Station 4 adds to the small but growing number of establishments at the Southwest Waterfront area of DC, which is to say, maybe the second place that’s open down there, not counting the Arena Stage theatre next door, or the brand-spankin’-new Safeway across the street.

The buildout was clearly ambitious; a gold and black theme runs throughout the 200+ seat restaurant, with a gold painted bar, gold leather chairs, black leather benches, and crystal chandeliers abound. Posh seems to be best adjective to describe what the owners clearly envisioned when they hired a decorator, and I get that from my first step inside. But being far and away from the open wallets of downtown and situated in a much more residential neighborhood, one can’t help but feel that Station 4 is simply trying too hard to be something that it’s not.

The food here is, however, much better than what you’d expect of a neighborhood restaurant. Breadsticks are baked pita bread, sliced, left to go perfectly stale for a bit of crunch and slathered with a reasonable dose of olive tapenade for good measure. One of the more unique types of bread baskets that I’ve seen. We also got a glass of house made corn nuts, although our waitress denied that they were CornNuts, because that’d be ‘a bit too trailer park’.

Hey, I call it like I see it.

There are a wide assortment of cow, sheep, and goat cheeses available, served with macarona almonds and a sweet tomato jam. All in all good cheeses, although the blue cheeses were a bit more off-worldly looking than normal. Vibrant orange rinds and deep blue veins had a negatively visceral effect on me, so I contently took out the cow and sheep cheeses instead.

The Spicy Tuna cubes are sashimi grade tuna, topped off with a yuzu-jalapeno foam, and served in a reflecting pool of lemongrass infused soy sauce, with bamboo skewers keeping them from floating off into the wind. A fantastic dish, but by and far I think the foams would really go under the radar for the majority of the people that eat here, especially the subtle jalapeno flavor that sits on top of each morsel.

The Stuffed Zucchini, filled with goat cheese, toasted almonds, and romanesco sauce, are a nice entry to a meal for any vegetarian with fantastic complementing tastes and textures, but lack the presentation one would expect from the kitchen of a chef trained at el Bulli, which was not too long ago considered the world’s best restaurant…but in the league of competing restaurants, second place isn’t too bad.

Pizzas are in the plenty here at Station 4, and not a single one looks like a bad choice on the menu. We decide to try three of them for a fair sampling to share. The Roasted Vegetable comes packed with eggplants, zucchini, onion, goat cheese, and fresh arugula on top, hearty and laden with enough greens to make any vegetarian happy. On the other side of the spectrum is the Station 4 – a pie topped with pork belly, salsa, caramelized onions, and blue cheese, another example of why pork really is the perfect meat. IT GOES ON EVERYTHING. PERFECTLY.

For the more classically minded diner, the restaurant does offer the traditional Margherita pizza, with fresh buffalo mozzarella, confit cherry tomatoes, and basil.

If pizzas aren’t your thing, there’s also an entire section of entrees such as the Flying Duck, a serving of duck breast with passion fruit-lavender gastrique with caramelized fennel and a foie gras foam, that look plenty tantalizing to read over, and definitely worth a try.

It was nice to get out to one of the other neighborhoods of DC, and the Waterfront area is quickly coming up into its own as a pretty nice little neighborhood to be in. The restaurant is a fantastic addition to the cluster of businesses that meet together at the top of the exit/entrance of the metro, but still feels like it’s trying a bit too hard to be something it’s not. The food is good, very good, mind you, but maybe not quite something I’d call amazingly great.  If you’re in the area to see a show or visit some friends, I recommend stopping by for a bite, but it’s not quite a destination by itself.

See Station 4 on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Neighborhood Noms
• Vegetarians
• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters

Not Recommended For:

• El Bulli Expectations
• Downtown Dahlias
• Hotspot Hunters
• First Introduction of the Parents to your Boyfriend, Who Finds Seasonal Employment as a Stripmall Santa

Burgers, burgers, burgers. Who knew (besides Anthony Bourdain) that a really well-crafted burger would be one of the most sought after foods in the early 21st century? With the resurgence of popularity of everything Americana as of late, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise for anyone at all. With an abundance of variety and style in the District, there’s no true king- it all comes down to preference.

Enter Shake Shack. With an already saturated market of burger joints, the introduction of this New York chain was met with great fanfare…and weekday lines that wrap around the block. Championing the roadside burger model, Shake Shack prefers to serve thinner patties, albeit of the highest quality of beef- 4 ounces of pastured, vegetarian fed Sirloin beef, topped with American cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and Shacksauce on a potato bun, served in a mess-free waxed paper bag. I opted for the double Shackburger, an 8 ounce portion of meat, which seemed to suit my eating habits a bit better.

