Category — Restaurants

Le Mannequin Pis
18064 Georgia Avenue
Olney, MD 20832

301 570 4800

For a Google map, click here

Don’t be put off by this dreary strip mall on the intersection of Georgia Avenua and Route 108. The front of this restaurant does not look like much, but, in many ways, this is the closest you can get to a real European restaurant in the Washington, DC area. Perhaps it is the combination of wonderdul food with something of a “take it or leave it” attitude, but once you are inside this restaurant you feel transported to another world.

It specializes in Mussels, which are cooked in 16 different ways plus a special of the evening. You get a kilo of them, and they are accompanied by delicious frites ($16.95). (The menu reminds you not to even ask for any substitutions.) For my main course, I had a delicious beef stew braised in Belgian beers with another order of the frites (($17.95). The others both had steak, which was also excellent (and served with frites!) The specials offered more adventurous food than we ate (skate, bison, etc).

An amazing finale was the pot au chocolat, which all three of us shared. It was dense, dark, rich Belgian chocolate, and totally magnificent.

We did not have wine, but chose terrific Belgian beers from their long list. (Alas, they do not have a draft beer).

The menu announces that they do not aim to cater for vegetarians or children although we did see some happy looking children here. They also say that they do not allow people to use cell phones in the restaurant. And another note in the restaurant apologizes for the high prices of drink, which they blame on Montgomery County.

This is a lovely restaurant. Highly recommended. The bill without tip for three including an orangina and three beers was $113.

Le Provence
144 West Maple Avenue
Vienna, VA 22180
(703) 242-3777

Mon-Sat 11:30am-2pm (L), 5:30pm-9pm (D), Sun closed

For a Google map, click here.

This small French restaurant in Vienna is a very nice place to have dinner. There is a fixed price menu for about $22 with a choice of fish (tilapia), chicken, and pork. Starters included Caesar Salad or soup. The soup was quite tasty, and the pork was beautifully presented with a delicious sauce. It was also surrounded by nice, fresh vegetables. There was a range of choices for dessert, including passion fruit mousse, creme caramel, creme brulee. I had the passion fruit mousse, which was full of flavor and beautifully presented.

There was a good wine list although many of them seemed rather expensive. (I think Chateau Gloria was priced at $85.) We had a louis Latour Ardeche and a Cote du Rhone.

The total bill, including tip, for a party of six with two bottles of wine was about $265. Recommended if you are in the area.

Sushi Sono
10215 Wincopin Circle
Columbia, MD 21044-3408
(410) 997-6131

For a Google map, click here.

Sushi Sono has one of the highest Zagat ratings for food in the Baltimore area. It also is in a nice setting down by the lake in Columbia, Maryland.

We went there for lunch. The menu is a relatively predictable lunch menu for a Japanese restaurant in North America. We started with very good miso soup with the tofu cut into tiny pieces. Then we all had bento boxes for the main course. I had California rolls, tempura shrimps and vegetables, and rice. The food was freshly cooked, and the service was friendly. My guests had similae boxes with triyaki chicken. All the lunch dishes were between $9.00 and $12.00.

This is a nice place for lunch, but there was nothing extraordinary about it. Perhaps I should return in the evening to give them the opportunity to really show off their cooking. Also, I am sure that tasting this restaurant’s sushi would also provide that opportunity. In that respect, this is a somewhat incomplete report.

Thai Restaurant
3316 Greenmount Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21218

410-889-6003

For a Google Map, click here.

I love the name of this restaurant. It is simply called Thai Restaurant. It offers standard Thai fare at reasonable prices (Pad Thai, Yellow Curry, Red Curry, etc). The soup is particularly tasty. Most of the dishes at lunch cost around $8.00. The ingredients are fresh, and they will make the food hot or mild according to your wants. The bill for two was about $24.00 including tax and tip. Prices are higher in the evening although I have not been.

