It’s that time of year again! This is my favorite article to write every year because it allows me to reflect on all the delicious dishes I have eaten throughout the course of the year, in and around the D.C. area. From fast-casual spots to super high-end venues, located in northern Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., there is a vegetarian dish and a spot for everyone on this list. This list can also serve as your new year’s resolution: plan to visit each one in 2022!
21. Blue Rock Restaurant’s Maitake Mushrooms
The Blue Rock, located in Rappahannock County, Virginia, has a cozy restaurant that hosts stunning views of the blue ridge mountains. The restaurant features a nightly tasting menu that changes based on the seasons and availability of local ingredients. This recent dish featured by Chef Bin Lu is simple but divine, quite frankly, simply divide. Local maitake mushrooms are cooked to a gorgeous crisp and then doused in a buttery and garlicky mushroom sauce, for a mushroom on mushroom flavor profile, making for an epic vegetarian entrée that definitely qualifies as one of the best vegetarian dishes of the year.
20. Oyster Oyster’s Corn Soup
As noted in my best summer dishes piece, this is no ordinary corn soup. The sweetest of baby corn, combined with filet beans and potato, come swimming in a gorgeous chilled peanut broth. It’s cool, it’s refreshing, and it’s brimming with seasonality. The dish was so memorable I had to include it again as one of the best vegetarian dishes of the year. Hopefully the team Oyster Oyster will feature this dish again this coming summer.
19. Dodah’s Kitchen’s Seafood Mac n Cheese
This mac n cheese may be vegan, but with the silky smooth cheesy sauce and the distinct seafood flavor, you would never know that this classic Southern dish at Dodah’s Kitchen isn’t made with cheese or fish. The noodles are springy, the sauce is thick and velvety, and the dish is complete with flecks of seaweed and lots of paprika and garlic. This is comfort food at its best!
18. Maxwell Park’s Shishito Peppers
A little sweet, a little smoky is the way I like to describe shishito peppers. At Maxwell, which has a new Japanese-themed menu devised by Chef Masako Morishita, the shishito peppers come roasted with garlic and soaked in a soy sauce saturated butter, making them extra flavorful. Enjoy it with one of the venue’s fantastic wines!
17. La Casita Pupusaria’s Loroco Pupusa
Pupusas are one of those Latin American dishes that I never get sick of. We are very lucky in the D.C. area because we have a significant Salvadorean population, many of whom have opened restaurants and pupuserias to give all of us the opportunity to indulge in this favorite Salvadorian snack. Made with cornmeal that is stuffed with cheese and then griddled to perfection, pupusas are the ultimate in satisfaction. The ones at La Casita are particularly tasty; I am a fan of the loroco where the filling includes bits of the Salvadoran herb blended with loads of melted cheese. The herb has an earthy and floral flavor, the perfect accent to the mild cheese. Served with homemade slaw and a spicy tomato sauce, the pupusas at La Casita will cure any hangover, satisfy any craving, and can be eaten at any time of day. La Casita has a handful of locations around the DMV; see their website to find the one closest to you.
16. Daru’s Black Daal with Burrata
Italy meets India in this luxurious dish, available at D.C.’s newest Indian restaurant, Daru. The dish features a dollop of burrata, which is a sphere of mozzarella cheese with a decadent stracciatella center, that comes swimming in a pool of buttery and smoky lentils. Decadence marrying extravagance is the only way to describe the dish!
15. Cane’s Doubles
Cane serves up all kinds of delicious dishes from Trinidad and Tobago, including the classic Trinidadian street food, Doubles. Made with round crispy fried bread topped with chickpeas simmered with curry powder, garlic, cumin, and turmeric and a sweet and sour tamarind chutney this dish is aromatic and offers an exciting rollercoaster of flavor and texture for your taste buds.
14. Mansa Kunda’s Peanut Butter Chu
Chu is a traditional Gambian dish that is essentially a stew, comforting, and chock full of veggies. The peanut butter chu at Mansa Kunda, a West African restaurant in Takoma Park, is especially tasty with the addition of peanut butter, which gives the dish an element of creaminess and nuttiness. I love it spooned over fluffy white rice.
13. Tequila and Mezcal’s Ttayluda
Featured in an article I wrote about Mexican food this summer, this is a dish I come back for time and time again. Tlayudas, for those who may not be familiar with the dish, is a classic Oaxacan dish, made with a crispy toasted tortilla that is smothered with creamy mashed refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, queso fresco, and any additional toppings you may choose. Served everywhere from food carts to high-end dining venues, tlayudas are a quintessential Oaxacan dish, and for good reason. Tlayudas are uber satisfying with just the right amount of crunchy, a hint of smoke from the beans, freshness from the vegetables, and creaminess from the cheese. At Tequila & Mezcal, you can have yours with meaty portobello mushrooms and corn, making the dish even heartier and more delicious.
12. L’Ardente Arancini
I feel like Italian arancini are the perfect food. Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, oozing with the creaminess of mozzarella and the fragrance of saffron, it’s hard to imagine anything better. At L’Ardente the arancini arrive freshly fried and delightfully warm, ideal for sharing but also available to feast on alone.
