District Taco

Curb Appeal/Location: Stewart Bean

Being an actual resident of the District of Columbia, I found it very misleading and discomforting that "District Taco" was in fact not in the District, but Arlington. I understand if the original restaurant started in the District, and because of its popularity sprawled into NOVA like the rest of middle class America, but this simply isn't the case. Thurbs down on location.

Like most places on Lee Highway, "curb appeal" doesn't really apply to this place. The word appeal means there is a level of attractiveness or allure to the physical structure of the building. Pretty much your standard rectangular building, glass front, and neon glowing sign. On a positive note, unlike the District, there was ample parking and no wait.

Rating: 2.0 Thurbs

Food and Beverage: Brian

Before dining at District Taco, I had heard tales of the food cart that travels around the DC metro area. Reasonably priced, authentic Mexican food is the name of the game. For starters, District Taco offers many more food choices than their namesake implies, but they still keep it pretty basic as far as Mexican food goes. Tacos, burritos, nachos, quesadillas, and homemade guac are some of their specialties. Notably, they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner which I found quite impressive. Brian had the breakfast burrito, Stew a barbacoa burrito, Tommy a spicy chicken burrito, and Bumpy a steak burrito. We also enjoyed the homemade guacamole, and no lie, it’s homemade. The proof is in the pudding.

For those of you thinking “Chipotle Burrito” when I use that term, District Taco offers a more authentic version. Burritos are served on plates doused in sauce, covered in melted cheese and served with lettuce and tomato on the side. These are more like the burritos you would receive at an actual Mexican restaurant. I can confidently say we were all impressed and pleased with our orders. Our huge, overstuffed burrito dishes arrived reasonably quickly and piping hot. They also offered an extensive self serve bar of salsas to supplement your food. To drink, I believe we all had water. However, they do have a Boylan’s fountain featuring their full line of pure cane sugar sodas. One downside to the District Taco menu would be there lack of hard tacos. Sorry, folks. They only serve soft. Also, using plasticware to try and tackle these dishes can be quite a feat.

Rating: 3.25 Thurbs

Ambience/Entertainment: Bumpy

My past has included a couple of short travels to Spanish speaking countries and though I did not expect the ambiance of District Taco to recreate similar emotions; I did still maintain some low lying standards of Hispanic authenticity. District Taco met none of those expectations. It was likely somewhere in between the mystic, yet relaxing music playing in the restaurant that you might also expect to hear during a massage and my Hispanic cashier who couldn’t tell me what the word Orale! on his District Taco t-shirt meant that my dreams were dashed.

The restaurant was filled with families enjoying the diverse Falls Church culture, which was nice. I also appreciated the brother of the owner stopping by our table to ensure the food was up to par. However, if you’re looking for the ethnic roots of the menu to match the atmosphere of the restaurant look elsewhere.

Rating: 2.0 Thurbs

Service/Cost: Tommy

The entrance to District Taco is a little on the confusing side, with 2 doors that don't lend themselves to easy entrance or exit. The entrance, especially with all of the people coming in and out, was a little bit crowded as we tried to let people past while we waited inside for the Guest of Honor to get there. The cost of all menu items is pretty much normal/reasonable for decent Mexican food. I got a burrito mojado (spicy, apparently), and it was about $6-7, split some chips and guac with Stew and the gang for $5, and a Boylan's soda was about $2. For around $10-12, this was a really good meal and pretty much the same price as something like a Chipotle but with a different flavor and better guac.

At one point the manager/owner came out to ask how the food was and if we enjoyed everything. Obviously for a new restaurant, the management is going to be a little bit more hands-on to ensure a growing base of patrons, but on a very busy night in the restaurant, it was a nice touch to show that there was genuine interest in how people were enjoying their food and what they thought of the restaurant. Always good to see that the managers understand that people don't just come to a restaurant because of the food. Nothing amazing on the cost side, but really good service, fast and friendly.

