Alexandria Restaurants

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Very small, unassuming Thai restaurant about half way between the River and the Metro. The workers are Thai, the decor is Thai, there's even a photo of the Thai King on the wall near the fireplace. All good signs.

We sat in the cramped and silent front dining room, afraid to even whisper because the neighboring tables were so close and occupied throughout our meal. Comfortable place, nice decor, but some Thai music would be nice.

Apparently their liquor license has lapsed due to a change in ownership, so we stuck with Coke and Thai iced tea for our drinks. We tried the garden roll for our appetizer, and Kee Mao Gai and Talay Thong for entrees.

The garden rolls ($6) are a pair of long rolls, sliced into ten bite-sized pieces, containing fresh bean sprouts, scallions, cucumber, and scramble egg, rolled in rice sheet, steamed, and served with Thai tamarind sauce and mustard. Very tasty, except for the mustard, I don't think I've ever seen that in Thailand.

Kee Mao Gai ($11) is chicken sauteed in a delicious spicy garlic basil sauce with onion, bell pepper and basil leaves stir fried with wide rice noodle. The rice noodles are to die for and the sauce has an excellent taste and just enough kick.

Talay Thong ($15) contains black tiger shrimp, squid, scallops, and mussels, stir fried with bell pepper and onion in a creamy coconut sauce. The ingredients were great, but the sauce was not to my liking at all; in my opinion coconut is not a typical or good Thai flavor.

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Old Town has many options for dining so I wasn't surprised that it took us so long to try Laylas. It was a rainy Saturday ngiht so not many people were out and the restaurant was not particularly busy. The servers and hostess struck us as young and seemed a little annoyed that they were at work. This immediately gave me the impression that this a ma-and-pa place and the kids were holding up the fort for the evening. Instead of being awkward, it ended up being entertaining. You could hear the girls complaining about something in the kitchen, in Lebanese.

We ordered stuffed kibbeh (excellent!) and "Layla's Special Mixed Grill." The food was delicious and the ingredients smelled and tasted exceedingly fresh. I was quite impressed. We topped it off with a bottle of wine.

This is a charming restaurant that I thoroughly enjoyed. The decor is relaxing and subtle. The prices were standard for Old Town without being excessive.

Hours:
Sunday-Wednesday11:30-9:00
Thursday 11:30-10:00
Friday & Saturday 11:30-11:00

Favorite Dish: The stuffed kibbeh was much lighter than I had expected. Very good!

Ernie's is located near the King Street Metro Station, next to the Hilton. it's a great location for business folks so we figured it would be busy at lunch, but it was dead when we walked in around 12:30pm. We ordered 2 crab cake sandwiches and while the crab was tasty, it was very bready (a big no-no over in Maryland). The crab cakes were served on plain buns and we ordered some fries to go with it all. Not awful but not something I'd get again.

The decor looks like a crab house. No big frills. Tile floor and plain tables I could definitely see a big pile of steamed blue crabs piled up on the table, mallet-ready. I've heard good things about the steamed crabs, so I'll be back to check it out.

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Bugsy's is in Old Town at a prime location on King Street just two blocks from the water. The downstairs is a family pizza joint while the upstairs is the only sports bar in Old Town. We stopped in one night to watch a college bowl game and grab a quick bite to eat, and were impressed to see three different hockey games, the bowl game, and a few other sporting events on their 10 or 12 flat screen TVs. We sat at one of the little tables facing the bar and could easily see about five different TVs.

For dinner we shared two entrees: the cheese steak sandwich ($7) and the Southwest chicken quesadilla ($6.25). The chicken quesadilla was very good and served with some tasty tomato and lime salsa. The cheese steak was not so good, primarily due to the presence of cooked mayonnaise and tomatoes on the sandwich.

We finally ordered a pizza a few months after our first visit. We chose a Bugsy's Power Play Deluxe pizza that comes with pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, mushrooms, onions and anchovies for $17.45 for a large pie, thin or thick crust. We also had an order of their hot chicken wings that ran $6.25 for a half dozen. Our thick crust pizza was excellent, cheesy and chewy, but the chovies were a little too much for me, so I was taking them off after my first slice. The wings were also good, meat and spicy sweet. The delivery was also quick; they told us 45 minutes to an hour and arrived after just 30 minutes.

The owner, Bryan Bugsy Watson, is a former hockey player for the NHL's Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadians, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Washington Capitols.

Bugsy's delivers pizza to the Old Town, Rosemont, Beverly Hills, Del Ray, Belle View and Montabello areas of Alexandria.

While the food was average at best, the prices were good, the service was above average, and the sports bar atmosphere is unique for Old Town.

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Momo is a tiny sushi shop a few blocks off King Street next to Bilbo Baggins Restaurant. Inside you will find just 15 seats, about half at the small L-shaped sushi bar. The good thing is despite being about to handle so few customers, they have three or four waitresses plus two sushi chefs working together to ensure the meal is quick and painless. We never had to wait more than a minute for anything during our meal.

