About Full Key
Eat Great Cheap 2013 No Alcohol |
Regulars know that the soy-sauce chicken, roast duck, and roast pork that hang enticingly in the glass case here sell out fast on weekends, so it’s best to call ahead to reserve orders to eat in or take out. But all is not lost if you don’t snag a taste of those delicacies—the long menu at this snug Chinese dining room has other lures. A flavorful Cantonese-style soup bobs with marvelous dumplings stuffed with bits of shrimp, pork, tree-ear mushrooms, and white pepper. And the kitchen has a way with greens. Depending on the season, you might find stir-fried snow-pea leaves, watercress, or Chinese spinach.
Also good: Beef-with-black-pepper casserole; soy-sauce noodles; salt-and-pepper shrimp; clams in black-bean sauce.
See what other restaurants made our 2016 Cheap Eats list. This article appears in our May 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.