Rating: 3.5 Thurbs

Overall Rating: 2.6875 Thurbs

This Week's Guest of Honor

The winner of this week's Guest of Honor Lottery is none other than Mr. Stewart Bean! Mr. Bean's enthusiasm, zest for life, and ability to get selected by a random number generator has earned him a spot at the table for this week's Blog Dinner. While we're on the topic, there has been some confusion about how the Guest of Honor (GOH) is selected each week. Upon entering the lottery, the entering person's name is added to a spreadsheet; 2 days before the dinner, a name is selected using a random number generator and that number determines which person is selected as the GOH. "But why don't you just do it by who you want to go with?!" complain only girls (apparently guys are just fine with randomness, or don't express their feelings). In this way, we remove all emotion from the decision and everyone gets a completely fair shot. So rather than complain about how we don't use a subjective system, consider this: what if you're not as cool as option B? What if we haven't seen option C in a long time and want to catch up? What if option D is a really cute single girl (and yes we know you think you're cute, but what about compared to all of your friends who have entered?)? As you can see, this is the best method. It's science. Without further ado, Stew, here is your completely random photoshopped photo for winning the lottery this week. Love, Thurber.

Four Sisters Vietnamese

Welcome back everyone! It's been a long hiatus, but we're back and about the same quality as before! We've gone through some roommate changes, differences in scheduling, and general apathy, but we're getting back on track and looking forward to reviewing more restaurants in the Falls Church/Arlington area. That said, we are very rusty, as evidenced by this first pick, which was far from the usual Thurber Party venue:



Full Picture Set Coming Soon!

Curb Appeal/Location: Bumpy (apparently it had been so long for Bumpy that he had forgotten the difference between Curb Appeal and Ambience...don't worry people, we'll get better)
The Vietnamese sisters restaurant was likely one of the nicer establishments that I have visited for blog dinner during my short tenure with the gang. The restaurant was a bit nicer than the other restaurants that we normally associate with. Actually, the decor led us to believe that we had made a mistake in selecting a restaurant that seemed a bit out of our league. The restaurant was filled with nice tables donning a rich wooden stain dimly lit by elegant ceiling lights. However, the largest contributor to the classy ambiance of the restaurant was the bathrooms. Any restaurant reviewer knows that the bathrooms are a fail safe method of determining how nice the restaurant is. These bathrooms were impeccably clean and spacious with plenty of privacy. The Vietnamese sisters menu was quite large, but just in case it didn't suit your palette, there was a Chipotle and Noodles and Co. nearby.
Rating: 4 Thurbs



Food and Beverage: Tommy
We knew that we were pretty far off the reservation when we saw the size of the menu at 4 Sisters. I commented that it was roughly the equivalent of a Vietnamese Cheesecake Factory. The menu listed everything from spring rolls to dishes of chicken, pork, beef, and fish, and in all different preparations. To be fair, none of us could accurately describe the difference between fares of the major Southeastern Asian countries, but many of the items that you could find in Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, and some Chinese restaurants could be found here as well, sometimes in slightly modified versions.

I got spring rolls with spiced pork and shrimp with peanut sauce, which Andrea and I both agreed were very good. Andrea had a curry chicken with coconut milk and spicy sauce, Bumpy and I had a carmelized pork with black pepper cooked in a clay pot, Brian got a grilled black pepper beef served over watercress, tomatoes (the only slightly off part of the whole meal, these were very, very pale green, almost white), onions, and lime dip , and Paul selected the chicken sauteed with mixed vegetables. If you just drooled on your keyboard, that is the correct response. The food was fantastic, so much so that we really felt bad that we had gone there.

Usually this blog is about going to locations that are off the beaten path and finding a diamond in the rough. This time, however, we felt like we went to a place that was used to cooking everything just right. Just the right amount of seasoning, served at the correct temperature, and quickly. As soon as I saw my plate, I knew it was going to be awesome, and it was. Paul got a whole pot of jasmine tea for $0.50. I know tea is very simple, but $0.50? BP got a Vietnamese beer ("33") and declared it to be a good competitor for MGD (and will probably purchase this shirt later). If you want mystery, don't go here. If you want some outstanding food and to get exactly what you order, prepared how you want it (which, let's be honest, is kind of the ideal goal for almost all restaurants that don't involve a small blog's participants), you need to go here.
Rating: 4 Thurbs



Ambience/Entertainment: Brian

As Tommy first described the location of 4 Sisters Vietnamese, I thought, “yeah, located behind some office buildings, kind of obscure…this could be good.” However, I would soon find this establishment to be much classier than many of our previous ventures. First indicator this place was legit: tons of people sitting at nicely organized booths and tables. Additionally, matching places settings and furniture was strange to us.