I also ordered a side of the Shack-cago Dog- a split and grilled Vienna all-beef hot dog, topped with onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, peppers, yellow mustard and celery salt, served on a potato bun, and a Peanut Butter Shake to match. Never one for being a glutton, I had to pass on cheese fries, but maybe the next time around.

What’s good? The burgers, through and through. While I only got to sample the Shackburger, there are smaller and larger options available on the menu to suit your taste, and the combination of very high quality beef with a potato bun is near perfection in terms of fast food deliciousness…the burgers do meet the hype.

The restaurant also offers a vegetarian friendly ‘Shroom burger for those who still want the deliciousness, but without all the cow. Don’t think this one comes up short, with a crisp-fried portobello mushroom cap filled with munster and cheddar cheese, topped with the same tomatoes, lettuce, and served in the ever crucial potato bun.

The Shack-cago dog, on the other hand, was sorely lacking in presence. Overwhelmed by the massive amount of toppings with a paltry dog hiding underneath, you can give this one a miss.

The shakes here are beyond a doubt tasty, served in a waxed paper cup that was two gusts of a wind from collapsing from the sheer mass of the contents inside. I can only imagine what a Concrete, the Shake Shack’s thicker version of their milkshake, would do to a cup. You can choose a malt option as well, mixing it up with a variety of flavors to choose from, including vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, strawberry, or black & white. Concretes take it up a notch, with local creations such as the Presidental Sweet (three scoops of vanilla custard, peanut butter sauce, marshmallow, and caramel milk chocolate), the Washington Monu-mint (three scoops of chocolate custard, minted marshmallow, and chocolate cookie dough), the Majority Whip (three scoops of vanilla custard, crepe crispies, fruit, and whipped cream), or make up your own.

If milkshakes, malts, and concretes aren’t your thing, a number of beers, wines, fresh brewed ice tea and root beer are on tap.

Lastly, don’t be scurred to come by with your dog- the Pooch-ini, a chilly Shackburger dog biscuit with peanut butter sauce and vanilla custard, is available for four legged friend. But what the hell you’re doing walking your dog through Dupont Circle in the first place is completely beyond me.

Quality comes at a premium, so expect to pay a bit more than your traditional fast food joints, but the experience is completely worth it. My inner fat kid says, order two double Shackburgers and a concrete, and you’ll go home happy.

See Shake Shack on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Vegetarians
• Burger Buffs
• Casual First Dates
• Late Night Noms
• Funky Cold Custar-ina

Not Recommended For:

• Meaty Interventions
• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters
• Frugalistas
• Half Smoke Champions

It’s a fact that there aren’t many diners in the District, something that’s by and far relegated to the suburbs of MD and VA. It’s also a fact that I love greasy spoons and diners because of the fact that you can get breakfast orders in just about as late as you’d like during the day. So Jen took me off on an adventure to explore the city, navigating the streets of Capitol Hill until we reached our destination…Pete’s Diner.

Pete has long since come and gone both in ownership and in life, but the two little Asian ladies that run it these days aren’t short in character or energy. The diner is strange hodgepodge of eclectic decorations, from fake fir trees, spray-painted bamboo decorations, Chinese calendars, police badge collections, even a Buddha shrine, this is everything I’d think of putting together in a strange culture clash of a restaurant and calling it the Chinese American Diner. Even the coffee here, albeit a bit on the weak side, is served in giant Chinese tea cups.

The diner does offer traditional American breakfast favorites, including a variety of omelets. Jen had a Spinach Omelet with Swiss Cheese, while I opted for the Western – whipped up with bacon, snausage, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and cheese. It’s served with a hefty serving of home fries, toast, and topped with a ‘this little piggy’ sprig of bacon.

Pancakes are also on deck- I ordered a side of Sweet Potato Pancakes to share with Jen. Fluffy, moist pancakes that unfortunately aren’t gluten free, but for most people, that’ll work out just fine.

While nothing about the food or this diner stands out as extraordinary, it does serve as a nice little anchor of dining space to give Capitol Hill a bit more color. The owners are vocal, jovial, and aren’t afraid to get a little friendly- one of the owners started to touch and coo over my bicep, while the other admonished her.

“HEY! NO TOUCH CUSTOMERS! LOOK ONLY!”

