PollyG

Izakaya Matsu in Kihei (ocean-side of Azeka strip mall) is a neighborhood Japanese drink/small dish place that is an outstanding value for its high quality. We've eaten here twice during our vacation and will do so again. The menu has a wide range of cooking styles and is about 30% raw vs. 70% cooked. We've gone for a lot of small plates-tonight's bill shows 10 dishes for the 3 of us (includes our 8 year-old)at about $70 post-tax. That is less than we pay at our neighborhood Japanese place in the DC area. Everything has been good to excellent and the waitstaff are friendly and attentive.

We've been dining on their hanging tender steaks at $2.39/lb. These come in a cyropac and need to be trimmed and separated (there's a line of sinew down the middle, cut on either side to make 2 steaks) or you could buy them inexplicably presliced with the sinew still in. I haven't gotten anything from the cut-to-your-specs on premises fish counter yet, but we have had several of the prepackaged salmon filets and they are of very good quality, as was the pre-cleaned squid. There's a limited selection of sashimi-grade fish, roes, and sometimes uni. The produce selection is extensive and the prices are low. So far, they're keeping the place very clean. The location is across from the plaza on 7 just a bit west of Fairfax County Parkway that has a Shoppers Food Warehouse and Burlington Coat Factory.

PollyG, where on Spring Street are these located, over in the industrial park area? ← Sphinx Kabob is in the front of the industrial park that is at the Fairfax County Parkway/Spring Street intersection--it's the same one that has Taste of the World hidden in the back. Jamaica Jamaica is harder to find. It is in the industrial park on Spring Street past the Herndon Parkway intersection (as you are going West) that has the green awnings. They provide directions on their website.

Here are a few more: Tarin Thai near Worldgate (intersection of Herndon Parkway and Elden St.): It's a tossup as to whether Tarin or Thai Luong is better, in my opinion. Tarin is less than a year old and is decorated in a slightly toned-down version of the undersea colors and shapes you'll find at some of the region's other Thai restaurants. The duck with basil from the specials menu and the grilled beef salad appetizer are among the best items we've had there. Our 6 year-old is very keen on their chicken satay. The kitchen tends to be a lot faster than Thai Luong's, and for those of us who dine with children, they offer both a virgin mango daiquiri and a young coconut juice, while Thai Luong has neither. Teocalli Tamale on Elden Street on the flanks of the K-mart plaza: This no-frills outlet offers Mexican-inspired southwestern standards that are miles above the chain burrito joints. My favorite is the Mike's Mexolina (pulled brisket) in soft corn tortillas with the corn salsa. There is seating. The tamales may be among their least impressive dishes--they're fine and tasty, but the cornmeal is pretty uniform in texture and not studded with whole kernels. Yee Hwa on Elden Street a bit East of Downtown: This upscale Korean restaurant shares ownership with the Yee Hwa in DC, but by all accounts the food is much better here. The quality is up to Annandale standards and there are very good values in the lunch specials. Bento boxes are under $9.00 and the daily specials menu often has a few items that are winners. On a recent visit, the spouse had a bowl of soup from the specials menu that had several kinds of tripe and intestine, while I enjoyed an octopus bibim bap special served in a sizzling hot stone bowl. Jamaica Jamaica on Spring Street: This new carryout serves downhome Jamaican fare. If you want the jerk chicken for lunch, better get there early since they have been known to sell out before noon. The other menu offerings include goat stew and oxtail stew. Their fried plantains are very good and less greasy than most renditions. They are open for dinner carryout, too. Sphinx Kabob on Spring Street: Despite the name, they're Persian. There are plenty of good kabob places in Reston/Herndon, but if you want to dine in, the furniture is ornate here while the others are all cafeteria style. They offer a chicken kabob special for lunch which is just a few pieces of chicken (no 3000 calorie lunches!) and rice for about $5.00. At night they transform into a hookah bar. Staff are friendly and there is a great assortment of middle-eastern sodas. Yoko on Elden St., 2 doors down from Teocalli Tamale: Korean-owned Japanese with very good quality. Get the grilled yellowtail jaw if they have one in stock. Matsuri on Elden St.: Has a sake bar as well as sushi. A recent review in the Post mourned the passing of some of the more exotic items from the menu. At lunchtime, they're busy with a small but high quality buffet. If you want to order from a menu at lunch time, you're better off a few blocks down at Yoko. At dinner time, the atmosphere is much more serene and they score huge points with my daughter by having a kid's sushi platter with all cooked sushi. For business lunches where the menu needs to have choices that will appeal to people with limited palates: Market Street Grill at the Hyatt in Reston Town Center. El Manatial is hidden in a strip mall on North Shore off Whiele. While the name sounds middle-eastern to me, they offer wood-grilled pizza, pasta dishes, and plenty of other mainstream items. This is one of Reston's hidden gems and the noise level is a lot lower than at any of the restaurants in Reston Town Center. And while it is a corporate chain, if you want impecably fresh seafood with simple preparation, McCormick & Schmick in Reston Town Center is very reliable. It's where I take my colleages from Minnesota for softshells in season at lunchtime.

I went by the former Sam and Harry's in Tyson's on Saturday evening, and the Woo Lae Oak sign was on the top of the building. The Sam and Harry's sign was still there, too.

Since you mentioned baby & stroller, Neisha might be a viable option. Neisha's dishes are not exactly Americanized, but think of them as a Thai fusion cuisine. They do some outstanding dishes, such as their hoi obb (lemongrass mussels) & smokey eggplant appetizer. A few are good but totally unlike anything I've seen elsewhere, such as the emerald pork. Neisha's interior seems to fascinate kids. The walls are studded with fake gems and there's a little pond with misters over big hunks of crystal. The staff are pretty kid-friendly. It's one of our daughter's favorite restaurants; the virgin mango cocktail is a big hit with her. We usually go into the mall to let her look at the anamatronics at the Rainforest Cafe, then go to Neisha for real food.

