New Chinese place in Fairfax/Chantilly
Anyone get a chance to try 100 Degree Chinese yet? Its in the Harris Teeter shopping center.
This looks promising... a new Chinese place in western ffx county! So few good ones out here.
We're going to try to get to it sometime this week.
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KWagle
Aug 8, 2011 02:47 AM
Their Chinese name seems to be 沸騰湘江, fèiténg Xiāngjiāng which roughly translates to "boiling or exciting Hunan". (湘江 is a river in Hunan.)
This is potentially big news, and while I doubt it can match the consistently awesome cooking and ridiculously diverse menus of Hunan Taste, which caused lipoff to assert he'd be spending more time on the Boston-DC shuttle, I'm certainly interested in trying it the next time I'm in DC.
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Hunan Taste
718 N Rolling Rd, Catonsville, MD 21228 -
Bob W
Aug 5, 2011 08:17 PM
We tried 100 Degree tonight and were very pleased!
First, let me say that the service is really good. This is a family operation all the way. The father is the boss, the mom is the dumpling maker, and their daughter is the hostess. The ladies were really, really nice to my kids. And the servers were great too.
Now to the food -- very good to excellent. We tried the pork/chive and chicken/celery dumplings, after watching mom make them. My son, who is a dumpling fanatic, declared the pork ones a little more flavorful.
We tried two appetizers -- seaweed salad with bean sprouts and sauteed mixed potatoes. The seaweed was outstanding, with a lot of crunch and explosive flavor. The potatoes were pretty bland (and I'm not sure what was mixed about them) but they had a similar texture to the seaweed so we could mix the two dishes to give the potatoes some kick.
Entrees: Hot and sour diced chicken was great, as was golden brown eggplants in garlic sauce. Two keepers. For the kids we got chicken lo mein, which proved to be a cut above the usual -- the noodles were fresh, made right there in the kitchen.
We also tried some of the french pastries-- the tarts (fruit and lemon) were better than the chocolate desserts (one with hazelnut had little hazelnut flavor, the other with raspberry mousse was a little better). At $5 a pop, not a great value.
Overall, this is a huge addition to the western Fairfax dining scene. I was promised that the full menu would be available by the end of the month, so that means chicken guts for everyone!
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This place is the real deal.
I also went for lunch today -- have been later than Mariette, as it wasn't that busy went we went. Those dumplings really looked tempting! But as it was just me & my wife, we would have had too much food. We ordered "Preserved Pork with Pickled Radish" and "Cilantro Beef" (not sure what the real name is, but those were the flavors). (No, we didn't have the guts to try the guts).
Both dishes were excellent. Full of flavor -- you could really taste the wok char.The decor of the place is very nice -- similar to what you see at MaMa Wok in Reston.
Quality is there. I can't wait to sample more.The one part I don't quite get yet is their "afternoon tea" with french cakes :-).
Seems a bit incongruous... but they did seem to have a good selection of teas.
Well, at least their Chinese is good -- wait to hear what people have to say about their French.›1 Reply-
re: bubba3197
Been there again - for take out. I had the Superior Baby Cabbage soup (with country ham, black mushrooms and a few bits of 1000 year old eggs) - wonderful. I got the pork and napa dumplings, but barely tasted them - my husband let me have a taste (I am a soup girl and he is a dumpling boy!). I also got the rice noodles. I think they were not as much in their cuisine - but they were flavorful and great. I think I will not focus on the noodles here, though - they seem more a nod to Americans.
The staff continued to be delightful and welcoming.
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I just got back from lunch. The menu is slightly smaller than the on-line menu. I ordered the cumin lamb lunch special - but they didn't have lamb today. So I got the beef. It was lovely - spicy with two different kinds of peppers, Chinese celery, the meat was charred from the wok and the cumin flavor was great. Spicy, but not hot.
On the side of the room is a glass booth with a woman making dumplings to order. You have a choice of pork with napa, chicken with celery, beef with napa or pork with chives. Steamed or fried. Everything I saw looked wonderful - I wish I had been with a group so I could have tried more.
I think this place will be a real winner - it was doing a very good business today at lunch!
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