100 Very Best 2014
100 Very Best 2019Thip Khao’s green-papaya salad and Little Serow’s fried tofu are well-known bucket-list items for capsaicin addicts, but the tear-inducing mushroom-and-herb salad at this bright-white Thai/Vietnamese small-plates hangout deserves a spot right alongside them. Much of the menu is singeing, and the trick is finding a good balance—knowing that fluffy mounds of crab fried rice and giant pork buns are your friends next to the curries and chili-laced larb salad. So, too, the wine list, which is packed with tongue-soothing values from Germany and Austria. We just wish we could say the same about the servers, who during multiple visits ranged from unhelpful to absentee.
Don’t miss: Sticky wings; crispy-rice salad; fried marinated beef; duck with red curry; khao soi, a chicken curry with noodles; sablefish with dill; cones of soft-serve.
See what other restaurants made our 100 Very Best Restaurants list. This article appears in our February 2016 issue of Washingtonian.
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.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
