As I race to finish my spring dining guide, which publishes online and in print next month (May 17 and May 21, respectively), I’m reminded there’s no place like home when it comes to eating out in and around Washington.
The places I’ve enjoyed the most this month embrace spinoffs of popular brands, new places to fill up on Thai and Filipino fare, and a Chinese barbecue where diners get to watch their meal cook in front of them — and end dinner with karaoke if they choose.
Supreme Barbecue in Annandale is history, but its legacy lives on at this fast-casual Filipino storefront, whose co-owner Paolo Dungca kept the smokers that flavored the previous occupant’s menu. “Such a pure art form,” the chef says of barbecuing. “It’s nice playing with temperatures.” (Juan and Jeremy Canlas, the father and son behind Supreme Barbecue, are Dungca’s business partners.)
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The hand-me-down equipment helps explain the haunting notes in kare kare, a Filipino stew that’s thick with peanut sauce, tinted with annatto oil and bulked up with vegetables, Chinese long beans and okra, on my visit. For the dish commonly made with oxtail, Sari uses beef brisket that’s cured for 18 hours before being smoked over wood. Per tradition, the stew is accompanied by bagoong alamang, salty fermented shrimp paste. “Filipinos love it. Try it first,” a staff member tells my posse. The condiment infuses the stew, which Dungca remembers eating on weekends as a child, with welcome funk. (His grandmother used inexpensive tripe as a base.)
Customers order at a counter, grab a table in the brightly lit dining room, and wait for the food to be dropped off in paper and plastic, since there’s no dishwasher. Smoked chicken wings cured with garlic and paprika and glazed with an adobo thinned with coconut milk require lots of napkins, but it’s the flavor you remember, not the mess. More prime eating comes by way of chicken cooked in a paste of lemongrass, scallions and Sprite — a much-used tenderizer back home, Dungca says of the soda. The most popular dish on the list is the Filipino street food staple sisig, a pork hash made extra crunchy at Sari with fried pig ears and pork rinds in the heap and balanced with sides of fragrant jasmine rice and a bright tomato-cucumber salad.
Sari Filipino Kusina enjoys a double meaning, says Dungca, who grew up in Manila and went on to cook at the much-missed Bad Saint and Kaliwa at the Wharf. Sari references both sarimanok, a Filipino bird symbolizing good fortune, and the sari-sari convenience stores of his homeland. Hence the little bodega in back of the restaurant, several shelves of snacks and staples — banana ketchup, prawn crackers, the rolls called pandesal — familiar to Filipinos.
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Dungca shares a mouthwatering update with fans: His next opening will be Hiraya on H Street NE in the District. Look for an all-day Filipino diner on the ground floor, where the double burger on the ube-purple bun featured at his food stall Pogiboy is expected, and an upscale experience on the second story, possibly as soon as June. The chef says the name of the future restaurant is ancient Tagalog for “fruit of one’s hopes and dreams” and also references another youthful memory, a popular children’s TV show.
6920-J Braddock Rd., Annandale. 571-395-4055. sarifilipinokusina.com. Open for indoor dining, delivery and takeout. Entrees, $15 to $22.
All-Purpose Pizzeria in Capitol Riverfront
Fried chicken on the waterfront? Count me in, especially as the bird is now being served at Navy Yard: marinated to tenderness in buttermilk with lemon zest, rosemary and Sicilian oregano before the thighs are rolled in flour, cooked in hot oil and snowed with parmesan. (The sweet nip? Chile honey.) The dish lands, and tines fly. My only regret is not ordering a second plate.
Surprise, surprise, the goodness is offered along the Anacostia River at All-Purpose Pizzeria, which recently expanded its menu to include salumi, housemade pastas and share-ables including eggplant parm. Chef Mike Friedman, who opened the original All-Purpose in Shaw and counts the Red Hen in his D.C. empire, says the plan to be more than just a source for deck-oven pies was there all along. The transition was delayed first so the spinoff could adjust to the seasonal changes a business near the ballpark experiences, then by the pandemic.
“We’re playing catch-up,” says Friedman, whose new pastas include rigatoni — springy with asparagus, mint and a light sauce of pureed peas — and an expanded wine program that nods more to Sicily than before. To accommodate the changes, there are three fewer pizzas — but still six reasons to tuck into the crisp-chewy pies here, including Saliccia scattered with Italian sausage and mellow cubanelle peppers. Early birds are wooed with the Standard — tomatoes, mozzarella and grana padano — for $12 during happy hour (Monday through Thursday until 7 p.m.).
