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Because it set sail in Annapolis seven years in the past, this mom-and-pop from Jeremy and Michelle Hoffman has featured dishes reflective of Jeremy’s origins in Pennsylvania Dutch nation and his curiosity in all issues fermented. Count on pierogies as appetizers, tang all through the menu and … duck tongues, anybody?
“We’re a family-friendly restaurant,” says Brian Cieslak, Protect’s chef de delicacies. “However we don’t suppose mother and father ought to miss out on taste.” Therefore the fried duck tongues, supplied with rice vinegar aioli and chile crunch oil. Protect sells “rather a lot,” says the Maryland native, who is popping 30 this month.
A byproduct of the primary course is duck fats, which the restaurant makes use of to scrumptious impact in a Caesar salad dressing for the shredded lettuce that helps pack a gyro. The sandwich, constructed with pillowy sourdough bing bread, is a showcase for shaved lamb terrine.
Issues that sound acquainted by no means style that means. What reads like pasta with clams seems to be buckwheat bucatini flavored with bacon, black garlic and diced asparagus, all of which slide throughout the tongue with the assistance of a cream discount. A spritz of lemon and filings of Parmesan full the beneficiant bowl. Scallops, striped from the grill, get a beautiful cost from a relish of fermented fish pepper, cilantro, lime juice and celery, an thought Cieslak picked up on his honeymoon in St. Lucia.
Just like his boss, Cieslak works along with his spouse, Sommer Walker, a former ballerina who’s now bar supervisor at Protect. “It’s a dream group,” the chef says of the time along with his colleagues, a element anybody can fact-check by observing the tiny open kitchen full of individuals who seem like they’re having as a lot enjoyable as diners. It doesn’t damage that youngsters’ meals are served aloft toy dinosaurs. The sight of a kid’s hamburger being ferried by the comfortable eating room is as happy-making as Protect’s stellar strawberry shortcake, robed in a mix of cream cheese and whipped cream and glinting with gold leaf. The seasonal dessert’s equal is a tall slab of many-layered crepe cake, flavored as if it had been tiramisu.
Hoffman says he stepped away from Protect a 12 months or so in the past to focus on a second restaurant, the 140-seat Garten in Severna Park. Search for a fall launch for the indoor-outdoor wine-and-beer backyard.
164 Foremost St., Annapolis. 443-598-6920. Open for indoor and outside eating. Entrees $26 to $43.
Danny Chavez serves a few of the most suave meals round. Little inexperienced scrolls of shaved cucumber encompass his racy Wagyu beef tartare; his pure-as-spring asparagus soup is offered with concentric rings of creme fraiche and a float of baked Parmesan; and exact dots of avocado puree border the ruby-colored tuna crudo, strewn with fried shallots. The dishes contained in the Yotel on Capitol Hill are served on plates and bowls, however actually, they benefit pedestals and frames.
If solely the setting, a pair bland rooms divided by sliding doorways, lived as much as the chef’s cooking. The bar has all of the allure of an airport lounge, and even the patio appears to be like onto a giant beige Hyatt throughout the road.
You’re right here for the meals, although, and the chef’s handiwork isn’t merely simple on the eyes. He additionally packs numerous taste into his compositions, what he likes to name “wow” moments. Braised rabbit is however one motive to order the spaghetti, virtually hidden by a backyard of Eden composed of wilted spinach, blanched carrots, pickled pearl onions and (oh, why not?) ramp pesto. Candy Maine scallops, capped with pureed garlic and minced chives, share a comfortable mattress of couscous with blood oranges. On the desk, a discount of saffron and orange completes the canvas. The second half of the restaurant’s identify is represented by the fried rooster, a lip-smacker organized on smooth-as-silk whipped potatoes with sautéed dandelion greens.
Consideration, discount hunters: Lunch on the bar finds a alternative of sandwich, salad or fries and a glass of beer or wine for $22. Be warned: Ciabatta full of smoky pork barbecue and tangy slaw is a whopper that threatens to spoil your dinner plans.
415 New Jersey Ave. NW. 202-393-7777. artandsoul.com. Open for indoor and outside eating and takeout. Dinner entrees $27 to $46.
The Nepalese newcomer makes itself onerous to neglect. I imply, there’s a stuffed yak close to the doorway, and he even has a reputation, “Rocky.” The beast shares its stage with a magnificence — the cooking — and a menu that shrugs off provide points with greater than 30 dishes.