This restaurant offers good food, and I would recommend it for the occasional lunch if you are in the area.

House of India
9350 F2 Snowden River Parkway
Columbia, MD 21045

For a Google map, click here.

We have tried all the Indian restaurants in Columbia, and we have found this to be the best. It serves a good buffet on the weekends for about $8.00. They usually include Goat Curry, Chicken Tikka Masala, Tandoori Chicken, Palak Paneer, and a few other vegetable dishes. There is always a starter (pakora or something similar). Naan is brought to the table. There is also a salad and dessert.

For people who travel, this is by no means an outstanding Indian restaurant, but if you want to have an Indian lunch, and you are in Columbia, this restaurant is probably the best in the area.

House of India sells alcoholic drinks, including Indian beer.

After my disappointing meal at the Royal Bengal, I went back to the Hotel @ MIT to have lunch at Sidney’s Grille where I had this delicious plate of scallops. The brown bits are portobello mushrooms. I had a very good white bean and chorizo soup to start with.

For my other comments on this very good restaurant, click here.

Royal Bengal
313 Massachusetts, Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

This restaurant in the MIT area looked rather intriguing, and there were some good reviews of it. And, the buffet lunch was only $6.95. I went in, and helped myself to the appetizer of pakora and samosas. They were cold, dry, and greasy. So I decided I did not want the rest of the meal. I looked at the other dishes, but they really did not look very nice. I paid my bill and was not even asked if I had enjoyed my meal! A disappointment.

So I wound up going back to the Sidney Grille at Hotel @ MIT.

Atasca
50 Hampshire Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
617 621 6991
FaxL 617 621 6992

For a Google map, click here.

This is a superb Portuguese restaurant. It serves mainly seafood in an authentic Portuguese style. I had a cataplana ($16.95), which is a dish consisting of mussels, shrimp, clams, onions, red pepper, prosciutto, and linguica sausage steamed and served in a copper dish (called a cataplana). It was served over jasmine rice. It was freshly cooked and simply delicious. I also appreciated the fact that the shrimps came with their heads on, which is hard to find in the United States.

Very good little black olives were put on the table to start with. They also provided olive oil with herbs and roasted garlic to dip the (passable) bread into. (The bread was not crusty enough. I sometimes wonder whether American restaurateurs fear that their customers will sue them if they break their teeth of crusty bread. Hence, the floppy dough!)

The wine was a dry Muscat from Joao Pires, and excellent value at $25.00.

Other dishes at this restaurant included Bacalhau de Cebolada (baked dry salt cod with caremelized onion and roasted peppers) ($15.95), Galinha a Verde (14.95) (Boneless breast of chicken cooked in Vinho Verde with artichokes and roasted peppers), and Caldeirado de Marisco ($24.95) (Seafood stew).

The service was attentive and friendly. I would definitely return to this highly recommended restaurant.

Very rare tuna with fennel and roasted tomatoes

The Sydney Grille has an interesting, modern, hi tech design

Sydney Grille
Hotel @ MIT
20 Sidney Street
Cambridge, MA 02139

For a Google map, click here.

This is a nice stylish place for lunch. The food is well cooked, fairly imaginative, and the setting in this hotel with a hi-tech MIT theme is nice. I had Skillet Roasted Rare Tuna ($15.50), which was served with braised fennel, roasted tomato, and a good crisp salad with small olives. Other lunch dishes included Peppered Strip Steak ($13.00), Spiced Maine Scallops ($14.00), and Grilled Atlantic Salmon ($13.00). They also have salads, including a Maine Lobster Sandwich ($17.00). I had sparkling water with my lunch, but there is a good choice of beer on tap.

Recommended if you are in the area or staying in the hotel, but not worth crossing town to eat here.