11. PLNT Burger’s Save the Bay
Captured in my best new summer dishes piece, this new veggie burger from PLNT Burger really is one of the best vegetarian dishes of the year. Made with a vegan fish burger, the sandwich is crunchy, meaty, and features a distinctive seafood flavor profile. The dish consists of a Good Catch Food’s crispy fish-free filet served on a butter-toasted potato bun with house-made tartar sauce, pickles, and shredded lettuce. It is a satisfying, crispy delight. Be sure to get some onion bloomies or tarragon dusted fries on the side, and a cool strawberry milkshake to wash it all down!
10. Lupo Pizzeria’s Margherita Pizza
Lupo Pizzeria’s pizza is the epitome of simplicity at its best. Cooked off in a wood-fired oven, the dough is soft but crispy burnt in just the right spots, with loads of stretchy mozzarella, fresh tomato sauce, and whole basil leaves. Pair it with a cold Peroni and you may be having the best vegetarian meal of the year.
9. Cielo Rojo’s Vegan Torta
It’s hard to find a veggie torta that isn’t just a non-vegetarian torta, minus the meat. But at Cielo Rojo, the kitchen serves a vegetarian torta with house-made chorizo comprised of mushrooms and tofu, that is layered with smoky refried black beans, avocado, tart, and spicy pickled jalapenos, and rich cashew cream served on a soft, crusty pambazo roll. It is the heartiest and most filling of tortas.
8. Thip Khao’s Kao Soi
There are so many dishes at Thip Khao that I love, but the Kai Soi is a reigning champion on the dynamic menu. Khao Soi is a northern Laos noodle soup, where chewy house-made noodles in a savory broth infused with a fermented tomato bean paste. With mushrooms, puffed rice, tofu, and greens for texture and cilantro and fried garlic for even more flavor, this dish is life-giving.
7. Bantam King’s Veggie Tantanmen
We have come a long way in the world of vegetarian ramen. Haikan’s is creamy and silky with the infusion of miso, Ren’s is savory and salty with a kombu broth, and Toki Underground’s comes with fried enoki mushrooms and hunks of crispy tofu. But only Bantam King serves a version where Impossible meat and tempeh are included to provide the meaty texture and flavor of non-vegetarian ramen bowls. The dish is spicy and heady and ripe with the flavor of chilis, sesame, and soy. You will devour it as soon as it appears in front of you!
6. Blue Duck Tavern’s Omelet
Most people who love Blue Duck Tavern agree that brunch is really the best meal the venue offers. From decadent pancakes and French toast to pastry baskets and avocado toast, it’s hard to choose just one item. For me, it’s the omelet that is the standout breakfast dish. It may be simple, but the quality of ingredients makes it an unbeatable dish. Farm fresh eggs are cooked perfectly and stuffed with fresh spinach, loads of melted cheddar cheese, and meaty local mushrooms. It feels just right for a Sunday morning. Enjoy it with a butter biscuit and a sorbet mimosa and do save room for one of Colleen Murphy’s dynamite desserts!
5. Anju’s Yache Wang Mandu
There is almost nothing I love as much as I adore these dumplings at Anju. They are extra large and stuffed with seasoned Impossible meat and come sprinkled with a chili crunch, adorned with spring onion shavings, and in a puddle of glassy dumpling sauce. They are so dense and substantial and savory, exploding with the taste of ginger, garlic, chilies, and soy sauce, you will have to close your eyes to get the full umami flavor. The key to your success is to eat one order at the restaurant and take one order to go so when you wake up in the morning and long for another dumpling, you will have them in the fridge! That is actually how delicious they are.
4. Modena’s Roasted Honeynut Squash and Goat Cheese Ravioli
Helmed by local favorite John Melfi, the Modena kitchen is known for churning out dreamy seasonal hits that are visually as memorable as they are to devour. My current favorite is a winter ravioli that has a tang from goat cheese, a hint of sweetness from local honeynut squash, crunchiness from pumpkin seeds, and woodiness from sage.
3. Centrolina’s Pappardelle with Wood-Fired Mushrooms
This dish may sound simple, but when you take your first bite you will know that these gorgeous noodles were made with love. The noodles have the perfect chew and are accented by the smoky meatiness of locally foraged mushrooms, the richness of butter, and the earthiness of herbs like rosemary. Although all of Chef Amy Brandwein’s vegetarian dishes could qualify as the best vegetarian dishes of the year this is one that I find myself craving most often and coming back for again and again!
2. Rasika West End’s Sweet Potato Peanut Curry
There is nothing at either Rasika location that isn’t delicious so I often have a hard time choosing my favorite item. This year however it will have to be the nutty, rich, heady, sweet potato peanut curry at Rasika West End that is so silky yet dense and hearty that I can’t help but be obsessed with it. Mop it up with the restaurant’s truffle naan for the ultimate feast.
1. Makan’s Curry Mee
This was hands down my favorite dish of the year. Chef James Wozniuk’s Malaysian noodle soup at Makan is warm and aromatic and everything we need in our lives. The rich coconut milk-infused broth is brimming with the fragrant flavors of lemongrass, ginger, garlic, and turmeric. A combination of egg and glass noodles come alive in the broth, along with hearty mustard greens and hunks of tofu that have soaked up all the flavors of the soup. A dollop of sambal tumis, a puree of chilis, adds even more heat and earthiness. This is the dish that will get you through winter, and anything else life throws your way!