As it turns out, the one thing I can’t count on my girlfriend for is to save me from being molested from tiny Asian ladies. Thanks for the help, babe.

All in all, a tiny greasy spoon like this isn’t the type of place Jen and I would go to again and again, but it’s a nice little neighborhood spot, crucially placed right next to the Library of Congress. They also offer a number of sammiches, milkshakes, soups, subs, salads, and amazing meal deals to keep a little extra scratch in your wallet.

Make sure you’ve loaded up on hard currency though, this place runs strictly on cash.

See Pete’s Diner on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Frugalistas
• Paleoheads
• Vegetarians
• Zone Dieters
• Greasy Spoon Gorging

Not Recommended For:

• Black Tie Brunches
• Organic Omelets
• Five Fork Placesetting Feasts

Unless you’ve lived in DC area for a number of years, it might be surprising to hear that DC Chinatown is about as Chinese as that kanji tattoo that you regrettably neglected to research before having permanently stamped on your lower back (don’t worry, I have one too, but mine says ‘Little Food Slut’). To find the largest concentration of Chinese inhabitants (and restaurants), you have to trek up to Rockville, MD, and peruse the establishments littered across Rockville Pike.

One of these places stood out in particular when I was searching for a place to take Jen. The striking thing about the menu was that it was decidedly vegetarian. In fact, wholly vegetarian. As a meat eater, even as a paleohead, it’s easy to forget that being a vegetarian can be pretty restrictive when you’re out on the prowl looking for noms. You’re usually given an option of a garden salad fit for a hare, or possibly a smattering of pasta dishes that’ll put you into food coma-esque glycemic overload. I thought it’d be nice to take her to place where she didn’t have to do a double take at every dish on the menu to make sure there wasn’t some sort of meat slipped in.

And so, with no reservations made, we were off to visit Yuan Fu Vegetarian.

The restaurant is nondescript enough to easily pass on the road. Situated in a small strip of storefronts with a tired asphalt lot, I had a split second to wonder if the half filled parking lot really was for this tiny Chinese restaurant. Inside, the tables are buzzing with conversation and ravenous patrons. Little has been paid in the way of decoration or furniture beyond the basics. I tried not to get distracted by the lack of air conditioning, or the thought of how hot the employees must be racing around delivering dishes to each table.

We order a couple of appetizers to start, beginning with the Crispy Taro Root Balls. Taro is a starchy root vegetable with a hearty taste that’s common in Chinese cooking.  Think of something as versatile as the potato. Here, they take taro, puree it down, packed around a vegetarian filling, and then drop it in the deep fryer to give it that beautiful, golden brown color. A must try if you’ve never had them before, and practically a staple even if you have.

We also put in an order for the Pan Fried Dumplings. No pork option for me here, unfortunately, but I decided I’d make do with vegetable ones here. Yuan Fu employs thick dumpling wrappers that carry a nice crisp texture when fried, but still remain as chewy and delicious on top. I’m pretty sure I could write a salacious romance novel about dumplings without too much problem. I can almost picture it now, although the thought of Fabio embracing a giant dumpling with lipstick is just a little too kinky for me.

The lack of meat didn’t end up bothering me too much. I liked the dumplings here, and wouldn’t hesitate to order these again.

For my entree, I opted for the Crispy Sesame Beef. Battered and fried chunks of vegetarian beef (textured vegetable protein) in a sweet sauce served with walnuts, broccoli florets and…a maraschino cherry? I wasn’t quite sure what the hell a cherry was doing on my dish either. I’ll take it as the Chinese equivalent of placing parsley on top of a steak. The beef isn’t going to fool anyone into thinking it’s really beef, but the preparation and taste are both still there, making this a reasonable substitute for vegetarian and vegan diners alike.

Jen ordered the Kung Pao Chickum, filled with chunks of sauteed chickum, red and green peppers, and plenty of peanuts to add a decent crunch to the dish. A decent dish all in all, but with Jen’s dislike of any sort of pepper that doesn’t absolutely burn the shit out of your mouth or have a scoville rating of anything less than 5,000,000, it ended up being a lackluster order for her meal.

It’s refreshing to see a restaurant cater wholly to the vegetarian community, and from the crowds packed into Yuan Fu on a weekend night, it shows that these people appreciate it. The dishes don’t deviate too far from tried and true Americanized recipes that’ll please the vast majority of vegetarians looking for a good meal. The appetizers were good, but the main dishes rely heavily on the sauce to carry them through, with nuts thoughtfully added in or there’d be a fairly obvious lack of crunch or anything to chew. I don’t think we’d end up going back, with so many other places to try, but I can easily see this place being an oasis for herbivores out on the hunt.