You might call 4 Sisters a “normal, well-run restaurant.” Music played while we ate that was neither too loud nor soft. This allowed for casual conversation, but we were subject to being drowned out by the women’s book club/all girls’ dinner party next to us. Native artwork adorned the walls and even a picture of the 4 sisters themselves! We did have a birthday the next table over, so we halfheartedly sang to our unknown friends as a cupcake with a single candle made its way to their table. Sorry readers, no impromptu karaoke hours, club scene, or wedding receptions as you have come to expect. Never fear, we have a highly selective list of future restaurants that are sure to make up for the lack of crazy this go ‘round.
Rating: 3 Thurbs

Guest of Honor: Andrea Docos
Go Big or Go Home. That should be the motto for the Gentlemen of James Thurber Court. The new season of “Thurber: Party of Four” kicked it up a notch last week when the restaurant of choice turned out to be better than all of their former dining experiences combined – and also proved to have made its way onto the “Top 100 Restaurants in the Washington DC Metro area” list…. Imagine my delight at being the lucky lady that got to partake! (I’m still speechless people.) Upon selecting Four Sisters in Falls Church, we were excited at the thought of this place being the quintessential Thurb spot when we heard it was located on the backside of a commercial district quite close to the theater formally known as “Murder-plex”. But whatever preconceived notions we had were quickly shattered. Let me paint a picture for you: As you round the corner from the parking garage, you are greeted by the yellow glow of an illuminated corner locale. A revolving door beckons you into the eatery where the warm aroma of fresh seafood teases your senses…

We were seated and served faster than you can say “classy joint”, and proceeded to put aside our chopsticks and shovel like any decent American would do to demonstrate their approval of a particularly fabulous dish.

Now don’t let the cloth napkins and fancy table cloth fool you, this fancy-shmantzi establishment still proved to have the potential for a rip-roaring good time: Where Happy Birthday could (and would) be sung out loud by a group of patrons, as well as be the choice gathering spot for a group of middle aged women/book clubbers/maybe a wedding party? (The jury is still out.) And as if it wasn’t family oriented enough, a large framed school photo of four little girls left you wondering, “Could those be the Four Sisters?”…

Overall, the flavors were intense and the sauces were light which meant that the “I’m sickeningly full” food coma never came. We all just left smiling and snickering over the fact that Four Sisters turned out to be quite a delight. I give it 3.75 Thurbs.

Four Sisters Vietnamese Restaurant
Overall Rating: 3.6875 Thurbs

Tuscany Grapes Cafe

For more pictures of our Tuscany Grapes experience click here

Also check out the Tuscany Grapes website - it's the next best thing to actually being there!

Curb Appeal & Location: Brian R.

This particular phrase can be heard in many scenes and settings. You could probably find it somewhere at a wedding or maybe it comes out in a long overdue conversation with an old friend. Whoever it may be is probably going on about their husband or wife and finally gets to the part where they affirm that he/she is “their better half”. We have all heard the saying and sometimes it’s heartfelt, but other times it’s more than apparent that the claim is false and the speaker clearly believes they are actually the better half by a long shot. Well, Tuscany Grapes, our most recent dinner venture, was definitely the better half... of 7-11. Other businesses attached to 7-11’s? Laundromats, Check Cashing establishments, Bail Bonds and crime scenes.

If your going to eat here you should probably just look for the 7-11, but to be a bit more specific Tuscany Grapes was off of Lee Highway on Rogers Road. The less than classy low-lit lot was garnished with a pulsing “OPEN” sign that left us all second-guessing whether or not the sign was actually telling the truth, but the door opened and we found that the establishment was open. Other outside décor included a white board held by steel cables and bolted into the building that advertised the name of the establishment. Really nothing else worth mentioning as far as curb appeal goes.

Rating: 2 Thurbs

Food & Beverage: Brian P.

