Restaurants in Silver Spring?

[saycheese]

Can any one recommend any place to get a decent meal near the new AFI theater in Silver Spring? Ethnic, pizza, whatever, as long as it's tasty. No chain restaurants, please. Thanks.

[Malawry]

Near the AFI? As in, walking distance? Not so much is there, and what's opening in the near future includes treasures such as Red Lobster, Panera Bread and Austin Grill. Baja Fresh is already open nearby. And there is the Tastee Diner very close by, with standard diner burgers and omelets.

There is Crisfield Seafood, which I hear is good but which I haven't tried. It's a family-owned restaurant specializing in crab...crab cakes, crab imperial, crab soup, etc etc. It has plenty of loyal customers, I just haven't made it there personally. And you can walk there from the theatre.

Further afield, there's Samantha's and the Tiffin/Udupi Palace restaurants down by Langley Park. Either would be a short car ride from the AFI cinema. Samantha's is excellent Salvadorean food, while Tiffin and Udupi offer North and South Indian cuisine (run by the same family, only a half block or so apart, and Udupi is all-vegetarian while Tiffin offers omnivorous choices). There's also Parkway Deli for your fix of reubens and smoked salmon...one of the few places around town that offers food vaguely resembling what you might find at an Olde New York deli. They're on Grubb Road, just off East-West Highway, not too far from Jones Bridge Road.

I live in this area and know it fairly well from a dining standpoint. If you are confined to Metro accessible places or have other questions let me know and I'll see what I can come up with.

[Al_Dente]

As an unfortunate soul who works just down the street from the AFI, I don't have a lot to recommend. However, I do want to plug the DiMarco Deli across Colesville Rd from that Mecca of culinary delights, Ruby Tuesday. DiMarco's is the real deal with great subs, homemade mozzarella, imported cheeses and meats, homemade pastas and sausages, etc. You can stop in for a sub or a slice, but it isn't really made to be a sit down type joint.

Otherwise, that part of Silver Spring is nothing but chain restaurant hell.

[mr food]

Sergios in the Hilton-right up the street from the AFI is a great place. Sergio himself will make sure you enjoy his Italian cuisine. Ask him to recommend a grappa. Prices are moderate. I usually stick to the house wine.

[Malawry]

I finally ate at Crisfield Seafood last night. This place has been around forever, I think over 50 years. They operate two restaurants, the original one with the green exterior just south of East-West Hwy on Georgia Avenue, and the other in the art deco Lee Building at Georgia and Colesville. (You could walk to either from AFI.) We ate at the green-fronted one. I've seen the menu at the art deco one and I think the menus are virtually identical but can't say for sure (I saw that menu about a year ago.)

As we approached, my husband asked, "Are you sure you want to eat here?" There's no doubt about it, Crisfield is a scruffy kind of restaurant, especially from the outside. Still, I was curious, and if I'm going to mention Crisfield on eGullet then the least I can do is take in a meal there.

When you enter, there's a U-shaped bar taking up most of the main room. And then there's a room to your left with some narrow wood tables, two-tops and six-tops. We ate in this room, behind a table of six guys who I think have been eating at Crisfield every Tuesday since 1976 or so. The wall is tiled to about shoulder height. There's a shelf running close to the ceiling with beer steins, and a wall china cabinet with oyster plates. There's also pictures of various 1950s, 60s, and 70s personalities I didn't recognize under the beer steins, smiling with their mutton chops and dewy eyes. I guess they ate at Crisfield once, too. The table was preset with paper placemats containing information about the Chesapeake Bay.

Our menus were delivered posthaste, along with a big bowl of oyster crackers perched on a plate holding four paper dunking cups of tartar sauce and four paper dunking cups of cocktail sauce. There were also lemon wedges around the edge of the plate.

The menu is about as straightforward as these accompaniments, and it's heavy on the crab. Crab-stuffed flounder, crab-stuffed shrimp, crab imperial, crab crakes, and crab Norfolk style. There's also a selection of ordinary American seafood dishes...fried clams, oyster chowder, etc. The menu reminded me of my childhood experiences at The Hungry Fisherman (which I think was a chain.)