Each different desk appears to be dressed with momos. Be sure you ask for a few of the steamed dumplings, too. They present up as eight supple, see-through bites on the rim of a bowl containing roasted tomato sauce. The restaurant’s theme has me springing for the momos full of floor yak, deftly seasoned with coriander, cumin and garam masala so you possibly can nonetheless recognize the fragile beefy taste of the mountain cow. The chow mein can also be required consuming. A reminder that China is Nepal’s neighbor to the north, the road meals staple is a tangle of skinny yellow wheat noodles with a confetti of scallions, crimson cabbage, carrots and extra, every chunk smoky from the wok and splashed with sweet-salty oyster sauce.
You possibly can just about level wherever on the checklist and give you a hit story. Luscious chunks of pork, crisp from their time in a clay oven, resonate with mustard oil, ginger and garlic. Hen stir-fried with purple onion and bell peppers is completed with a chile sauce that leaves an exhilarating wake of warmth. Appetizers are apportioned like primary programs, and crowds of Indian prospects prompted the homeowners so as to add to their menu such prizes as lamb korma, comfortable bites of meat in a darkish golden gravy thickened with yogurt and cashew paste — as mild and luscious as I’ve had wherever.
The restaurant places its prospects first. Floating close to the Himalaya-high ceiling are cloth panels to sponge noise, the drinks checklist is as fascinating as in a D.C. sizzling spot, and the individual ferrying meals from kitchen to desk could be one of many two chef-owners.
22885 Brambleton Plaza, Ashburn, Va. 703-760-3710. himalayanwildyak.com. Open for indoor and outside eating and takeout and supply. Entrees $12 to $35 (biryani for 2).
New Heights is an apt identify for this long-running restaurant in Woodley Park, acquired earlier this 12 months by three immigrants from Iran, Ukraine and Bolivia: Mark Namdar, Olena Fedorenko and chef Jose Molina, respectively. Veterans of the hospitality business, the trio share a lofty mission. “Our purpose,” says Namdar, “is to make it a vacation spot once more.”
The setting shall be acquainted to anybody who visited the trendy American restaurant when it was owned by Umbi Singh, who opened the place in 1986 and guided it as much as the pandemic. Visitors encounter an ethereal bar, specializing in gin, earlier than ascending to a eating room set off with home windows trying onto treetops and pictures and maps of D.C.
A look on the menu solely hints on the enjoyable to comply with. Like many eating places now, this one affords predictable dishes sure to have a lot of takers. But, no sooner do the plates begin arriving than you pause to admire a recent take right here, a luscious twist there — a brand new restaurant in your rotation. The Caesar salad is constructed from grilled broccolini and a creamy dressing, daring with black garlic. As an alternative of french fries, there are beech mushrooms dipped in tempura and seasoned with heat spices. Juicy rooster is staged with velvety roast peppers and buttery potatoes whipped with rosemary and lemon juice. Drama accompanies the lamb, offered in a smoke-filled cloche that perfumes (however doesn’t masks) the meat. A Bolivian contact comes by means of a salsa verde vibrant with lime juice, cilantro and shallots.
Amazingly, the chef has a single line cook dinner serving to him feed a possible crowd of 70 within the eating room — extra when you depend the bar and patio. Blame the labor scarcity and applaud the expertise.
2317 Calvert St. NW. 202-290-2692. newheightsrestaurant.com. Open for indoor and outside eating and supply and takeout. Entrees $18 to $42.
Parkway Deli & Restaurant
March and April discovered me consuming virtually nonstop in new eating places, inevitable given the theme of my annual spring eating information, a celebration of youth. After I made my deadline, one of many first locations I hit was Parkway Deli & Restaurant. A blast from the previous, it’s watched over by Danny Gurewitz, whose grandfather opened the place in 1963.
The menu gathers numerous needs spanning breakfast, lunch and dinner. For those who go for only one dish, make it rooster soup. Tender chunks of rooster pack the golden broth, gently herby and full of a fistful of carrots, celery, onion and egg noodles. (Matzoh balls are non-compulsory.) Each spoonful has the facility of a hug. As for sandwiches, the reuben hits pleasure factors with tangy sauerkraut, candy Russian dressing and half a pound of thinly shaved corned beef. The perfect of the pastry case is a warm-spiced slab of carrot cake that may simply fulfill three forks.
Dinners are served beginning at 4 p.m. — my type of completely satisfied hour — and embrace such comforts as cabbage full of floor beef, fried rooster and sliced turkey with cornbread stuffing and cranberry sauce. Diners choose a facet; flippantly dressed coleslaw or creamy mac and cheese are likely to spherical out my plates.