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Outside is the path of least resistance on a nice day and reason to choose this branch over the first. Isn’t the arched Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge dreamy?
79 Potomac Ave. SE. 202-629-1894. allpurposedc.com. Open for indoor and outdoor dining, delivery and takeout. Pizza and pastas, $17 to $24.
Caruso’s Grocery
The same TLC that made the original Caruso’s Grocery the best Italian American dinner stop in Washington infuses the spinoff in North Bethesda. Say ciao to a loaf of semolina bread slathered with garlic butter and served with a sauce boat of melted cheeses; pastas that taste as if a top chef and a warmhearted nonna fussed over the recipes; and a chicken parmesan — thinly pounded chicken breast coated in garlicky breadcrumbs — that finds the Italian Americans at my table swooning.
Chef Matt Adler and Michael Babin, the founder of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, have another hit on their hands, carved from a dining room that once belonged to Owen’s Ordinary in the Pike & Rose development. The bar element of Owen’s Ordinary remains, up front near the entrance. The rest of the interior is decorated with enough old photographs, chianti bottles and tchotchkes to outfit a Little Italy.
All the pastas have something to recommend them. The beauty prize goes to ricotta gnocchi blanketed with pale green pesto cream. The little dumplings fairly dissolve on the tongue, while the sauce, made with fresh basil, garlic and lemon zest, manages to be both rich and bright. I’m not surprised when Adler says it’s the dish he sends out to friends of the house.
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The glory is in the details here: $12 drinks based on updated classics, vegetarian comforts including herbed ricotta rolled up in thin slices of eggplant, plus a few things the original doesn’t do, like lunch. Three afternoons a week, you can get a salad, pasta of your choice and cannoli for $25. Mamma mia!
11820 Trade St., North Bethesda. 301-245-1226. carusosgrocery.com. Open for takeout, (limited) delivery, and indoor and outdoor dining.
Donsak Thai Restaurant
When a place has four owners and they all want to see their favorites on the menu, the list can stretch 75 dishes long. That’s the case at this Thai newcomer in Woodley Park, a neighborhood better known for its zoo and park than lip-smacking restaurants.
Happily, Donsak is a force for the delicious. Co-owned by Supisa Teawbut, a former manager at the nearby Beau Thai, and Boontom Ratana, previously the chef at Urban Thai in Arlington, the cozy storefront is named for the southern city in Thailand known for its seafood and includes a page devoted to Esaan cooking. It’s a style the chef, a native of northeastern Thailand, knows well.
Donsak performs the requisite paces for most Thai restaurants. You’ll find among the starters papaya salad, larb with plenty of chili heat, and steamed dumplings fat with crab, pork and shrimp. Little touches set this kitchen apart from the pack, though. Take the papaya salad, for which Ratana cuts the fruit by hand with a knife, so the pieces are irregular, and also fries raw peanuts instead of buying roasted ones in bulk.
The curries are distinctive, too. Red curry with fried squash bobbing in spiced coconut milk and the Esaan-style, pull-no-punches water-based curry with Thai eggplant are first among equals. The dish I wouldn’t dream of missing here is a three-ring circus for the palate called nham kao tod: rice seasoned with herbs and curry paste, fried to a crackle, and then broken into pieces and tossed with julienne fermented ham, peanuts, onions and shards of fresh ginger.
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Good news for nearby customers: Donsak delivers for free within a 1½-mile radius for a $20 minimum.
2608 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-507-8207. donsakthai.com. Open for takeout, delivery and indoor dining. Entrees, $15 to $37 (sharing platter).
Hulu Skewer House
Picture a sea of tables, each inset with a grill, and a cadre of servers, each affixed to a tablet. Mix in the perfume of cooked meat and music blared at club volume.
A diner could be forgiven for mistaking the scene at Hulu Skewer House for a Korean barbecue. In reality, it’s a Chinese restaurant specializing in threaded seafood, meat and vegetables — ingredients warmed over custom-made electric grills with rotating spindles that take away the need for stir-cooking. Popular in China, where the novelty originated pre-pandemic, according to co-owner Shichao “Jonathan” Wang, the trend made its debut in Rockville on New Year’s Eve.