I ordered the broiled crab-stuffed shrimp, my esteemed housemate chose the fried shrimp, and my husband selected a bowl of clam chowder and a crab cake sandwich. The soup came right away, and by the time we'd all taken a taste the rest of our food arrived. I sampled everything ordered, and here is my assessment:

Clam chowder: It does taste like it's made in-house, but the clams seemed canned to me...too tough to be fresh, unless they're left on the stove too long. But the soup had a decent body and plenty of potatoes and celery. All right for a crappy November day but not worth a detour.

Crab-stuffed shrimp: This dish was clearly fried, not broiled. Three shrimp per plate, butterflied and filled with a crab-cake type mixture (mostly crab, mayo, and breadcrumbs as filler), breaded and fried. Served with french fries and slaw (you can choose other forms of potato if you prefer). The crab had a nice sweet, rich flavor and came in decent-sized lumps. The shrimp was more ordinary and a little overcooked from its time in the fryer, but it was palatable. The fries clearly had been fried in the same oil as the many fried fish dishes. And the slaw was goopy, creamy, and sweet...the slaw of my childhood dreams. It tasted like it was made freshly every morning.

Fried shrimp: came with the same accompaniments as the crab-stuffed shrimp. These were weirdly butterflied just like the crab-stuffed kind, then breadcrumbed and deep-fat fried. The result was shrimp tails with two stiff curls of shrimp attached, bending in different directions. The shrimp tasted all right though. Not much to report.

Crab cake sandwich: comes with fries or slaw. It's a breadcrumbed specimen looking suspiciously pre-formed (it's just a little too exact to be handmade). Comes on a very ordinary hamburger roll with no lettuce, tomato, or anything else for that matter. Tasted all right but uninteresting and uninspiring.

The prices are quite high, imo, for what you are getting from this place. My shrimp dish cost $19, analogous to the seafood chains like Legal Seafoods but without much atmosphere or added intelligence behind the food. Crab cake sandwich was $10, and the fried shrimp were $16 or so. I think any fondness I may have for Crisfield is based more on nostalgia than the actual excellent rendition of American seafood dishes I'd hoped for. Still, I'd return and eat the clam chowder at the bar for lunch sometime, since it's close and all. And you can go in your shorts and flip-flops with your unpredictable child and probably all have a decent time.

They do offer oysters in season, and they just put soft-shell crabs on their menu. Perhaps these types of limited-availability items are better. I will try again sometime and report back if there's anything worth noting.

[ledervin]

No 4 star michelin's here but still some sun:

Mi Rancho: Decent Tex Mex right around the corner from Tastee Diner : classic Diner establishment;

Across Mi Rancho: Cuban Corner (not sure of name) tastee inexepensive cuban food

Negril: good to great Jamaican food

Santucci's ( cross of colesville and university) great italian subs and sopresseta: next to that is a bakery with all made from scratch on premises....support it/love it/now!

Woodside: top notch heart clogger: order #1 Cyreno de Bergiac have them put it on the grill....death made in heaven

Across the Woodside (on Georgia near highway) Kristens Cafe: french style cafe not bad

Silver Spring eating blowss......also for a great Gyro...if your not too scared...Country kitchen ...corner of 29 and university...an old guy name Harry.....runs a slow dive where you can help yourself for the coffee someone is always drinking beer and the home fries and gyros rock...tell em Larry and Francis told you to go....love it!

Crisfield is the most talked about and overhyped.....more oldschool bad ambience than good food...and expensive....worth the visit just to know about it...but that's it

let me know what you think and if you find any others

[Malawry]

Welcome, Ledervin, and thanks for your assessments. I've only eaten at Woodside once but thought it was pretty good...I just thought Parkway Deli on Grubb Road (in another part of Silver Spring) was better which was why I never returned. Mmm, whitefish salad platters.

Kristen's Cafe is worth checking out, as well as Snider's Grocery right nearby. We used to rent to a former pastry chef at Kristen's (while she was still working there) and she brought us the most terrific treats from the cafe. Bar cookies and almond-raspberry tarts and homemade challah. And Snider's is a gem, an independent supermarket with an old-fashioned deli. They sell chubs and other old-school Jewish-type fish as well as a good selection of housemade salads. I was hooked on their slaw for a while. These places are both along Georgia Ave near the intersection of 495, though, not near the AFI or other downtown Sil Spring attractions.