The entrance of the operation is a small meals retailer and deli, the place you should purchase wine or beer to eat together with your meal and which you move by to achieve the eating room. Painted in purple and aqua, the restaurant is in any other case plain and sensible. A band of mirrors enables you to play voyeur from nearly each desk, and the way considerate that the condiments prolong to 2 sorts of sizzling sauce and three sorts of sweetener. Consolation and abundance clarify what the proprietor calls “a cornucopia” of diners right here.
Can we speak? Your mileage is determined by realizing the kitchen’s strengths. (See above.) However there’s one thing to be mentioned for a spot that has outlived so many different space makes an attempt at “deli.”
8317 Grubb Highway, Silver Spring. 301-587-1427. theparkwaydeli.com. Open for indoor and outside eating and takeout. Sandwiches $7.49 to $16.99, dinners $14.49 to $18.99.
The eating room is designed to evoke the proprietor’s native Trinidad. “After I return residence,” says Jeanine Prime, “I’m struck by the lushness. You see inexperienced in every single place.” You see inexperienced in every single place on the light-filled St. James, too: within the shiny entrance of the bar, on the plant-filled cabinets behind it, and atop the plates that crowd your desk as you make your means by the menu.
Take the soup often known as callaloo. The colour of moss, it’s thick with spinach and collard greens, cooked with coconut milk and completed with candy crab. The crimson oil on the floor hints on the cayenne punch to come back; the physique is deeper for a splash of oxtail juice.
My technique is to order just a few dishes at a time. The meals flies out of the kitchen however deserves leisurely appreciation. Discover the habanero warmth within the pork filling of the Chinese language steamed bun? How the colourful purees on a plate of salt cod crudo comply with visitors indicators, beginning with good-to-go inexperienced (avocado)? The bar shares about 50 rums, splashes of which discover their means into the gravy for the brown stew rooster, a sauce that finds fingers dipping into the mixture of soy sauce, tomato paste and butter.
The showstopper, much like an Indian thali, is designed for a gaggle: a variety of braised beef, goat, smoky garlicky eggplant and curry-seasoned chickpeas organized in little bowls on a platter and accompanied by flaky paratha, which you tear off and use to scoop bites and mop sauces. The meat, comfortable from low, gradual cooking, advantages from the home inexperienced seasoning and successful of culantro. The goat, cooked equally, is sharpened with ginger and garlic.
You’re on restaurant row on 14th Avenue. However a feast like this places you near surf and solar and sand.
2017 14th St. NW. Open for indoor eating. stjames-dc.com. Entrees, $16 to $60 (for paratha platter).
The one distinction between the calamari “pasta” I recall from Takumi earlier within the pandemic and this month is the mode of supply. Take it from this fan. The most well-liked dish on the Japanese retreat appears to be like higher on a plate than inside plastic — and is healthier skilled in view of the open kitchen than as takeout. In any other case, the poached calamari (sliced into ribbons, fashioned right into a turban and topped with seaweed matchsticks and a quail egg) is as compelling as ever. The appetizer comes with directions to interrupt the yolk to create a sauce and mix it with the opposite components, which embrace custardy sea urchin tucked throughout the “pasta.”
Recognizing tuna napoleon on the menu, I’m reminded that chef-owner Jie (“Jay”) Yu borrowed the thought from his former employer, Kaz Sushi Bistro in Washington. The beet-red minced fish, which will get its kick from a spicy miso sauce and its slick from sesame oil, arrives atop little rounds of corn chips. One is rarely sufficient.
Possibly you’re in a comfortable sales space or on considered one of solely six counter stools for one thing extra conventional. Let a server steer you to what fish you must order as sushi. A latest request included yellowtail stomach with a pinch of lime zest and pale pink o-toro, unadorned to let its buttery taste shine. Yu fries in addition to he slices and dices. Proper now could be the time for soft-shell crabs from the Carolinas, crisp and candy as you need them to be and enhanced with a dip of ponzu sauce. Any time of 12 months you may discover calamari in a sheath of tempura. Yu is aware of the trick to profitable frying is clear oil, the proper temperature and timing.
There’s no set value for omakase, only a base value of about $80; Yu enables you to resolve how a lot you wish to eat and works inside your finances. At a minimal, you’ll get two small plates and about 10 items of sushi — a meal to recollect.
310 S. Washington St., Falls Church. 703-241-1128. takumiva.com. Open for indoor eating and takeout. Small plates $3.50 to $15.
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