Indigo Landing
1 Marina Drive
Alexandria
Virginia
22314

Phone: (703) 548-0001

Hours of Operation:
Monday – Thursday: 11:30AM – 10:00PM, Bar Menu until 11:00PM
Friday – Saturday: 11:30AM – 11:00PM, Bar Menu until 12:00AM
Sunday: Brunch 10:00AM – 3:00PM, Dinner 4:00PM – 9:00PM, Bar Menu until 10:00PM

For a map, click here.

Here is a reliable rule when choosing a restaurant. Buy a view or buy good food. Nobody offers both! There are countless restaurants with spectacular views of water and poor food served by surly staff. Now, if you would like to prove me wrong on this point, do exactly what Mr. and Mrs. P did tonight. Take me to Indigo Landing in Alexandria, Virginia. Actually, I still maintain that it is pretty useful rule, but, there are some exceptions. Indigo Landing really breaks the rule. It gave us more pleasure than we have had for a long time!

This new restaurant is on Daingerfield island just south of National Airport (DCA). It is on Daingerfield Island, which is a lovely park with spectacular views of Washington, and, if you like seeing planes coming and going, the setting is perfect. When we arrived, it was still light, and the sun set during dinner.

For readers, who want the view, but not the restaurant, the park is a terrific place to just watch the world go by. And there is also a fast food restaurant that sells food to people who do not want a “fancy dinner.” (This would be a perfect restaurant for visitors to Washington, particularly people with a plane to catch since the airport is only about a mile away.)

The “fancy dinner,” though, really is a very special experience. The cooking is modern “southern Low Country” with an emphasis on seafood. Although I was tempted by the confit of duck with foie gras and the hangar steak, I felt that I would best sample this restaurant’s cooking if I stuck to seafood. Any prejudice that southern cooking is crude and unsubtle should be left at the door!

Our first course was a “tower” of seafood ($65.00), which looked so precarious when it arrived, we suggested that “Seafood Pisa” might be a suitable name for it. It was quite extraordinary. Although $65.00 sounds a lot for an appetizer, the tower left our party of four people wondering whether we would have any room for our main courses. It consists of chilled seafood on plates of ice. It includes crab claws, enormous shrimps, mussels, crab meat wrapped in smoked salmon and lettuce, lobster tails, clams, and oysters on the half shell. The oysters were absolutely perfect, and the three non-oyster eaters in our part all pronounced that they were perfect.

Then we had a baby Boston lettuces with a great dressing, mandarin oranges, and roasted pecan nuts. One of our party ordered the she-crab soup with sherry. It comes with a little roll of crab meat that you are supposed to swirl in the soup. The person in our party, who ordered it, thought it was just a little too rich, but I suspect a little bit of food fatigue after the dazzling seafood tower. I tasted it and it was perfect to my taste!

Then we had the main courses. I had a Fried Skate. The breadcumbs were light, and it was not at all greasy. Two of the others in the party had Grouper, and one of us had Rock Fish, which I tried (and liked very much). All the main courses were in the $21 to $25 range.

After the main course, we all had had more than enough to eat, but that did not stop two of us ordering the marvelous Raspberry Fool ($7.00). I had a Pecan Tart with Bourbon and Vanilla ice cream ($7.00). Indigo Landing also managed to produce a cup of coffee that conforms to my exacting standards!

Finally, the wine! There was an excellent wine list with a number of interesting and tempting offerings at very fair prices. They even offer Chateau Musar ($85), the unusual and wonderful wine from Lebanon! As our first wine, we had an excellent Chenin Blanc/Viognier blend from Pine Ridge ($29). This wine has very interesting tropical fruit tastes and was served cool but not too cold. Our second wine was an Alamos Viognier from Argentina, which was also very good indeed.

The service was nothing short of outstanding. Everyone was kind, attentive, and knowledgeable. And they knew how to avoid getting in the way. A friendly touch was to change the napkins as soon as we sat down to match our clothes.

This restaurant is highly recommended, and I will certainly return. Next time, I will bring my camera and notebook to provide a more detailed report.