[ledervin]

Snider's is a classic treat....great steaks too.

Love the pickle bar at Grubb, for some reason I've been going to

Woodside more often lately....great Matza ball soup there.

any other classics around the neighborhood?

Oh yeah,,,there's a thai grocery/takeout on University next to Georgia that's been there for over 25 years....good selection of Thai and decent take out.

i'm getting hungry and its only 10am!

[Malawry]

Ooh yes, the pickle bar is one of the best reasons to visit Parkway on Grubb. All you care to snarf cucumber pickles of various types, pickled tomatoes, sauerkraut, and a few other random things (carrot-raisin salad).

What is the Thai grocery?

BTW a few more notes on one of the other Sil Spring locales you mentioned. The bakery that is in the Woodmont Center at University and Colesville is not really worth a detour imo, with the possible exception of their apple fritters. I was hooked on those for a while, getting them before school in the mornings. I've found the rest of their baked goods to be too sweet and too pedestrian besides. The place does remind me of the Sweet Touch Bakery in Greensboro, NC where all birthday cakes seemed to originate when I was a kid.

I agree Silver Spring dining basically blows. This is a neighborhood so ready for something exciting foodwise. The area is so close to turning into a real suburban destination (how's that for an oxymoron?) and lack of real dining options are one of the few things keeping that from happening. It's frustrating to have to drive to Bethesda or into the city for a great meal. And I know I'm not the only one feeling this way. I'd love to support a great restaurant closer to home. It's odd that this area has one of the best farmer's markets in the area and a perpetually-crowded Whole Foods Market but still no great restaurants...clearly those who live here are interested in good food or they wouldn't be supporting those other food resources.

[vareshe]

the thai grocery store that ledervin is talking about sounds like the one in wheaton. there's another one in silver spring on thayer ave, same street as negril. it's across from safeway. i go to this one alot, good comfort food for the money but definitely a dive/takeout/eat on styroform plates place. try the basil chicken, you get a huge tupperware takeout of it for 4.95, or get the combo plate.. 3 dishes for 5.95 i think along with rice. also the pork satay at .95 is sooo yummy!! bad thing is that they close early.. i think around 7pm.

there's also bombay gaylord on georgia, right before you turn into negril. this used to be on the cheap eats list a while back.. '99 or '00. it's good, but not anything to shout about. the major difference with this place and others is that everything is MILD. they don't serve anything spicy here! i'm no fire eater, but i asked for a side of hot chilis to add to my dish and they said they didn't have any! :p

further up the street is lagano ethiopian restaurant. again this is so so, but i was never a big fan of ethiopian anyway. the signs said they were open til 2 am on weekends when they first opened, but i'm not so sure now.

i'm continuously amazed at how many ppl mi rancho piles in on a nightly basis. i can see it from my window, and it's ALWAYS packed! i didn't think it was SOOPER good, (the shrimp soup they serve on weekends is delightfuls tho) and the avocado salad is a rip off if you takeout, but all in all it falls below cactus cantina fairly above a tex mex chain.

oriental east is one of the best HK style dim sum in the area on the weekends. from 11 to 3. be prepared for at least a 30 min wait. lines form before it opens. this in the blair apartments complex where giant, cvs, and caribbou coffee is on east west highway. for dinner, stick with the chinese menu.

all of these sans mi rancho and the new oriental east location are rather divey. cubano's (right across from mi rancho) is the best looking (cute but cramped on the inside, nice and cozy for a date, but maybe too loud) in the entire area that i've seen so far, and i've nothing but complaints with tastee dinner. (slow service, terrible diner food.) the only good thing being that it's open 247. :p oh i like carolina kitchen takeout for a hearty soul foodish fare. (this means salt and grease and all that's bad for you. mmmmm, try the jerk chicken and the mashed potatoes!) this is on georgia, built on the side of twin towers apartments. i've eaten at both crisfield's and absolutely have NO idea what the big fuss is about. i thought both were terrible, and i got food poisoning at the one on georgia! :p (clam chowder)