See Yuan Fu Vegetarian on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Fortune Cookie Franchescas
• Vegetarians
• Vegans
• Dumpling Divas

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• First Dates
• Gluten Free Gorging

Mike Isabella, the former head chef at Jose Andres’ Zaytinya, has found himself at the celebrity chef’s table after a very strong performances on Top Chef and Top Chef All-Stars. He’s taken the momentum and opened up his first restaurant, Graffiato, on the east side of the Verizon Center and Chinatown.

The restaurant offers small plates, pastas, and pizzas with locally sourced ingredients, a promise that I find appealing given my localvore leanings. Farms are listed proudly on a chalkboard at the upstairs dining room over the kitchen.

There’s a lot to like about the menu for Jen and me, so much that decided to go right in with the tasting menu for two to get a sampling of Isabella’s favorites. The cheese plate, to start, is an excellent selection of locally sourced dairy. We sampled a cow, goat, and sheep cheese that’s accompanied by a generous serving of sweet, tangy mustard. Three for three great cheeses and not a single one being a letdown on the plate.

Jen’s longstanding campaign against peppers precluded her from trying the Blistered Sweet Peppers with me. Seasoned with smoked paprika, capers, and topped with microgreens, the sweetness plays well against the acidic background and the smoky undertones. I really wished I had a hotdog to go with all of this.

Jen did split the Honey Glazed Cippolini with me. A sweet, roasted, medium sized cippolini onion, cooked with whole honey glazed garlic cloves, served with rosemary and onion seeds, I found myself scarfing down the cloves while Jen took down the onion.

We started in on the pasta dishes, first with the Sweet Corn Agnolotti. The pasta is very similar in preparation to ravioli, but traditionally smaller in size. Each pasta bite rewards your mouth with the sweet taste of corn, mixed with pine nuts, chantrelles, and of course, incredibly fresh pasta. A dish like this meant to be shared, but I found that I wanted the entire plate to myself. Jen’s pretty good at paying attention to what I like and how fast I start eating it, so she took didn’t hesitate to go in right after me.

The Roasted Potato Gnocchi is an absolute must, with braised pork shank and burrata cheese. The kitchen was accommodating enough to separate out the meat for Jen but still serve the pork on the side for me. WIN WIN. You mean I have to eat twice as much pork as I normally would because my girl’s not gonna have any of it?

OKAY.

Burrata’s a delicate, almost creamy cheese, much like a softer mozzarella. A great cheese to go with the chewy texture of the roasted gnocchi, and the tender pulled pork shank is unbelievably delicious.

The pizza menu is full of exotic selection, and none seemed more exotic to the both of us than the Countryman Pizza. Made with black truffles, fontina cheese, and served with a duck egg, the wait staff breaks the yolk tableside and spreads it evenly across the pizza canvas for an exceptional pie. Given the fact that I tend to only eat pizza at some of the better pizza places in DC due to my paleo eatin’ ways, I’m pretty happy to say that this pizza is right up there with that crowd. If there’s one problem I can single out with this, it’s the pizza stand. The pizza stands are horribly unsteady, as we saw at least two other tables have their pizzas topple over as the last few slices were taken and the balanced weight of the plate came crashing down to the table.

The sole meat dish delivered to us was the Chicken Thighs in Pepperoni Sauce with cherry tomatoes and basil. Holy hell, what’s up tender chicken? Several chunks of moist, tender, juicy, dark chicken in a hearty (and meaty!) tomato sauce, and another home run for Mike Isabella. Chicken tends to be the ‘safe meat’ (kind of like safe word, but then, totally not) on most menus, but here, it stands proudly as appealing of an order as any of the other meats on the menu.

The closing dish, which we dug into before I remembered to take a photo, is the house 24 Carat cake – a carrot flavored panna cotta that comes chilled and served in a tumbler. Who knew carrot tasted so good with a cold cream?

There was some sort of mixup between our waiter and the kitchen, as we sat with the check and I did the math in my head, the individual plates we got as part of the tasting menu simply did not add up to the cost of the two people eating the tasting menu. Both Mike Isabella (who came personally table to table to to talk to us about our meal, and his pretty badass collection of tattoos) and the GM worked it out with us, and we were both pleased at how accommodating and easy it was to work out with the two of them. The service otherwise was great- empty plates were quickly taken away, there was never a significant lull without another plate being delivered.

