Tunisia: No Brik Anywhere

I looked for a Tunisian restaurant and was really surprised not to find one (RIP Taste of Tunisia in Arlington). After much googling, I stumbled across the Friends of Tunisia Yahoo Groups page where Peace Corps volunteers were trading information on where to get Tunisian olive oil in the States. Trader Joe's was mentioned as a source, so lacking a Tunisian restaurant I went to pick up some at my local TJ's (ironically mere blocks from where Taste of Tunisia once stood). It's really good, flavorful olive oil and, in case it matters, the can it comes in is supposedly just like the ones you see in Tunisia. We had it with the really good Greek bread that everyone should be buying from Bread & Water at the Ballston farmers market on Thursdays with the last tomatoes of the summer and a bit of feta. It was one of the best lunches I've had a long time, so maybe it's a good thing that I couldn't find anywhere Tunisian to eat.

Trinidad & Tobago: Once more up Georgia Avenue

We were the only people brunching in Teddy's Roti Shop on Sunday morning, but that's ok because the food was really pretty good. It's also pretty refreshing to brunch where the parking is easy and the bottomless brunching twenty-somethings few. This is another restaurant where I would have liked to visit with more people so we could try more things -- the menu is pretty big and as T&T has such interesting influences on their culture and cuisine (African, French, Amerindian, Chinese, British, and Indian primarily) different dishes reflect different and mixed cultural influences. As it was, we split a potato and spinach roti and buss up shut with goat curry. Both dishes were huge, easily enough for two - we had leftovers for days and both were good, if not life-changing. My main complaint was that the spinach was clearly frozen spinach, which is passable in some contexts, but here the frozen flavor was the dominant flavor and really not great. Maybe this is what they would use in T&T, I don't know, but it wasn't great. On the other hand, the bread in both dishes was freshly made and absolutely delicious. We also sampled the ginger pine juice (like ginger beer cut with pineapple juice) and a peanut punch (like a peanut butter smoothie) -- both were really good, the peanut punch was obviously a lot heavier and thus, not really good for an already heavy meal. Teddy's has a great selection of house-made drinks: sorrel, passion fruit, sea moss, and mauby. All in all, Teddy's isn't the best meal you can get in all of DC, but it was good, particularly considering that there isn't much Caribbean food in DC. I might not all the way up Georgia Avenue just for Teddy's, but having sampled a good handful of restaurants in the area, this is probably the one I'd pick if I found myself hungry in this corner of the city.

Teddy's Roti Shop

7304 Georgia Avenue, NW DC

Togo: It wasn't yucky

"It wasn't yucky" is how my toddler described our lunch at Roger Miller, a self-described West African restaurant (a hole-in-the-wall, really) with a Togolese chef. And I guess that's how the grown-ups felt, too. The food was similar to the other West African meals I've had in the course of this here project, but not the best (RIP Royal Aereostar). The Ivory Coast waitress was not thrilled to be asked for help in deciphering the menu, but she finally conceded that the okra stew was a good Togolese choice. I don't usually mind the sliminess of okra, but this time the stew seemed more slime than anything else. And the fufu had less flavor, which I know is a crazy thing to say, but somehow this stuff was blander and less fluffy than elsewhere. The best dish on the table was probably the eguisi, but again the rice was not great and the goat lacked meat. The toddler liked the groundnut stew with chicken a whole lot and demanded we take the rice to go, but as much as I'd like to label him a culinary prodigy, he can't really be trusted. In sum, the food at Roger Miller is in no way worth driving to Maryland in bad mid-day traffic for. I wish I could say otherwise, but it's just not. Also, the place was clean, but smelled like an airplane bathroom.

Roger Miller
941 Bonifant Street, Silver Spring

Thailand: Spice Before a Return to the Bland

Having done this here little project in Berlin and DC, I can tell you that, if nothing else, it is easier to find spicy food in DC. Little Serow is a perfect example of this and I am pretty sure that there is nothing like it in all of Berlin where the Thai food is probably served by a Vietnamese person and dulled with coconut milk to the point where it's unrecognizable as Thai food. Did I mention I'm moving back to Berlin? Not for the Thai food, I assure you. 

