Virginia Dim Sum, Cuba in Maryland, and a Gas Station You Really Should Try

Loyal Readers, no doubt you are afeard of the Brigade's demise, and the lost bond of fraternal breaking bread and the shouting of expletives at Virginia's intersections that would entail. Be afeard no more. The Brigade is alive and well; our gluttony had lulled us into a state of lethargic complacence that made writing hard.

This past Sunday, the Brigade ventured out to the Unholy Intersection of Doom known as Seven Corners in Northern Virgina, to indulge in a dim sum feast at Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant.

All the brigadeers point at once!

Before we even sat down, multiple waitresses with carts full of food surrounded our table and began offering us deep fried and pork stuffed treats. We said yes.

This was just Round One of the multi-part feast.

I really don't remember the specifics of anything we ate. Most dishes were pretty tasty, because that's what frying and pork stuffing will do for you. We suspected that even our Chinese Broccoli was covered in pork sauce. Most of the food was good, but not fantastic, although the excitement of a steady stream of food filling up the table somewhat made up for that.

Stuffed and Happy

A few weeks ago, the Brigade minus Adam went out to easily navigable and accessible Silver Spring, MD for some pretty amazing Cuban food at Cubano's. (Yes, Virginia, that is a dig at you.)

Pointing in the rain! There's a certain artistry to this composition, don't you think?

Since two thirds of the dining contingent grew up in Miami, and one of them was raised by a Cuban mother who is an excellent cook, we felt like we were in a good position to judge the quality of the food. And when we saw the prices, we were prepared to be especially difficult to please. Cubano's does not quite fit the "cheap" mandate of our Brigade ethos, but we decided to try it out anyway. And we were really glad we did!

Chicken and beef empanadas, cut into thirds by Julia, our resident photographer and cutter.

The food was delicious!  In addition to the empanadas, we had lechon asado (pork) and ropa vieja (stewed shredded beef) with white rice, black beans and platanos maduros and tostones (sweet and savory plantains). Everything was wonderful, especially the black beans, which are frequently an afterthought, but can really be amazing when they are well-made. At one point, Marta said almost weepily,"There are Cubans back there," referring to the kitchen.

The pork with maduros.

The beef with tostones.

Since it was pouring out, we decided to sit back and bask in our contentment and have some cafe con leche.

To friendship! And coffee and adorable old men in guayaberas.

Speaking of  Cuban food, do you know where you can get a delicious Cuban sandwich in DC? At a gas station on 14th and W, near the U St, metro. Strange, yes, but we highly recommend Fast Gourmet, a high-end sandwich shop in a low-end space. Adam tried the Cubano first, and was so impressed, he returned the same weekend, along with our motivational speaker and aesthetic visionary, to try the Chivito, which he reports was even better. Adam reviewed Fast Gourmet for his student paper. We have pictures somewhere... Anyway, the fancy sandwich competition has really taken off in DC, and we rank Fast Gourmet at or very near the top. Julia and I also ate at the very recently opened Sundevich in Shaw, and enjoyed it. These two places are definitely challenging Taylor's claim to being the best sandwiches in DC.

Bon Chon: Double the fry, double the fantastic.

Koreans know their meat. Our humble brigade has profited from this knowledge once before, having thoroughly enjoyed pork belly and beef at Honey Pig Gooldaegee Grill in Annandale back in September. This time around, we sampled the deliciousness that is Bon Chon, also in Annandale, which is where the Koreans seem to keep all their best restaurants.

This was a special outing, not only because the food was some of the best we've had, but also because it was one of our biggest outings to date. Due to the vast popularity of the brigade members and this blog, our ranks were up to six this time around. Not only did Mr. Philip Lopez, local motivational speaker to the stars, join in again for this trip--we also had the distinct pleasure of the company of the illustrious Monsieur Jean-Paul Grenouille, the renowned aesthetic consultant. Incidentally, our people are currently in negotiations with his people and, with any luck, he'll be signing on shortly as the Brigade's official stylist. There will definitely be matching scarves involved. (Adam is thrilled about this development.)

All the female Brigade members wore dresses for this outing, which reflected the classiness of the occasion.

Not only did these esteemed guests lend a certain gravitas to the evening, but the outing was delicious in a way that almost defies words. Having been the only member of the Brigade who had not experienced the deliciousness of Bon Chon before, I was probably the most impressed of the group. (There may even have been some appreciative cursing coming from my side of the table at some point.) The repeat visits of the other Brigade members testify, though, to just how much this chicken is worth driving out to Annandale for.