There are several dishes we sampled that I’d love to have again, but the menu offers enough variety that I’d have a hard time not trying out some of the other dishes, like the Pork Ribs, Octopus, or the Jersey Shore pizza, served with fried calamari, tomato, and a cherry pepper aioli. The pizzas are by the best value on the menu, and you won’t find yourself disappointed.

See Graffiato on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• Vegetarians
• First Dates
• Summer Dress
• Localvores

Not Recommended For:

• Weight Watcher Wandas
• Vegans
• Organic Orangutans
• Cheese Eatin’ Surrender Monkeys

Brasserie Beck is a Belgian inspired bistro by Robert Weidmaier, the mastermind that’s also behind the French/Belgian restaurant Marcel’s. The interior of the restaurant certainly feels European, almost like a fancy train station where you can catch a quick cup of espresso, pick up the latest International Herald Tribune, and run off to catch your train.

The fare here is very well executed, with a strong focus on sauces. The Fricassee of Mushrooms with Spatzle served with a Toasted Baguette and Poached Egg is a standout for presentation and taste, and a great way to start out a meal. This unique dish really melds a variety of tastes and textures well, from the selection of mushrooms swimming in a rich, buttery sauce, to the crispiness of a warm toasted baguette, with a single, perfectly poached egg perched on top. I love poached eggs, the predecessor of  molecular gastronomic gels, the way you can open one filled with a thick yolk to soak up with bread.

Jen ordered the Tomato Bisque with Goat Cheese, Gnudi, and Fried Basil to start- a hearty bisque without the traditional emphasis on cream in the soup is a nice change, and something to warm your soul on the coldest of days. A really fantastic way to start your meal off on the right foot, the whole leaf basil crisp is a nice touch to bring some color and texture to this soup.

Being the diligent foodie, I doubled down appetizers and got the Mushroom and Spinach Crepe with Gruyere Cheese as well. Well, to be truthful, I ordered this as my original appetizer, but the waiter brought out the Fricassee after I had posed a question about it before he took our order. Nothing short of being completely accommodating, he quickly went to put in an order of the crepe for me. Absolutely class.

The downside? The gruyere was molten lava hot. I had to catch myself from forcibly ejecting the first bite from my mouth it was so hot, and rather unpredictably so. Maybe the steam rising from my first incision should have tipped me off. Maybe this satchel of mushrooms, spinach, and gruyere magma wasn’t what I was expecting when I ordered the crepe. I could say maybe about a number of things, but I really just didn’t enjoy this dish and its play on a traditional expectations of a crepe. With the cheese being as hot as it was, it really made this hard to eat, leaving me with a parting gift of a burnt palete.

Don’t let anybody ever tell you being a foodie isn’t dangerous work.

The dinner menu does not offer a wide selection of vegetarian plates for entrees, unfortunately, with the number of options to choose from hovering somewhere around zero to none. The kitchen does present the option of creating something for herbivores, which looks something akin to the plate below. A mix of sauteed squash, cauliflower, green beans, and other assorted garden greens, showered in a generous application of salt and served with a small handful of fresh frisee. The dish still holds an exceptional elegance about it, but vegetarians may find this dish lacking in substance. Not turrible for being an off the menu accommodation, but then, not so great, either.

I ordered the Braised Lamb Pappardelle for my main course, which was exactly as the menu described. Braised Lamb. Pappardelle. Two things I really enjoy eating.

As it turns out, they’re not are things I enjoy eating when they’re served together.

Braised lamb in itself is wonderful, the way the meat tears with a gentle pull of a fork and without the need for a knife, cooked for hours on end to break down the protein structures to make it tender. With pappardelle, I really dig the wide cut noodles, the way that they swim in cream sauces and stick together if you fail to add the right amount of oil. In other words, a giant block of pasta, much like a noodle kugel. But the pappardelle here doesn’t turn out that way, rather, it’s a heaping mound of pasta served in a thin tomato based sauce, piled high with chunks of lamb, pearl onions, peas, tomatoes, fresh grated cheese and chives. That’s it. I didn’t feel like the texture of the wide noodles on this plate were really the other flavors of the meat or the tomato sauce. It was simply a large plate of food, which is fantastic if you’re absolutely voracious, but does little in the way to make you reflect and think, “Wow, that was a really good dish.”