That said, Little Serow is also not your typical US-based Thai restaurant. This is largely because it serves the food of northern Thailand, which (from what I understand) uses less coconut milk and tends to be a lot spicier than food from central Thailand like most Thai food you can find in the States. Little Serow, while not a fancy place, serves a prixe fixe menu for $45, doesn't take reservations (meaning that you'll have to stand in line if you want to dine there), and won't make any substitutions for vegetarians or shellfish allergies or spice phobias, etc. For $45 you get something like seven dishes, which left us more than satisfied, but not feeling near death. My favorite dish was a spread or dip made from finger chilies to be eaten with fried pork rinds. I am not the fried pork rind sort, but this dish had a really complex flavor with a seriously flavorful heat that wasn't entirely mouth-numbing. Actually, the food was less insanely spicy than I had expected, which may have something to do with the fact that everyone who learns you are planning to eat at Little Serow tells you how insanely spicy it is. It was very, very spicy and was happy to have ordered the sweet rice milk, which is not usually my style and was kind of like a rice pudding smoothie, but helped mitigate the heat a lot. In the end we liked all the dishes a lot - a pomelo salad with rock shrimp, a pork sausage with lime leaf, a catfish larb-type dish (my least favorite of the night), fried tofu with peanuts and ginger, oyster and cremini mushrooms with basil and a fried egg, and melt-in-your-mouth pork ribs that had been marinated in mekong whiskey (a close second to the chili spread). The only disappointing bit was the dessert bite they give you with the check: a tiny square of sticky rice with coconut cream, which was fine and admittedly free, but really average and in my opinion, a lazy thing to leave as your guests final taste memory.

Overall, Little Serow is was a really satisfying experience. The food is interesting and almost entirely delicious and I think the price is really reasonable for what you get. We also thought the service was excellent - the waitstaff was all really warm without being over the top (we didn't learn any of their names, for example) and extremely knowledgable. There were a few minor issues - the sticky rice dessert bite, the music is a little too loud, my stool wobbled terribly until I got down on the ground and evened things out with my napkin - no one came to my assistance or even replaced my napkin, but this is, for the most part, nitpicking. I'd go back tomorrow and I don't say that about most places I eat. 

Little Serow

1511 17th Street NW, DC

Tanzania is in Africa

We were the only diners at Safari DC on Sunday, which meant that three toddlers were able to wreak a small amount of havoc in the dining room without disturbing anyone. While this worked to our advantage, I can't say why as the food was quite good. There are several African (mostly Ethiopian) restaurants in the area, so that may explain it. Or maybe Sunday lunch isn't when most Petworth residents crave ugali or injera? In any case, the menu does have a lot of Ethiopian options (which most of my party ordered -- very good) and both the waitress and cook were Ethiopian on Sunday (although the waitress initially told us that while she is Ethiopian, she wasn't sure where the cook was from - Africa? Maybe Kenya. Not sure if she considers Ethiopia not African or what to make of this.) There are also plenty of Tanzanian options (possibly Kenyan??? though some dishes specifically mentioned Tanzanian spices). I stuck to the program and ordered what I hope is something that might be served in Tanzania: sautéed goat with ugali and cooked greens. The goat, while a little fatty, was really tender and flavorful. The greens were also quite good, though the ugali was pretty unremarkable. Ugali is basically African polenta, but it's quite refined and there's not a lot going on in terms of flavor (the toddler loved it). My goat wasn't very saucy and the ugali was plentiful. I wasn't really expecting to love it -- I ordered it because I'd read it's one of Tanzania's national dishes -- and I didn't. There might be better Ethiopian food in the DC area (though Safari's was very good), but I don't think you'll find better (or worse for that matter) Tanzanian dishes anywhere around here.