The two-floor, industrial-looking restaurant is the effort of eight friends who simply craved a place to “chill and have fun,” says Wang, who works for a biotech company. (Hulu is a nod to a Chinese animated series, “Huluwa,” which features eight main characters.) Aside from the noise, the dining room on the main floor is comfortable and stylish, dressed with broad tables and leather chairs that encourage lingering. There are multiple ways to dine (a la carte and combinations for two or four) and one way to order: via QR code, which allows you to select in Chinese or English.
Part of the fun is watching dinner go from raw to ready (and sometimes “wow!”). The rocking motion of the grill is hypnotic. Little fish cakes tan and puff up like marshmallows. Taiwanese sausages go round and round, sweating sweet juices. Bites of chicken, slick with chilies, let you know they’re ready by throwing their spicy scent in your direction. Dozens of options — red-tipped clams, sweet potatoes, pork belly, etc. — inspire repeat visits. Once the skewered items are cooked, they’re placed on a rack above the grill. Tiny forks are used to remove the hot morsels from the skewers.
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Servers are attentive about monitoring the tables to see that nothing gets overcooked, but less inclined to introduce diners to the condiments that appear on sleek gold trays. Pro tip: Sprinkle some of the cumin seasoning on the justifiably top-selling lamb skewers. You’ll want to round out your meal with something prepared by the kitchen — cooling chopped cucumbers garnished with cilantro, maybe, or split roasted eggplant showered with scallions and red pepper and finished with garlic sauce. Pass on the chewy pork dumplings, though.
More rotation can be enjoyed upstairs — in the form of songs — where the restaurant stocks six karaoke rooms and a full bar.
1488-B Rockville Pike, Rockville. huluskewer.com. 301-302-8989. Open for indoor dining. Skewers, $1.50 to $3.50; combination dinners for two $80 to $105, for four $150 to $190.
Our Mom Eugenia
The more the merrier when it comes to where we can explore Greek food whipped up by Eugenia Markesini Hobson. With her two sons, Phil and Alex, the executive chef introduced a third branch of the family’s popular chainlette to Shirlington in March. Even when it’s raining, the newcomer feels sunny, a sense propelled by chalk-white walls, greenery snaking around the room, splashes of blue and a couple of murals capturing Mom’s home island in western Greece.
My initial taste of the chef’s cooking — fingers of fried cod with skordalia and a juicy teepee of skewered lamb, beef and chicken — was at the original Our Mom Eugenia, launched in Great Falls in 2016. (A second location opened in Fairfax in 2020.) My latest sampling, in Arlington, whisked me back in time and spoke to the owners’ philosophy: “Consistency is our number one goal,” Alex says.
Dish after dish in Shirlington continues to make me feel like a guest in Eugenia’s home. You’ll want some spreads, offered with warm pita, to start; fish roe whipped with lemon juice and olive oil — a maritime cloud — is a must. A cold day is countered with lemon-kissed chicken soup, and any time is a good excuse for the succulent baked chicken or mixed grill, each morsel of lamb, beef and chicken cooked as if by its own minder.
Don’t eat meat? The vegetarian platter brings together spanakopita so crisp you hear the phyllo shatter, beets splashed with balsamic vinegar and dusted with crushed pistachios, and creamy gigante beans sauced with tomato. The sampler, including baby eggplant scattered with pine nuts and fresh mint, makes a nice appetizer for two. Whole branzino comes with a field of vegetables — crisp green beans, dill-flecked carrots, lemony roast potatoes — and a little ceremony as the grilled fish is proffered on a tray and deftly filleted by a manager. The freshly minted operation benefits from several staff members who are steeped in the brand; kitchen manager Joel Galvan, for instance, was sous chef at the original business for five years.
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Attention, event planners: Two semiprivate nooks — one near the front window, the other in the rear — are designed with small parties in mind and show off the handiwork of New York artist John Tsombikos, the sons’ brother-in-law. The 78-seat dining room can also be divided in half to carve out space for larger functions. Another 24 seats dress up the front patio. Without a reservation, I’m content with a stool at the convivial bar. No matter where you find yourself, though, Our Mom Eugenia tastes as if Eugenia were stirring the pot.
4044 Campbell Ave., Arlington. 571-970-0468. ourmomeugenia.com. Open for indoor and outdoor dining, delivery and takeout. Entrees, $24 to $44.
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