True to Belgie form, the restaurant also specializes in a variety of mussel pot preparations, along with an encyclopedic listing of beers and wine. I can’t say we had a single dish that didn’t at least have some thought put into it, and the wait staff was overwhelmingly accommodating, if not a bit stretched thin covering tables. As good as everything looks on paper and on film, I can’t shake the feeling that this is the sort of place that you go for the alcohol first and the food second, not the other way around.

I’d love to hear the opinions of a Belgian expat or tourist to get their take, but I doubt we’ll ever end up going back.

See Brasserie Beck on a map.

Recommended For:

• Bougie Beer Drinkin’ Bromances
• First Dates
• Mollusk-uclear Gastronomy
• Meeting Your Significant Other’s Parents For the First Time

Not Recommended For:

• Vegetarian Valeries
• Frugalistas
• Kickball League Pregaming Four Loko Fantatics
• Meetup Location to Plan on Rioting After Your Hockey Team Loses

To anybody who doesn’t visit Chinatown in NYC regularly, it’s tough to pick out which restaurant is going to be a good place to plop yourself into a chair and getcha nom on for a midday yum cha (dim sum/Chinese brunch). Thankfully, Jen and I were in the area at the same time as my Mom, who had scooped a table out for us to have lunch (Thanks Mom!) at Jing Fong.

You’ll find a traditional Chinese dim sum served here on the second floor of the restaurant, albeit on a completely different caliber than what we’re used to DC. The restaurant itself, for instance, shows that the owners have invested more than a nominal sum into the interior, with golden dragons, enormous crystal chandeliers, and electric blue cove lighting. The girls and women who push the carts of food are adorned in cheery orange shirts and red aprons, complete with matching bandanas to top it all off.

The bamboo steamer baskets are also much nicer here, without a single sighting of the dented metal ones found in other restaurants. Instead, high quality steamers with olive green end caps are used. It’s a small touch to add to the presentation of the food, but does not and should not go unnoticed.

Even these delicately fried dumplings with a noodle coating are new to me. What the hell are these things? The crispy texture explodes with every bite, crackling like a falling redwood tree in the forest, and packed with a shrimp filling.

Traditional favorites such as the cha siu bao (steamed BBQ pork bun, left) and the har gao (steamed shrimp dumpling, right), are out in full force and as every bit as good as they should be. I couldn’t taste them being BETTER through any differentiation of ingredients, but they definitely tasted fresher. The buns here are fluffy and light, while the dumplings are well stuffed with a shrimp filling.

Dessert buns are out roaming about on carts, such as the custard filled buns on the left, or the traditional ma lai go (steamed sweet sponge cake) on the right. I don’t know that I’ve ever had the ones on the left, but I do that the sponge cake is a much rarer sight in the District, if it even exists around here at all. The added fact that this cake is not simply baked but rolled as well shows off the kitchen’s skills at putting out amazing desserts.

The head chef also takes some unique interpretations of desserts, such as this dessert, a fried glutinous rice ball filled with a sweet sesame paste and usually completely coated with sesame seeds- but Jing Fong opts for a pinch of black sesame seeds instead. These were hot, chewy, and amazing, a far cry from the room temperature ones that I’m used to being served around the District.

If you’re still not satisfied with the myriad of plates and steamers that come rolling by your table, there’s the added bonus of going up to the buffet line and ordering a plate of something else that might catch your tie (and tug on your stomach) such as pan fried dumplings, pan fried noodles, meat plates, and fried vegetable plates.

There is, however, a single, wretched downside to eating here. If you’ve ever eaten at a traditional dim sum restaurant, you know that the wait times can be lengthy to downright obnoxious. With Jing Fong, it’s practically a mob scene at the entrance, with hundreds of people milling about on a weekend afternoon, all waiting for a table to get their noms in. My Mom definitely came through for Jen and me on getting a table here. If anything, I’d say the popularity is a testament to the quality of the food and the entire experience of eating here. Plan on getting here on the early side of the afternoon if you want to ditch the wait.

How could you not be completely won over by the website’s assurance, “Thirty years experienced and famous, gold lacquer brand, assurance.”

I gotta get me some gold lacquer brands. Hungry Chinese people love gold lacquer brands.

See Jing Fong on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Chinese Cheatmeals
• Vegetarians
• Food Coma Inducing Feeding Frenzies
• Thanksgiving Dinner
• Christmas Dinner

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters
• Wedding Proposals
• Hangover Helpers
• Interior Design Professionals

For Jen’s berfday, we headed over to the fanciest of fancy raw vegan restaurants in DC, Elizabeth’s Gone Raw (EGR). Well, I don’t really know of any other raw vegan in restaurants, period. So keeping an open mind and walking in through the french doors of the restaurant, I looked forward to my first raw vegan meal.*

The pre-seating event involves servers floating around with plates full of delicious appetizers, usually served on a gluten free cracker using alternative flours such as flax seed or sesame. I saw everything from dill to olive pate, roasted peppers, house made pesto, and even a savory sweet melon shooter.

