Eat Great Cheap 2013 Date-Night-Worthy |
 Good Drinks |
The cooking might be composed of strapping plates of Russian and Uzbek fare, but to get the most out of a meal at this dandelion-yellow dining room, it helps to approach it as you would dim sum: Focus on the myriad dumplings and pastries that make up the front end of the menu. There are sesame-sprinkled, flaky pirozhki filled with silky potato purée and mushrooms; caviar-topped tarts filled with cream cheese; and samsa, thin turnovers filled with ground lamb. It’s easy to stuff yourself silly on just those, but it’d be a shame to ignore the Uzbek specialty plov, a heaping platter of gently spiced rice with hunks of lamb, or the old-school dessert tray—you’ll want to head straight for the cloud-like honey-nut cake.
Also good: Vinaigrette salad with potatoes, beets, and beans; Fish Under Coat (a layered herring salad); manti (steamed lamb dumplings); pelmeni (ground-beef dumplings).
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.
