Café Taj, McLean VA

1379 Beverly Rd. (off Old Dominion Dr. in the Marketplace)

McLean, VA 22101
(703) 827-0444

Café Taj is a low-key (though not divey) restaurant with a pleasant atmosphere and tasty Indian dishes.   We were seated across from the entry door, which was a little drafty on a cold night, but it ended up being fine.   There was a party of about 14 people next to us, and all the other tables were also filled.  Although the wait staff seemed like they were new and the service was very slow, they couldn’t have been more pleasant and nice.   The meal was very good.  We tried looking up the restaurant’s menu to remember the exact names of the dishes we had, but the website was down on the night we wrote this blog.   

All in all, we enjoyed our meal.  We had several appetizers - a fried (or smoked?) cheese, skewers of meats and fried potato patties.  All were served with flavorful sauces, although the chutney was a bit too sweet and the yogurt sauce had some strange seed (caraway?).  Bill had a big salad (also with cheese) as an entrée and Elena had a chicken curry dish.  Both were very good.  This is probably not the best Indian food in the area (compared, for example, to Haandi), but it was definitely very good.