Every person checks in at the front door with their reservations made in advance, and you’re brought to your table upstairs which may be shared with other diners, and leads to meeting some interesting and likely equally health conscious people, such as two lovely ladies that sat across from us. I’d suspect that if you pressed the reservationist over the phone, you could finagle a private table for two for a special occasion.

EGR  serves titanic bowls of  kale chips, baked with some sort of spicy vegan cheese like mix. These kale chips are definitely pro level chips, and the bowls of kale come as fast as you can eat them. Thankfully Jen and I had other people at the table with us, or I’d have taken every almost emptied bowl and tipped it to get all the crumbs at the bottom into my mouth.

The first course was a salad with a spring mushroom blend (yellow and blue oyster, beech, hen of the woods, and royal trumpet) tossed with boston lettuce and sunflower sprouts. Who knew sunflower sprouts could be so good? It’s topped with a truffle vinaigrette made with shallots, garlic, celery, macadamia nuts, coconut milk, apple cider vinegar, truffles, EVOO, agave, and nama shoyu, and finally topped with a smattering of gluten-free crackers. The complexity of jumbled textures and tastes of this salad is something of experiencing a symphonic explosion in your mouth.

The main course is an olive cannelloni with parsley salad, served with dressing and a heirloom tomato-basil relish on the side. The cannelloni itself is made with coconut water, coconut milk, and flax seed, wrapped around an olive filling made with scallions, lemon juice, macadamia & pine nuts, celery, and nutritional yeast. The relish, a classic combination of tomatoes, red onion and garlic tossed with red vinegar and chives, accentuates the flavors of the fresh parsley salad.  Finally, a semi sweet dressing made of apple cider vinegar, agave, and EVOO bring it all together to make, despite whatever the restaurant wants to call it, a vegan burrito. I know burritos have rice and beans stuffed inside, and those might have even helped this dish out a bit. While it was made with incredibly fresh ingredients and impressive to be completely dairy, gluten and meat free, this one wasn’t as good as either Jen or I had hoped. For me, it was the fact that it was just wasn’t satisfying; for Jen, it was because she despises olives.

Dessert is a generous slice of cacao layered mousse cake with goji berries and topped with a reishi mushroom powder, once used in tonics for emperors and kings. The cake is made with almond milk, agave, maple syrup, vanilla extract, coconut oil, almond powder, cacao powder, maca powder, and goji berries, while the chocolate mousse layers are made with vanilla extract, almond milk, maple syrup, and cashew flour. While I really liked the chocolate mousse layers, I found that the actual cake layers in the cake were too rich and heavy for me, without necessarily being sweet. In that sense, I did like the fact that it wasn’t over the top sweet, but I ended up scooping out and eating all the mousse and leaving chunks of the cake on my plate. I looked over, and Jen had done the exact same thing.

I knew I liked this girl for a reason.

The menu here changes seasonally as fruits and vegetables become available, speaking to the freshness of the ingredients, and the creativity of the kitchen. While the entire meal kept its promise of being gluten, dairy, and meat free, it does not fall short on flavor or quality of many of the upscale restaurants in the District.

We were constantly doted on by a number of people including the owner, Elizabeth Petty, herself. The service, however, is a mixed bag. Plates are cleared and accommodations are made, but there was considerable confusion with having all the wine glasses for the wine pairing brought out at the same time; Jen had two wineglasses “refilled” with water, which we had to send back on two separate occasions. Having numerous attentive is something of a nice luxury, but the hustle and bustle of them darting around as fast as they can seem a bit madding. Overall, I’d say it’s very good here, with an opportunity for a bit of refinement. It probably doesn’t help to the fact that dinners are only served once a week, but that makes each meal here at Elizabeth’s Gone Raw that much more special.

Wine pairings are available at each dinner, which are organic, biodynamic, and delicious. That’s right, I called wine delicious, like a six year old calls a glass of grape juice. Deal with it, fancy wine drinkers.

