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Matt writes:
The issue with Chinese food and DC isn’t that there’s no good stuff, it’s that there’s an extraordinary quantity of bad stuff. If you go to a shitty neighborhood where there’s very little in the way of retail options — like Columbia Heights in 2003 or U Street in 2004 or the Atlas District in 2006 or many other places to this day — the one thing you can count on being there is an incredibly awful Chinese restaurant.
I don’t think this is a DC, issue — every city has its share of awful restaurants.
However I 100% agree with Matt about Mr. Chen’s Organic Chinese. Hands down the best takeout I have ever had — they just use high-quality, fresh ingredients and it makes all the difference.
On the other hand, I still have not had a good bagel in D.C. and let’s not even talk about the "Jumbo Slice."
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For those of you who can stand going over the river and paying a little more to dine with right wing defense contractors and CIA operatives, this place is sensational.
It was a favorite of Bush 41 after his embassy days in China, and the right wing has loved it since, but the food is really amazing. Has a bit of a Rick’s Cafe Casablanca feel to it with all the assholes around, but very yummy.
At my Mom’s in Oceanside, NY, good hot bagels fresh daily just around the corner.
Hong Kong Palace in Falls Church. Something approximating actual Chinese food — get the beef tendon and the salt fish — rather than Chinese American food. Extremely good, extremely cheap. And I think I might be DC’s last holdout against Mr Chen’s. Fresh organic ingredients are great things, yes, but have you ever had anything flavorful from there?
We have to bring bagels down to DC whenever we visit our daughter on DuPont Circle.