The deliciousness of Korean fried chicken has a mysterious quality about it, in that it is at once both cripsy and saucy, as well as being twice-fried and yet, somehow, not at all greasy. These apparent contradictions befuddled all the Brigade members. (If you're reading this, Anthony Bourdain, please do a special on Korean fried chicken so we can finally solve this culinary mystery.)

Alex and M. Grenouille are quite excited to dig into the mysterious deliciousness that is KFC

Adam, who has been to Bon Chon several times before, knew to order our chicken ahead of time, which saved us the trouble of waiting 45 minutes for our food. He also knew to make our order half ginger soy chicken and half spicy chicken.

Marta, getting serious about her fried chicken.

The spicy chicken, while delicious, definitely lives up to its billing--being able to alternate spicy with ginger soy was a great way to soothe burning lips. (Another good way to soothe the spice was by eating the pickled radishes or taking a swig or two of beer.) All in all, the six of us devoured three large plates of chicken in record time and without a whole lot of conversation. We were, quite rightly, focused on the food.

Such culinary success inspired us to see if our luck could hold long enough to find delicious dessert somewhere. Adam, who regularly flouts our no use of smart phones rule, proved once again that this rule is stupid by searching yelp to find Shilla Bakery, which is just down the road from Bon Chon.

Rebel, rebel.

When we arrived at Shilla, at around 7:30pm on Sunday night, the place was packed. We knew straight away that our culinary luck was going to hold.

The men stake their claim.

The particular Korean dessert specialty available at Shilla is an ice-cream dessert called bing soo, which consists, generally, of some combination of ice cream, red bean, condensed milk, pieces of what seemed to us like mochi, and a generous heaping of shaved ice. We ordered one green tea bing soo and one chocolate bing soo. Both were delicious, though we found the shaved ice to be a strange topping for ice cream.

There was no small size option. Bing soo would be popular in Texas.

After consuming vast amounts of chicken and large quantities of ice cream, all Brigade members (and guests) were quite pleased with the outing. It was, I think it's fair to say, one of our best so far.

The location of our next outing has not yet been determined--does the vast blogosphere have any brilliant suggestions for us?

Toki Underground on H Street NE, DC

Our latest restaurant visit can’t fully qualify as a true Brigade outing: (1) Only 2 of the 4 members (myself and Alex) were present, with Marta watching her beloved Miami Heat implode in the NBA Finals (as a Chicago Bulls fan, I gain immense satisfaction from this turn of events) and Julia in NYC and (2) our dining selection was located in the District on H Street NE, actually not that far from my house on Capitol Hill. However, Toki Underground is cheap AND it’s ethnic, so I feel that it was in the spirit of our guiding principles.

We made the short jaunt over to H Street with a guest, a Mr. Phillip Lopez, local motivational speaker and a fan of our blog whose repeated emails to the site did not go unnoticed; note that random flattery will get you everywhere if you want to accompany the brigade on an outing!

Mr. Lopez is as confused as I am; is this the place?

Toki Underground opened up recently on H and is part of the continuing trend of new bars and restaurants that seem to pop up on the corridor on a regular basis (Julia wrote an excellent entry on a sampling of the neighborhood’s libations here). The restaurant is unique in that it’s the first restaurant in the District serving true Japanese style ramen. Actually, it’s a Taiwanese take on Japanese-style ramen, but obnoxious foodie specificity aside, this food is not “Cup O’Noodles.” The food was delicious, and cheap, by DC standards.

Unfortunately, as any DC resident can tell you, when something new and unique (and good) opens up, it is absolutely mobbed. We showed up around 6:15 on a Sunday evening and were told that there would be a 1.5 hour wait. Although the restaurant is really small and only has about 20 seats, this seemed kind of ridiculous. Thankfully, Toki is located above a bar, and there are multiple bars on H, so we stopped for a drink and a snack before our meal.

A constellation of beer.

We went to The Queen Vic, a new British pub that recently opened up down the block. Irish pubs are a dime a dozen, so it’s good to see an actual British establishment open up. After a couple of beers, some Welsh Rarebit (a cheese spread on top of toast), and an order of chips (which the manager actually supplemented because he was upset the server apparently short changed us), we got the phone call to head back over to Toki.

World-class pointing!

The décor of the place is a cross between Hawaiian beach hut and pachinko parlor, with some hipster flair. I didn’t much care for it. Luckily, neither I nor the rest of the Brigade discriminate based on appearance; the food is what matters.