We started with a few beers, a seaweed salad, and the complimentary miso soup. We tried six different rolls here including a clam roll, a scallop roll, a squid roll, their special called the Island sunrise (White Tuna, Tuna, Cucumber, Avocado, Masago), and the Kamikaze roll (White Tuna, Salmon, Asparagus, w/Spicy sauce).

The food was tasty and fresh, definately one of the best in town, but I think I'd pick Flying Fish's downstairs bar over this place on most nights, especially if I had a group of people.

Oddest thing: The tiny bathroom way back behind the kitchen, prep areas, and storage. Even odder, the sign inside the bathroom that says not to put toilet paper in the toilet. Hope you read that sign before you sit down.

Layla's is one of the nicest Middle Eastern restaurants I've ever tried, and their food is tasty, but the service is weak and lacking enthusiasm.

We arrived on a warm, stormy night in April and were quickly seated in the back of the restaurant near the kitchen. I was impressed with the decor, which is very modern and stylish. The waitress was friendly and prompt, but acted like she could care less that we were there in her restaurant. Not the service you'd hope to enjoy when you are spending $30 to $40 a person.

For dinner we started with a bottle of Lebanese wine, then we tried their stuffed kibbeh ($8) that is a crispy, deep fried, egg-shaped ball of ground beef, pine nuts, and onions; tasty and interesting! For our main courses we both had the special mixed grill that comes with three different kabobs: one ground beef kofta kabob, a marinated steak shish kabob, and a chicken shish tawouk kabob ($21). The meal is served with rice, and it has a few cooked veggies like a tasty tomato and onions. These meals also come with a basket of bread and an amazing garlic sauce for the meat.

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Flying Fish has a downstairs bar that shares much of the same menu, but none of the negatives of the upstairs restaurant. The downstairs bar is called the Speakeasy, but a better name might be the Smoke-easy since about 90 percent of the customers light up cigarettes, and light up often.

We arrived and grabbed the only two remaining seats at the bar around 8pm. We ordered a big Japanese Kirin draft ($7) and a Diet Coke ($2.50) then scanned the sushi menu. We started our meal with the hamachi yellow tail roll ($6), the scallop roll ($4.50), the Chesapeake roll ($8), and the rainbow roll ($10). The bartender also mixed up a little concoction of spicy dipping sauce with honey, red pepper seeds, soy sauce, and some other secret ingredients. All of the sushi was excellent, especially the tuna and hamachi.

We were still a bit hungry so we decided to order a few more sushi items. The friendly bartender told us about their special "cash money roll" that doesn't even appear on the menu, so we went with that ($9) and a tako octopus roll ($4.50). The cash money roll was excellent and is worth asking about when you visit.

The bartender was great. Not only was he a hockey fan, but he also provided great service. Along with all the advice on the menu and the special hot sauce, he even provided a free round of saki with a jalapeno slice.

This is one of my new favorite places in town! seven days a week from 5pm to 7pm, they have a variety of sushi roll for just $1. They also have much of the Flying Fish's regular dinner menu available here.

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I had high hopes for the Flying Fish restaurant and its Asian-inspired cuisine, so I was very disappointed with our mediocre meal. The service was pretty lousy, and some of the food below average... then again, the sushi was good.

Five of us arrived late one Saturday evening in March. We waited about ten minutes at the front entrance before being led back through this cavernous space to a table far in the back. I like the lighting and decorations which gave the restaurant a nice, comfortable, yet lively feel.

Our service was slow as we ordered our meals. We got calamari and a King Street sushi roll for our appetizers, and we each had an entree. The calamari was cooked nicely, but lacking flavor. The sushi was excellent--fresh and flavorful and the highlight of my meal. For something different I decided on their entree called the "Clam Bake" for about $20. The shrimp were excellent; the clams and mussels good, but not great; and the crab balls outstanding. But... the fish was overcooked and dry enough to choke on and the hush puppy-like potato balls were gooey and horrible. I also had a few Kirin beers at $6.75 each. Most of the others with me said their meals were tasty, but not superb; I'd hope for better at $30 to $40 a person.

Throughout our meal the service was slow to average, particularly early in our meal. The drinks were slow to arrive, and at one point a bus boy came and cleaned up our table, including our silverware, before our entrees were served; we had to ask for more silverware and napkins when the meals arrived. Also, it seemed to take forever for the entrees, but I could have been imagining things.

The Flying Fish does have a downstairs bar they call "the speakeasy" that gets good reviews as one of the best dive bars in town. In this bar you can get sushi for $1 each piece every night from 5pm to 7pm. On our visit to the Speakeasy, we had a great meal that was quite different from our experience upstairs. While they may be under the same owner, I wrote a separate review of the Speakeasy, because it is so mush different than the formal dining area upstairs.