Eat Great Cheap 2013This is essentially two restaurants in one, and trust us—you’ll want to ditch the Chinese-American menu for the Chinese one. The reward? Szechuan cooking in all its complexity. It’s not only about heat (steamed buns with chicken and garlicky cucumbers are musts), but the magic of the idiom is best articulated by the fabulous flounder and vegetables in fiery soup, a dish that numbs the lips like Novocaine and blasts the tongue like Tabasco.
See all of our 2013 Cheap Eats picks.
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.