I wonder what the words for "unnecessarily kitsch" are in Japanese?

And the food at Toki was excellent. We started off with six pan-fried pork and scallion dumplings, which were juicy, fatty, and delicious. Alex and I had the traditional pork flavored ramen that included vegetables and a pork cutlet (I added a skewer of grilled chicken livers), while Mr. Lopez had the chicken curry flavored ramen. Mr. Lopez probably couldn’t give one of his famed motivational speeches the following day, because he dumped an entire serving of homemade sriracha sauce into his already spicy broth. Regardless, nothing was overcooked, and everything was quite flavorful. The servings were quite large, and at only $10 without add-ons, you could get out of Toki without spending that much. I also ordered a serving of sake for $8, and we got at least 5 glasses out of it.

Dumplings.

Although we were stuffed, we got a piece of apple crumb pie from Dangerously Delicious Pies down the block for dessert afterwards.

This young hipster was tweeting about eating her pie. Now, I'm blogging about it. The universe weeps.

I think we may have a new winner on our hands. If you go to Toki, just be ready to wait for a table.

Ravi Kabob and Boccato in Arlington (With Special Appearance by Shake Shack in DC)

Portrait of Summer Happiness

It's summer! Finals are over for half the brigadiers (the other half didn't have any), and we finally have time to work harder than necessary for our next meal. I know I said we were going back to our roots last time, when we went to Present for Vietnamese, but this time, we really went back to our roots. We dug deep right into the root tips. I think I have sufficiently mixed my metaphors, such that our eating club is a military formation that is also a potted plant.

Based on a recommendation from a friend of Julia's, we headed out to Ravi Kabob in Arlington. Our desire to eat kebab from a metal shack in Leesburg has been put on hold due to the fact that Leesburg is really, really far away.

We headed out just as a Pakistani family of 20 was settling in.

It turned out that there were two Ravi Kabobs, in shopping centers on opposite sides of Glebe Road. Which one did we pick? The one we had to make a U-turn for, of course. Like I said, we work for our food. Based on our previous experience with eateries that have expanded into neighboring shopping centers, we decided this was a good sign.

The man behind the counter was very patient with us, as we tried to figure out a way to order basically everything on the menu. We started with vegetable samosas, which were good; a little spicy, with a sour, creamy but light dipping sauce.

These came out right away, which was good since we were starving.

For our main course, we ordered the Ravi Kabob special, which was beef and chicken kabob, along with the lamb kabob. We got rice, vegetable sides of chickpeas and spinach with potato, and lots of tandoori bread.

Anticipation!

It was all really tasty. The meat, particularly the beef, was really well spiced, without being overwhelming. (Which was good, since Marta had apparently woken up that morning and decided it was a medium-spicy day.) The spinach was good, especially slathered on the bread, and the the chickpeas were delicious. Adam is still partial to Kabob Palace though, and if it's actually better than this, we have to get ourselves there soon.

This outing really lived up to all of our principles, especially "cheap," which we had moved away from a little: this was all about nine dollars a person.

As we enjoyed our post-large meal lazy contentment, our thoughts turned toward dessert, naturally. Ah, the joys of gluttony. Although Boccato in Clarendon does not really epitomize any of our Brigade tenants, they do have delicious gelato. We tried the Samoa, carambola, and toasted almond flavors.

Sun! Outdoors! Plants! Gelato!

In other news, you may have heard, since it was a Very Big Deal, that Shake Shack, the famed New York burger and shakes place, has opened in DC. (Now we are "on the map!" Before this, no one knew where DC even was!) I'm not one to wait in long lines for over-hyped food, but after many drinks at a Friday happy hour, we decided to try the DC Shake Shack experience. Verdict: yum! A step up from Five Guys, but still doesn't approach Ray's Hell Burger. Alas, Ray's frequently has long lines as well. And those concretes, which are blended frozen custard shakes, are deadly. In an amazing way.

Felipe the exchange student is back! He has adopted the curious American tradition of bunny ears in photos.

You'll notice Tom is absent from this outing, even though he recently released his Spring Dining Guide. We found it unhelpful. Step up your game, Tom!

The Brigade probably won't reconvene until after Memorial Day weekend. Any suggestions for where we should go next?

Present in Falls Church, VA

This was a banner weekend for eating, what with the organic produce, pie, and our trip to Virginia for Vietnamese food. On Sunday, we returned to our favorite suburban dining destination, Falls Church, to try out the much-celebrated Present.