I first noticed Tuscany Grapes Café as I traveled down Lee Highway in Tommy’s car last week. Perpendicularly attached to a 7 Eleven, it may not be the first place one looks for fine Mediterranean cuisine. Intrigued by the name and online menu, the Thurber party ventured inside this restaurant/hookah bar Monday night with somewhat high hopes. In all honesty, our group was eager to forget the disappointment of Victor’s Grill weeks before. Prior to our trip, we had the luxury of perusing a rather extensive menu on the Tuscany Grapes website. Boasting such dishes as Baba Ghanouge, Kibbi, Fatoush, and Khyar B’Laban, Tuscany Grapes certainly appeared to be an establishment steeped in authenticity. To our amazement and delight, Tuscany Grapes Café delivered!

Our rather eccentric and talkative waiter took our order and delivered a variety of well-prepared Mediterranean foods. I had the chicken kabob and hummus (to compare to Lahori Kabob,) Matt ordered falafel, Tommy enjoyed a massive ricotta/pepperoni calzone, and Brobinson had a chicken parmesan sub. Three waters and a Diet Coke were the beverages for the evening. Unfortunately, these drinks were delivered in bottle or can only preventing free refills. We sipped conservatively. To cap off the evening, Tommy, Matt and Brobinson enjoyed Strawberry Al Fakher served in one of the tallest hookah’s I’ve ever seen. Yet another crowd pleaser. I’m trying to quit.

Although we didn’t try some of the more exotic choices mentioned above, I can confidently say everyone enjoyed their meals and we will return. I also believe we Thurberites did a fine job of sampling a diverse array of what Tuscany Grapes Café has to offer. Hopefully, dear readers, you can carve out some time to make a trip right off Lee Highway on Rogers Road and visit this restaurant. It is sure to please.

Rating: 3.25 Thurbs

Service & Cost: Tommy

The entrance to Tuscany Grapes is where I would’ve designed it, had I the unfortunate luck of opening my business on “opposite day.” Although there is no sign welcoming you through the door of my preference, there were also no tables blocking entry. When I got about 10 feet away, I could see the other guys already inside, watching to see if I made the same blunder I assume they already had. As I walked inside, a very cordial man greeted me (turns out he owns the restaurant). Both the manager (who doubled as a waiter) and the owner were very friendly and made small talk with us about sports, current events, and the occasional borderline-inappropriate joke. Although I can’t give TG an excellent rating for cost since they had no soda fountain, gave only cans of soda and bottles of water (with no refills, obviously), it was a very fair price for the food itself. All in all, if you’re looking for a place that has no qualms about being the place you grab a pizza and eat it in the restaurant at 3am, Tuscany Grapes is worth a try. Completely unassuming, and I don’t think anything would’ve rattled these guys. I wanted to test my theory by laying down on a table and eating my calzone with my hands, but I didn’t want to push the limits of their generosity.

Rating: 3.0 Thurbs

Ambiance & Entertainment: Matt

How can I possibly explain what it feels like to spend a Monday evening at Tuscany Grapes? Have you ever had a weekend night where you’ve gone with someone you know over to a random dude’s apartment that you don’t really know and found yourself in the company of a bunch of other random dudes that all seem slightly sketchy but also very friendly and everyone is just lounging around, watching TV, making a few jokes, being slightly inappropriate, acting like you’re all good friends and then leaving at the end of that night never to see any of those people ever again. Maybe that’s not a scenario everyone can relate to, but I had a sense of déjà vu the whole night at Tuscany Grapes about that very type of thing. I think that says something about their friendliness and hospitality of the restaurant staff and patrons. It also says something about the disheveled Mediterranean living room décor at Tuscany Grapes, complete with flat screen TV on the wall, hookahs and ashtrays on the tables and several people hunched over laptops while checking up on their Myspace pages in the middle of the dining room. It also says something about that fact that the whole social situation that developed there was all just a little bizarre. Thirty minutes into our meal we were watching Monday Night Football with the owner, manager and cook as well as three other random customers stopping in for who knows what. Somewhere along the way it switched from eating dinner at a restaurant to hanging out with all these random dudes watching football. All of that makes for a fun time but also a bit of a surreal dining experience.

Rating: 2.5 Thurbs

Tuscany Grapes

Overall Rating: 2.7 Thurbs

Remember to enter the Thurber Party of 4 Lottery at the bottom of this page for your chance to join us as the next Guest of Honor! And if you think we might not have your contact information (i.e. we've never met you before), please remember to include an email address with your Lottery entry. Love, TP4