In addition to Yoko (at Yoko, try the grilled yellowtail jaw), there is Matsuri, 150 Elden St., in the same plaza as the Outback. Matsuri is a sushi and sake bar. They also do a $10.95 lunch buffet which is of reasonably high quality. We've been going to Matsuri a lot lately in preference to Yoko because Matsuri has been successful in wooing our 5 year-old. They offer a kid's sushi platter, all cooked. Yoko's tempura is better than Matsuri's. Both have competently executed sushi. For the bar with above-average food, you could hit McCormick & Schmick's happy hour. M&S is in the Reston Town Center. It's more a restaurant than bar, but it does have a bar area and the seafood is fresh and good. I'd avoid American Tap Room. The food didn't inspire us to return, ever. It wasn't bad, just boring.

I can't vouch for the other ingredients, but I had to hunt down the aji amarillo paste last year. Grand Mart in Centreville has the aji amarillo paste. Grand Mart's new 7 corners location appears to have a pretty extensive hispanic foods section and may also stock the paste.

Well, we tried Viet Royale on Friday afternoon and I was underwhelmed. Most of the classic dishes we tried are better at either Huong Viet or LyLy, or both. This is not to say the food was bad, but my expectations were high. There were two notable exceptions. First, their caramel fish was a meatier fish than is used at most places and was very good. Second, while not strictly a Vietnamese dish, the clams with black bean sauce were excellent. My 5 year-old daughter loved the butter fried frog legs. The batter was very crisp and not at all greasy.

Any specific suggestions for dishes at Viet Royale? Coincidentally, my Vietnamese-American co-worker just identified it as his favorite at EC and recommended the caramel fish, the shaky beef, and the seafood pan-fried crispy noodles. We exchanged menus with notes (I gave him my LyLy notes).

In addition to Huong Viet,(try the frog legs and the lotus root salad) I suggest LyLy, which is inside the Eden Center. If you go into the entrance to the left of the large Vietnamese grocery store, you will find it in the back left corner. LyLy has northern Vietnamese cuisine and brightly painted, cheery surroundings. The lotus root and shrimp salad is very good (warning, unlike most places, they do spice theirs in the kitchen), the battered sweet potato and shrimp cake tasty, and the clams with sauteed onions are a standout. Warning: Eden Center's parking lot can get very crowded on a weekend after 10:45 am or so. Think of your local mall at 7:45 pm on December 24 and you will understand just how crowded. Most places open by 10:00 am, many before then. If you find yourself too frustrated by the parking, turn left on Washington Blvd and go half a block past the light--Little Saigon in the strip next to the Jiffy Lube is quite good. Go for their egg noodle soups and have their baby clams with onions (totally different preparation from LyLy, also good) and green papaya salad. (I may have gotten the name confused, but it is the only restaurant in that strip and is immediately to the right of the JiffyLube.)

The Wegman's house brand thick-cut, uncured nitrate free bacon is darned good. I've been using it as a motivator to get the imp (age 4.9 and currently going through an unpleasantly uncooperative phase) to dress herself in the mornings.

Here's the good news---if you're willing to drive to the Western end of Annandale, you can get Pho from 6-midnight weekdays, 9-midnight weekends. We encountered Pho Hot last weekend when A&J Annandale proved to not open as early as we thought and we had some time constraints. The interior is large, cheerfully yellow, they have a small selection of appetizers, and the pho was very generously dosed with the meat. They also had a kid's pho with no onions, optional scallions, and some less challenging meats. The broth was less redolent of star anise than we like, but it was overall a very acceptable bowl of pho. Pho Hot

Slavin's has had a rather off-putting aroma every time I've been there. Either something has gotten ripe or they're not cleaning the gutting area often enough. I prefer the seafood counter at Super H for this reason. We have a few real winners in terms of large ethnic grocers in the region. Most of them, regardless of the ethnicity of management, stock produce appropriate for many ethnic cuisines. Super H in Fairfax is probably the cream of the crop, with its clean store and huge produce selection (heavily Asian, predominantly Korean, some Hispanic selections). There are a number of Grand Marts in the region which vary tremendously from store to store. Some of them are nasty, but the one in Chantilly is pretty good and has an extensive Hispanic selection in addition to its Asian goods. You will also find lots of small neighborhood ethnic grocers. When in doubt, you can always call the local embassy, be extra nice, and ask where they buy their goods. We also have no shortage of pricey high-end grocers such as Sutton/Haymarket, Whole Foods (not everything is pricey), Giant Gourmet, Dean & Delucca, and Wegmans (not everything is pricey).

Unsurprisingly, McCormick & Schmick's has them as well. One of my co-workers was in town to day and as he hails from Minneapolis, we wanted to get him a softshell before his 2:30 flight from Dulles. He opted for M&S (Reston Town Center location) over my suggestion of Yoko in Herndon, which does them with what I believe is a ponzu sauce and a breading even lighter than tempura. The sandwiches were about $15, and the single crab was large. Bless them, M&S doesn't put anything else on the sandwich, but does put red onion, tartar sauce, lemon, lettuce, and tomato on the side, so you can build it the way you like it. The accompanying fries were oversalted. If you have to do your softshell in a corporate dining setting, this was a pretty good take on them. I had softshells at Clyde's in Reston for dinner earlier this week. The two small to medium-sized crabs were about $19, and served meuniere style (meaning pan-fried with LOTS of clarified butter.) The accompanying baby potatoes were very tasty with the butter as were the snow peas. A pleasant dish, but the butter may have slightly overpowered the crab.