Cafes & Carryouts
The house-made sweets on the counter might get your attention first, but there’s more to Arax Café than meets the eye. Behind the coffeehouse façade is a kitchen that turns out delicious Armenian mezze and snacks.
Silky hummus and baba ghanoush ($4.75) come with hot, thin pita for dipping. The round Armenian pizza ($2.50), topped with a paste of beef, red pepper, and onion, is even better with a slather of plain yogurt. And while chicken in a pita ($4.95) doesn’t sound sexy, the zingy garlic sauce makes it so.
Coffee drinks such as the glasse—espresso with a blob of ice cream—and the Armenian-style coffee itself cry out for a sweet. We like the crumbly butter cookies called khorabia.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