Safari

4306 Georgia Avenue, NW (Petworth)

Tajikistan: Who Knew? or Suburban Intrigue

I will admit that not much came to mind when I initially thought of Tajik cuisine. Hunks of meat? Russian mayonnaisey salads? The food they serve at the Uzbek place I like? I was excited to find two Tajik options in the DC area. For better or worse, Samovar a Russian-seeming restaurant with Tajik owners was scheduled to open in Rockville in July, but doesn't seem to have actually managed to open yet. Luckily, Tajik-Tartar Food was able to fulfill our Tajik dreams. I was hesitant at first because nothing really jumped out at me on the menu, which seemed very Russian (for a good reason, I know) and too wintery for July. A little google research peaked my interest in Tajikistan's national dish, qurotub - a dish of stale bread, a yogurt-type sauce, sautéed onions, and vegetables and/or lamb. I am a sucker for all things involving stale bread and yogurt, so I emailed to ask if they might be able to make qurotub even though it isn't listed on their menu (it should be!). "Of course," they replied. A few emails back and forth and off I went to Vienna (the one in Virginia) to pick up a qurotub dinner (note: they will deliver for a fee).

The transaction was quite mysterious (in a totally safe, suburban kind of way) -- I waited in front of an apartment building, texting with a nameless Tajik someone who said that Svetlana would be down soon with my qurotub, but she didn't speak much English so I was just to hand over the cash (Tajik-Tartar Foods has a $50 minimun). Svetlana, a grandmotherly type appeared a few minutes later with a little girl and a shopping bag containing my dinner. We made the transaction, exchanged a few simple pleasantries, and I was off. My nameless Tajik contact texted me instructions on how to assemble the dish (less it get too soggy in transit): I heated the bread (or fatir, a flatbread layered (traditionally) with lamb fat giving it a very nice, flaky quality (rustic croissant is a stretch, but...  which was clearly homemade) and the yogurt sauce (traditionally made from qurut, a dried salted yogurt, but here I think the sauce was made from fresh yogurt (a decent substitute from what I understand)). I followed the instructions on my phone, tearing the warm bread with my hands, not cutting it with a knife! Then, layered the bread with sautéed onions, sauce, and a salad of tomatoes, cucumber, and dill. Qurotub is traditionally served in a communal bowl (Tajik-Tartar Foods wanted to plate mine on "national wooden Tajik plate," which would have surely added to the experience, but I didn't really want to drive back to Vienna to return it) and eaten with one's hands (we are heathens and used forks). Despite our improper serving vessel and utensils, this was a seriously delicious dish that managed to scoot Tajikistan onto the long list of countries I'd like to visit. The fatir has real heft and flavor (lamb fat!?), that made a dish built around stale bread feel like a celebratory meal. (It was also delicious (and not at all soggy the way pita would be) in my lunch the next day. 

Taiwan: a lobster named mama

I have long had a thing against Maryland. I guess it's because I hail from the Virginia side of the DC area and I'm supposed to? I suppose holding illogical grudges isn't something to be proud of, but I am! I will say, there does seem to be some really good and interesting "ethnic" food in Rockville (remember the Polish market?). I toyed with the idea of eating at Toki Underground, which serves "Taiwanese ramen" in DC's Atlas District, but ultimately decided that Fusion Supper Club (formerly Bob's Noodle 66 -- neither name makes any sense to me???) appealed more even if it's on a boring ugly street in Rockville. I don't think there are that many places from this blog that I would return to, but Fusion is a definite exception. Or at least I would go back if it weren't all the way in Rockville. But if I was in Rockville and hungry, I would head straight for Fusion. It's not that food we had was exactly life-changing, but it was all really good and I feel like we only scratched the surface of the menu: three-cup chicken, oyster pancake, a pork and cuttlefish dish, and Chinese broccoli for good measure. I have to say, the pancake (an omelet really) was maybe the kind of thing you have to grow up eating to really enjoy. I did like it, but it is a very gluey omelet (cornstarch!) and it took a few bites to accept that. I can't say why we didn't order any noodles, except that we were mainly going on the waiter's recommendations for good Taiwanese dishes (there are other regional Chinese dishes available, though Taiwanese is the dominant thing. It's just a matter of knowing which dishes are considered Taiwanese). After we had finished and I was hanging out with the toddler by the lobster tank (the real highlight for him, though he was pretty fascinated by chopsticks (feed me with sticks mama!) and he does love white rice with a passion), I noticed the chef/a cook pulling noodles and tossing them into a boiling wok. So you see, Maryland isn't all bad (the drivers...another story)!