Notice Julia's yoga pants- I finally got her to come to a class with me!

One of the more hilarious (and exciting!) parts of Tom's review was what we could expect of the staff: "The restaurant's staff is uncommonly suave and articulate, even Ritz-like at times (make that the fabled Ritz of yore, not today's brand)." The Ritz on a CESDB outing! The fabled Ritz at that!

Our waitress was certainly up to the task. As soon as we sat down and said we'd never been there before, she launched into explanations and recommendations, noting good dishes for sharing, and telling us that if we wanted something healthy, we could get our food steamed, but if we wanted something delicious, to get it deep-fried. I mean, my god, woman, it's like you can see into our souls.

Papaya salad with beef liver jerky

"Autumn Rolls:" seafood and pork deep fried in rice paper wrappers.

As you can see, the Brigade took on a guest member this week: Felipe is an exchange student from South America. He is very interested in learning about new cultures.

With Tom's and our waitress's suggestions, we ordered papaya salad, autumn rolls, deep fried tuna with mango ("Tuna Swimming in the Mango Grove"), duck in a tamarind sauce, and some sort of delicious beef dish called Cow in an Open Field.

Felipe is intrigued by the radish flower.

We really liked the food, particularly our two appetizers and the beef dish. Our least favorite was the duck, because the tamarind sauce was a little too sweet, but this was only relative; it was still really good. The sauce for the tuna was also delicious.

Action shot of Julia in the mango grove.

Present had a lot to live up to in its competition with the nearby Four Sisters for best Vietnamese restaurant in the area. And although we struggled with the decision, we're ultimately giving our vote the the latter. And one of the reasons for that is that even though we ordered about the same amount of food as we usually do, we left a little hungry. The portions at Four Sisters are a lot more generous.

Brigade members do not deal well with hunger, so we made a game time decision to continue the outing by trying to find some dessert at a Vietnamese bakery. Where better than the Eden Center,wondrous playland of all things Vietnamese and delicious?

We went into a few places to check out the selection, and I don't remember where we finally ended up. We made the poor lady behind the counter explain the contents of almost everything, and settled on a mung bean bun and coconut macaroons.

Felipe had never seen anything like the Eden Center and was a little overwhelmed.

 I think the Brigade might going on hiatus for a little while, since Easter and finals are coming up and people are going out of town. Adam is already mired in finals which is why he couldn't join us. (He also had quite the weekend.) But hopefully we can squeeze in an Urban Outing...we do have some Groupons that are about to expire...

dangerous. delicious. PIE.

Last night, three fourths of our humble dining group convened a meeting of the Drunken Urban Dining Brigade (otherwise known as Friends Going Out). Adam had an old friend in town from Indiana, and to show off our fair District he organized a night out on H Street. This was particularly exciting, for two reasons: 1) Despite living in DC for nearly two years, I had never been out on H Street and 2) In addition to many, many bars, H Street is the home of Dangerously Delicious Pies, which Alex and I have been wanting to visit for quite some time now.

Suffice it to say, Alex and I would never turn down an excuse to get drunk and eat pie, so we joined Adam and his friends at the Biergarten Haus, before going on to Fruit Bat, Church and State, and Palace of Wonders.

Of all these bars (and yes, we really did go to all of these bars--you can imagine what my head feels like today), the highlight of the night was probably Church and State. Alex, not knowing the name of the bar when we first walked in, remarked that she felt as though she was "in a Church." Adam's roommate, Sean, asked her if she also felt like she was "in a State." Befuddled by the question at first, she was quite amused when all was explained.

The place had sort of a kitschy vibe, with stained glass, menus written in Declaration of Independence-like script and a room in the back called "the confessional" (complete with a confessional window facing the bar).


The drinks were as they should be--strong and delicious--and the bartenders were also just as they should be--attractive and attentive. All in all, the place may have been trying a bit too hard, but it paid off.

Palace of Wonders had its charms, too. Alex was particularly pleased with the cat who lived at the bar.


Unsurprisingly, however, the real star of the night was pie. After drinking far too much, we all stumbled into Dangerously Delicious Pies and proceeded to eat pretty much everything in the place.


Alex and I ordered a lemon pie, which we were all quite excited about:




The boys also bought pieces of the SMOG (steak, mushroom, onion, and gruyere) pie, cherry pie and blueberry pie. We all enjoyed the sweet pies (the lemon was particularly good) but agreed that the savory was truly amazing. We managed to pretty much decimate all the offerings, though, and left thoroughly pleased. The women behind the counter were probably less than amused with our drunken antics, however. Oh, well.