[steve sacharoff]

As far as restaurants in Siver Spring Md. it is and has been for years a vast wasteland.Crisfields never was much -overpriced and over-breaded.The new one is "nicer"but no better.The "Cuban"place on Fidler lane is great but pretty pricey.It took over from the "Shanghai?" which was good about 25 years ago.The lunch places are really grim-only one Salvadoran place on Colesville across from City Place is "ok".All the "Asian"restaurants are substandard too,even if the food is "decent" the service is terrible.Negril is no big deal,and the Italian joint down the street from the Police station is expensive and has no lunch specials.The Italian Deli on Colesville is ok but has no tables.It's good to get stuff to take home.The rest are chain restaurants -which are uniformly horrible.Wheaton is a better choice by far and of course Bethesda is FULL of much better restaurants.I don't know if things will start to change now but I really hope so.

[Steve Klc]

Steve, so do you find yourself driving to Bethesda and Wheaton or do you cook more because the SS options are so poor? What are your favorite places and why in Bethesda and Wheaton? Anything worth driving out for all the way from Arlington?

[Al_Dente]

The Italian Deli on Colesville is ok but has no tables.It's good to get stuff to take home.The rest are chain restaurants -which are uniformly horrible.Wheaton is a better choice by far and of course Bethesda is FULL of much better restaurants.I don't know if things will start to change now but I really hope so.

The deli does have about 6 tables in the back if you want to eat in. Certainly nothing fancy, but you can peruse the Godfather, Sopranos, and Scarface posters on the wall.

There is also one of those cafeteria style SoHo joints in the Metro Center office complex (where I work, unfortunately). I'm convinced they've developed some kind of carbo-protein compound that is shipped in by the truckload to be shaped, colored, and textured into the wide array of foods they offer at $6/lb. Somehow everything tastes the same.

[steve sacharoff]

In respronse to query about Bethesda and Wheaton-I live right where Kensington,Wheaton and Silver Spring converge so I can choose and I don't find myself in SS right now.I'm not driving since I'm having some serious vision problems but...wheaton has a couple of Latin places which are "ok"- nothing remarkable."Woomie" a Chinese.Korean.Japanese place with a great weekday lunch hour buffet.I think it's now $7.95 "all you can eat"including pretty decent Sushi.Better is "Yokahama" on Georgia Ave.It's "normal suburban"Japanese prices.The "Indonesian"place in the Tria-angle is "OK",not too many places to get "Rastafel"around here.Dinner is sure to be $25.00 p/person.The "Jewish Deli-Restaurant"attached to "Shalom Kosher"is REALLY BAAAAAAD!Worst "Shawarma"I've had in 30 years of eating "Mid-East"food.And NO atmosphere-it's like a barn.And NO service either.The "Syrian"Grocery"-Thomas"on University sells some ready to eat food-but if you want fresh"Humous Tahina" and "Baba Ganooj"the "Sholom"store is good.Thomas' has great olives,feta,spices etc.Again Wheaton is so-so.Bethesda is something else-Many many great places Afghan,Iranian,"Asian",latin,"American"Italian,French.And of course"Bacchus"-if it's not the best Lebanese in the area it's tied w/"Lebanese Taverna"{Woodley Park}Rockville doesn't compare.Enjoy.Steve sacharoff

[Joe H]

I have not been to Crisfield's in over ten years. The first time I ate at Crisfield's was in the early 1950's when my mother dragged me there and I had just graduated from eating baby food. Then it was thought of, along with Kushner's at Piney and Flower, as a cheap alternative to O'Donnell's across from the Warner Theatre downtown or even their restaurant in Bethesda as well as a number of others. Somewhere along the line Julia Child ate at Crisfield and raved about it. A year or so later Calvin Trilling showed up and proclaimed it "America's best fish house." Shortly after Phyllis Richman who had sort of ignored it in the Post started her own rave adding Gifford's up the street for dessert.

