Gharer Khabar

Gharer Khabar, 5151 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA, 703-973-2432 (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [zabihah | Don Rockwell | Yelp]

(Previous review here.)

A new Bangladeshi place, now up and running — sort of — and suddenly one of my very favorite area restaurants. During their first few months they served only biryanis, and those were a clear first best in the area. Now they have an entire menu. The thing to do is go with four people and ask for all of their best dishes. You should get around eight courses for about $30 per head. The breads, curries, and odds and ends are all first-rate and original at that. It reminds me of the early days of Thai X-Ing. It is also one of the two or three cheapest places on this whole list.

Highly recommended, right now this is one of the places to frequent. Note they only have a few tables, and the kitchen is slow in any case.

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5 Responses to Gharer Khabar

  1. Eve B says:

    We tried this out a couple weekends ago. It was definitely cheap and barebones, not something we mind, but something that surprised me was that every dish was dry. We had a goat curry and chicken biryani and both came as rice with meat, spices and a few vegetables mixed in. We also had their Aloo Ghobi which was delicious. Were your dishes all primarily rice? We are wondering if they served us something different that what we ordered for the curry and biryani. Have you tried the Indian restaurant on that same block? Thats one of our next stops!

  2. Steve says:

    The curry is liquidy. They usually ask if you prefer bread or rice on the side.

    The top two things to order which are indicative of Bengali food are the moghlai parotha (bread stuffed with egg and scallion) and the chotpoti (typical room temperature chaat with legume, chopped onion, cilantro, tamarind sauce.).

    the alu gobi is indeed excellent – often listed on the chalkboard as “vegetable.”

  3. pete says:

    eve,
    try the chotpoti next time. Its not dry, no rice-based. Simple streetfood, yet very flavorful.

  4. Ted says:

    When I went, I probably ordered wrong, and missed out on the variety because I was by myself. But the chicken biryani I ordered was bland and unexciting relative to biryanis in Fairfax at places Tyler hasn’t even bothered to review. The menu board isn’t helpful; I didn’t even see eight things I’d want to order. What am I missing? I usually revel in Tyler’s recommendations.

  5. Teresa says:

    We also tried Gharer Khabar with much anticipation–a rave from our favorite food website to a place 2 minutes from our house. But we found it to be very ordinary–dry, ricy unexciting. And this was for the biryanis that were recommended. I guess maybe the it is very uneven in quality? Not sure why we found it underwhelming.

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