occupies the space. Paul Song, one of the restaurant's partners, wanted to create in the space "a more mainstream place that Koreans would be proud of, one that would also appeal to people unfamiliar with Korean food." They succeed. It's Korean food that both attracts a Korean clientele and is accessible to dorks like me! It's fantastic.

It was a busy night at the restaurant. We didn't have a reservation, so we sat in the bar for about 40 minutes, getting to know each other a little better. There's a pleasant hustle and bustle to the place, the place has the happy vibe of lots of people enjoying themselves.

After about 40 minutes, we were seated a table that featured - ooooh - a grill top in the middle. We discuss the menu, and...

"MY SISTER...DO YOU KNOW...WHO MY SISTER LOOKS...MY SISTER...SHE LOOKS LIKE..."

Uh, ahem, excuse me. As I said, we discussed the menu...

"BUT SHE LOOKS, MY SISTER...SHE LOOKS LIKE A CELEBRITY...MY SISTER..."

I am dramatically recreating a moment for you. But before I explain further, I have to say that we eat out a lot. Too much. We eat happily even near the din of a lively Friday night bar. If we're seated near a group engaging in loud n' joyful conversation, no worries! I'm mellow. But this time, we were seated near - bar goddamn none - the most obnoxious group of 45+ year old drunk

"MY SISTER LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE..."

people that I've ever been around, seedy college dive bars included. Constantly loud and shrieky and obnoxious. Loud joking about sexual prowess, loud joking about Korea. And here they are!

I swear on the eyes of my future grandchildren that they were not as sedate as the picture suggests. I photoshop-blurred the picture to obscure their identities. Is it wrong that I feel vindicated now? /rant.

Nizam's Restaurant

I'm a little behind the times...the WASHINGTON Times, that is.  [[laughter that devolves into applause]].  No please, take your seats.  Thank you...

Thank you.

After writing the below entry, I found that the Washington Times recently reviewed Nizam's as well.  Phooey, I've been scooped!  I feel so derivative now!  Oh well - their experience (bad service, iffy food) wasn't mine, so feel free to compare and contrast between our reviews.  My review is also much more entertainingly written.  I think.

As I mentioned recently, I have a deep and abiding love for the fourth best place to live in America.  I'm going to say the unthinkable, though: I wish Vienna had more good restaurants.

Pauli Moto's Asian Bistro

We recently went to Pauli Moto's, er, pauli moto's, a pan-Asian bistro that lives in the new Tyson's Corner addition.

Guajillo

Maybe it's because I'm originally Viennese, but I have an abiding love for Anita's Restaurant. With the restaurant's heaping helpings of refried beans under mounds of melted cheese, it's not the type of restaurant that the Food Cognoscenti typically embrace, but it's cheap, filling, and though it has several locations in NoVA, has a family vibe about it that always reminds me of Home.

Oyamel

We finally made it to Oyamel in Crystal City. I winced a little as we passed the Crystal City Marriott, my MPRE testing location. Like Jaleo, its next door neighbor, it is a creation of the prolific Jose Andres. Opinions differ about this place. Godlike Tom Sietsema loves Oyamel; many of the commenters at the Don Rockwell board, not so much. We enjoyed it a lot.

Artie's

We're not big time food reviewers, but it's still difficult to say anything negative about a place that we've in the past enjoyed. It feels so bah humbug. We like Artie's well enough. Tyler Cowen, a prof of mine and a polymath if ever there was one, describes Artie's unforgettably in his October 2005 Ethnic Dining Guide. In his estimation, Artie's is "one of the best places around for food sissies." It's a solidly crowd-pleasing place; we love the rare seared tuna with roast peppers and the grilled chicken salad. This place, however, doesn't shine for brunch.

I know, I know. Where does? I too have read Tony Bourdain's commentary that nothing makes an aspiring Escoffier feel more like Vic Tayback (trust me, you know who he is) than brunch. But Artie's does everything pretty well, shouldn't it do brunch pretty well also? No. But it has a newly-expanded brunch menu and everything, and...

Shh, no, sweetie, no. It's over now. Shh....

So we walked in at 2pm - pretty officially outside of the "brunch" window - and ordered. And waited and waited and waited. And we got to know each other a little better. And looked out the window, wondering what on earth the "Supper Club" across the street was. And waited. And noticed our drinks sitting unfilled, and waited, and crunched on ice to quench the desperate thirst. Have I made clear that we waited? It wasn't even all that busy that day.