Whether 50 years ago or today there are several things that Crisfield does really, really well. And only several things. They are all inapprorpiately expensive, suffering from all of the publicity in the late '70's and early '80's. Crab stuffed flounder, seafood Norfolk style, fried chicken and oysters at their raw bar. Really not much of anything else. Yes, I did say fried chicken. At Crisfield's. Arguably it is the best in the entire D. C. area. They used to fry it in a black cast iron skillet to order. It would take almost a half hour and was incredible. Just like your mother-if she was a great "down home" cook. They used to peel their own potatoes and fry them along with really good home made cole slaw; these were the accompaniments of choice.

The "new" Crisfield's in the Lee Building? I've never eaten there. For whatever Crisifeld's is today if their fried chicken and crab stuffed flounder and shucked oyster (Chincoteaque) aren't exemplery then it really has gone to Hell. Otherwise it may just be knowing what to order and tolerating the exhorbitant bill.

[hjshorter]

the thai grocery store that ledervin is talking about sounds like the one in wheaton. there's another one in silver spring on thayer ave, same street as negril.

We shop at the Thai market, but haven't tried the takeout. It is on Thayer across the street from Safeway.

If all you want is a beer, I can recommend the Quarryhouse. It's on the corner of Georgia and Bonifant - actually, it's under the corner of Georgia and Bonifant. You get there by descending a flight of stairs to the side of the bank on the corner. I have drunk many many pitchers of Bass there over the years. The menu is mostly sandwiches. I don't recall anything about the food, probably because of said pitchers.

I haven't been to Negril in a while, but they used to have very good curried goat, real ginger beer, and excellent patties.

The Indonesian place that Steve Sacharoff mentions is Sabang, and as of a couple of years ago was pretty good, and a cuisine not over-represented in the area. It's possible to order a la carte in addition to the set rjistaffel menus.

[Al_Dente]

The "new" Silver Spring is coming along. I just went over to the corner of Colesville and Georgia Ave to check out the cluster of restaurants developing there. More chain stuff-- so far Panera Bread, Austin Grill, Red Blobster, and Potbellies Sandwiches. Looks like there is plenty of room for 5 or 6 other places there once construction is finished.

[hjshorter]

Is every new place going to be a chain? It'll be just like Rockville.

[Al_Dente]

Is every new place going to be a chain? It'll be just like Rockville.

Somehow I think so.

Perhaps we should start a chain of eGullet restaurants?

Steven? Jason?

[JPW]

According to the traffic sign they have out, the restaurants are open. I drive by on my way home from work in Rockville if the beltway is too packed and I take an early exit.

I was pretty disappointed with the selection. I thought that Red Lobster had given up the goat. Panera's Ok for lunch, but dinner?? Austin Grill isn't too bad. I hadn't seen the sign for the sandwich place.

From what I have heard, the plan is for the rest to be retail.

Hopefully, there will end up being enough traffic in downtown SS for a couple more good restaurants.

[Malawry]

I'm still holding out for the yet-nebulous Acorn to select a final location and start building out already. From talking to the chef I get the idea it could be our own little Komi right near where I live. If so I will be there at least once a week...I'm a woman dying to have a regular joint near home.

[JPW]

I'm still holding out for the yet-nebulous Acorn to select a final location and start building out already. From talking to the chef I get the idea it could be our own little Komi right near where I live. If so I will be there at least once a week...I'm a woman dying to have a regular joint near home.

Mal,

Can you elaborate. I haven't heard anything about 'Acorn'

Thx

Joe

[Malawry]

There is a certain chef who has been talking about opening a restaurant in downtown Silver Spring for some time now. The restaurant will tentatively be called Acorn and would represent the first new full-service fine-dining restaurant not associated with a chain since Silver Spring started redevelopment. If it ever gets off the ground, I'll be first in line there. But right now, there's no there there.

[JPW]

WOO HOO !!!!!

I'll be right behind you. I'd love to have a good place that I could walk to.

[maryland crab]

I was in Whole Foods Sunday and noticed a new wine and deli bar just north of the grocery. Has anyone stopped in to see what is happening there? The sign on the window mentioned soups and deli stuff, but the wine bar part caught my attention.