Next up: we're going back to the basics, with a Sunday afternoon outing to Present, a Vietnamese place in Falls Church, one of our favorite locations for cheap, ethnic, suburban dining.

Arganica Farm Club

In what is perhaps the antithesis of Cheap Ethnic Suburban Dining, Marta and I received our first delivery from Arganica Farm Club last night. We have a livingsocial deal for a free month long membership. After that, we probably won't be able to sustain our expensive, locally sourced diet.

It's really fun to come home to a big box of delicious food at your doorstep. Arganica is not a CSA model, meaning you can select the food you want, which includes meat, dairy, and prepared foods, in addition to fruits and vegetables. But our first order came with a produce box, so we stuck with that. We also got hummus from a farm in Virginia and peanut butter that is totally unlabeled, and could be any brown substance as far as I know. It is the best hummus and the best peanut butter I have ever had. I may or may not have eaten both of them for breakfast straight out of the container.

We're not sure if these are lemons, or lemon-lime hybrids.

Marta and I were excited about most of the produce, although our box was "Organic" but not "Organic and Local," which is (even) more expensive. Supposedly, the goal is to provide local food when possible, but our celery was from California, and our pears were from Argentina. I don't really understand the benefit of this. I don't even have to go to Whole Foods to get international organic foods- I can get that at Giant or Safeway. But when you order things individually, you know where it's coming from and how it's produced ahead of time. I suppose one of the big draws is the home delivery, but we have two good grocery stores within walking distance of our apartment, so that's not a big value add right now.

Still life with unidentified root vegetable.

We are not sure what these are. Rutabagas? Turnips? Radishes? Are they even all the same thing? And what do we do with them? Rita suggests rutabaga fries if we are able to slice through them.

Big Night In in the Alex and Marta household: cooking with our new produce box! We made spicy broccoli pasta and carrot ginger soup. I'm very excited for my Friday lunch leftovers.

Vietnamese food this weekend! Julia and I are also hopeful that a possible trip to H St. with Adam and his friends will result in some dangerously delicious pie.

(Sub) Urban BBQ in Rockville, MD

The tag line on Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide is "All food is ethnic food." That's not usually our mantra in seeking out restaurants, but this week, we decided to go with it. On Sunday, we set out to disprove the notion that you can't get good barbecue around these parts. Did we succeed? Only somewhat.

One of Marta's co-workers, who was in the military for four years, frequently asks her about our "missions" and informed her that we only have enough members to constitute a squad, not even a platoon, and hardly a brigade. Nevertheless, we persisted in our willful ignorance and set out in our Brigade Chariot for Rockville, Maryland. We were pleased that, upon arrival at Urban BBQ, there was a long line at the counter. Many times, when we arrive for our late Sunday lunches, we are the only ones in the restaurant.

We don't understand what is urban about this setting, but we accept it.

Usually we order a few appetizers and entrees and share everything, but this time we each got our own platter of meat and sides, and sampled each other's food. We ordered chopped pork, pulled chicken, brisket, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, and corn bread. And Georgia peach sweet tea, of course.

We love a table packed with delicious food.

Creepy dude does not appreciate our dining club.

The meat was really good, the pulled chicken especially. And the additional dipping sauces were delicious. I don't know anything about barbecue regionalism, but they seemed to represent the gamut of American barbecue traditions. There was a yellowy one with mustard, a red one that was thick and spicy, and a thin vinegary one, among others. We each got an enormous piece of still warm corn bread.

The macaroni and cheese was fine, but not amazing, although we appreciated that the pasta was al dente and not mushy, and that it was topped with extra cheese. The coleslaw and cornbread were also pretty good, but the sweet tea, alas, was not up to par.

I will almost always love a meal if it comes with that many dipping sauces.

One of the reasons we went to Urban BBQ this weekend, is that Adam is doing his next review on DC barbecue options, including the new Hill Country in Penn Quarter and Rocklands in Glover Park. We decided that the meat at Urban BBQ was the best, but the sides at Rocklands were far superior. And that Hill Country (according to Adam) is just terrible.

Overall review from Marta: "I was nervous about this outing, because I don't like barbecue, but I am happy."

For our next trip, we are thinking of going back to our roots, and heading out to Falls Church for some Vietnamese eats at Present, which is a nearby competitor to Four Sisters, which we loved.