Sweet Ginger, in Danor Plaza, 120B Branch Road SE, near Maple Avenue, Vienna, VA, 703-319-3922 (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [WaPo | City Paper | openlist | Gayot]
Vienna goes Pan-Asian. Again, note that the Pan-Asian concept started off as a bold innovation, now it is usually an excuse to get a sugary and inauthentic version of the real thing. Go to Sichuan Village instead and get the pig’s maw with ginger and garlic.
Big Bowl (web site), Reston Town Center, 11915 Democracy Drive, Reston, VA, 703-787-8852, usually open (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | openlist | Citysearch | Yelp | Gayot]
Half-Asian, half-American, for Reston tekkies, this place is popular and has its defenders. Not for the purist, though. Try the curries, and hope for the best.
Mantis, 1847 Columbia Road, Washington, DC, 202-667-2400 (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [WaPo | City Paper | Don Rockwell | openlist | Citysearch | Yelp]
Pan-Asian tapas, I have yet to go. Nor will I, until they have a non-smoking section.
Raku, web site, 7240 Woodmont Avenue, Bethesda, MD, 301-718-8680 (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | food-plan | openlist | Citysearch | Yelp | Gayot]
More Japanese than anything else. I used to like the old incarnation, I have yet to go here.
Café Asia (web site), 1550 Wilson Boulevard, Rosslyn, Arlington, VA, 703-741-0870 (also 1720 Eye Street NW, Washington, DC, 202-659-2696) (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | Citysearch | Gayot | Yelp]
Now the place to go in Rosslyn. Surprisingly good, and quite cheap. Tasty and spicy Asian food of all varieties, most valuable to me here are the Indonesian dishes, which are very good and hard to find elsewhere in this area. You might think that a Pan-Asian place won’t do most things well, but this place in fact does many dishes reasonably well. Looks like a big cafeteria but the setting is nonetheless somehow attractive, and this has become a place to be seen, at least by Northern Virginia standards.
Spices, 3333-A Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC, near Ordway, 202-686-3833 (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | food-plan | Don Rockwell | openlist | Citysearch | Gayot]
Pan-Asian food, owned by the Oodles Noodles people. By now this stuff is passe rather than new or interesting. If you like this place, it just means you haven’t enjoyed the real Asian food to be had around here, and you are probably one of those carless people stuck in Washington DC.
Café Mozu (web site), 1330 Maryland Avenue SW, Hotel Mandarin Oriental, “Set at the heart of the US capital between Maine and Maryland Avenues and 12th and 14th Streets, SW,” (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | food-plan | openlist]
Expensive, but the seafood is of high quality. Some of the sauces are a bit sweet. Probably the best Pan-Asian place around, but it is two huge strikes against it. 1) If I am in that hotel, and inclined to spend money, I am headed to CityZen, and 2) a bowl of DanDan noodles, at TemptAsian, for $4.95, offers more pleasure than a Pan-Asian meal at any of these places.
Nooshi, formerly Oodles Noodles, 1120 19th Street NW, just north of K Street NW, Washington, DC (Metro Trip Planner – opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | food-plan | openlist | Gayot]
A Pan-Asian place, which mixes cuisines, with an emphasis on noodles. Yummy if sometimes just a bit too sweet. When in doubt, order the peanut sauce.