See Elizabeth’s Gone Raw on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Raw Vegan Rhondas
• Hemp Growin’ Harriets
• Organic Only Olivias
• Meeting New People

Not Recommended For:

• Raptors
• Buffet Line Barons
• Frugalistas
• Quiet, Romantic Dinners

*Okay, I had a ton of beef jerky before we left for the restaurant. I may or may have not  stored several chunks of jerky in my cheeks. What? Don’t judge me. You never know.

I never grew up thinking salad as being a satisfying meal until I became an adult. Maybe it’s because we’re served such crap salads when we were kids. Iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, maybe half a tomato. In fact, airlines do their best to keep the tradition alive on long flights, serving you the exact same salad on long flights.

Well, screw that.

Chop’t is a salad company that’s recently celebrate their 10 year anniversary, with several locations spread throughout NYC and DC. Their salads are a bit on the expensive side, but they don’t skimp one bit on the ingredients or portion size. My favorite part? The recent switch to antibiotic free, hormone free, free range chicken in all their locations. I find myself drawn to getting a salad at least once a week as a treat, building it from the ground up with ingredients such as ancho chile chicken, goat cheese, fresh cherry tomatoes, spinach, arugula, and a regularly rotation selection of dressings that only ever use honey or agave nectar for sweetners.

The owners swap in seasonal ingredients and pre-selected salad combinations for the indecisive types, but I highly recommend experimenting and making up something that’s all your own.

And the best part about the salads? They’re hysterial.

Find a Chop’t near you here.

Of course, for all of you salad haters, you could make your salad DOUBLY paleo by adding your own meat.

Eatonville celebrates the life and works of 20th century African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, can be found directly across the street from Busboys & Poets, all part of the Andy Shallal restaurant empire in DC. The restaurant proudly offers the most southern of southern cuisine in an eclectic atmosphere of graffiti murals, delicate chandeliers, and rocking chairs for you to rock away the sweltering summer heat. Or at least rock away while people walking outside in the summer heat with the enormous windows that look out to the busy sidewalks of 14th street and beyond. The nuances of this restaurant just might make you reckon that you’re fixin’ to have a meal in somebody’s backyard, with picket fences, mason jar cups, and wood siding reminiscent your great great gran-ma-ma’s house.

If your great, great gran-ma-ma wasn’t some sort of ruthless dictator’s wife in Eastern Europe, that is.

The gumbo, made with crab, rock shrimp, andouille sausage and rice touts a little bit of kick with the faintest taste of peppers. The soup itself isn’t very thick and stays closer to a soup rather than a proper roux, but that suited me just fine. A bowl here is just enough to whet your appetite, but it lacks the heartiness, leaving you pining for more.

Jen ordered the Almond Crusted Charleston Toast, an impressive stack of thick cut bread, coated with slivered almonds and powdered sugar, then topped with a Grand Marnier fruit compote and a creamy dollop of sweet mascarpone cheese to match. I really liked the house’s rendition of the traditional french toast order, making it wholly their own, with a casual yet thoughtful presentation.

I’m a sucker for fried chicken, so I didn’t hesitate to take on the Callahan- a fried chicken breast served on a buttermilk biscuit with jalapeno-sausage gravy and accompanied by a serving of extra sharp cheddar mac’n'cheese and collard greens.

This dish was good, but, fell a bit below my expectations. Biscuits tend to be a bit on the dry side, which is expected, but I didn’t have any bit of jalapeno-sausage gravy to soak them in. That’s like throwing your three year old into a giant 200 gallon baby pool you’ve dragged home from Wal-Mart because it was on sale (ROLLING BACK PRICES, EVERY DAY!) but failing to filling the damn thing with water. Disasterous. I was expecting a giant pool of sausage gravy, and instead, I have the sub Saharan desert taking up an third of my plate.

To their credit, the mac’n'cheese is pretty good, as are the braised collard greens. I’ll make the most of a bad situation.

While I really like that Eatonville takes creativity and inspiration to their dishes, and even though I really want to love this place, I can’t say I’d wholeheartedly recommend eating here unless you’re a gambling type- dishes are very hit or miss. The service here is very good, and there always seems to be ample seating both indoors or out, if you prefer to soak in the sun. You can even come here and think about how the Eatonville, FL of Zora Neale Hurston’s youth is the home of everybody’s favorite Disney mouse today.

See Eatonville on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Gospel Grubbers
• VIVA LAS VEGAS!
• Panoramic Peoplewatching
• The South’n Hospitality

Not Recommended For:

• Biscuits’n'Graaaaaa…great expectations
• Paleoheads
• Sillystring Showdowns
• Freegans