Hokkaido Seafood Buffet - Falls Church, VA

5900 Leesburg Pike
Falls Church, VA 22041
Tel: (703) 845-0888

There is definitely something for eveyone at Hokkaido, located between Seven Corners and Bailey's Crossroads in a shopping strip situated along Leesburg Pike's fantastic ethnic food corridor.  This is the perfect place for gathering a group of friends who can't agree on where to eat.  You can bring your family, grandparents, picky teenagers, every age, every demographic, and every level of palate adventurousness.  Hokkaido Seafood Buffet restaurant is a definite guarantee that they will all find something and more!

The impressive display of variety is somewhat overwhelming, so the key is to pace oneself!  In the eternal words of the ever-wise Martin Crane in the long-running 90s sitcom, Frasier, giving advice to his son Niles when approaching the all-you-can-eat cruise ship buffet, "Now the buffets come at a pretty good pace, so you gotta pace yourself. And watch out for your fillers - your breads, your rolls, your chips, your dips. You've only got so much room - don't be a hero."  Well-said, Martin!

While the selection is enormous, a pick-and-try approach to finding favorites can quickly get you too full to eat anymore.  And in the tasting process, a variety in quality may also play into what to pick next.  The sashimi cuts were not the high-grade of fish one finds in a favorite sushi joint.  There is no question that when there is ample quantity, there is an occasional sacrifice in quality.  Perhaps it is well-advised to have higher expectations for the prepared foods rather than the raw bars.  But no problem, just move on to the next station and you will not be disappointed!

There is every imaginable kind of food here.  Photos below repesent the Hokkaido selection only partially.  There is definitely way more here.  In fact, there is food everywhere the eye can see.  Trays and trays, stations and stations, steam, smoke, aromas.  Trying to convey the extensive array of choices is akin to describing the indescribable.

As suggested by its name, this is a restaurant with an Asian flavor, so every Asian cuisine from Korean kimchi to Japanese sushi to Chinese stirfry seems to be represented here.  But not only!  While there isn't much in terms of service or ambience here, it is barely missed. For under $20 (discounts available for seniors and kids), there is barely time to look around at anything other than the dozens of trays of salads, soups, seafood, stirfry, various stations with unique Asian delicacies and a variety that can be described only as mouthwatering. The dessert station alone offers about a dozen choices.

We will defitely be back here time and time again, so that we can try everything on the menu, and then be back for our favorite picks.

Our plates were filled to the rim, and we hadn't even tried one fifth of what Hokkaido has to offer:

j. gilbert's - McLean

6930 Old Dominion Drive
McLean, VA 22101
703.893.1034

j. gilbert's continues to be our favorite go-to brunch spot in the NoVa area. 

We know that restaurants have to weigh many factors when deciding whether and how to serve brunch to its hungry weekend clientele.  A recent article in the Washington Post's Going Out Guide outlines some aspects that can make brunch quite taxing on the staff and management of a busy restaurant.  This is why when you have a combination of a huge buffet with freshly made constantly replenishing dishes that are both delicious and varied, you just can't go wrong with j.gilbert's.

Their limitless buffet of seafood with a variety of smoked and fresh fish, their abundant comfort standards of vegetables, meats, poultry, breads and cheeses, all delicious and abundant and beautifully presented....  this is a feast and a great value.  The carving station doubles up as the omelet station and is fun, quick and efficient.  Nothing compares to their dessert station with a dozen or so choices, including a fantastic chocolate fountain with fresh fruit and marshmallows to enjoy, worth a trip to j. gilbert's just for that!  Forgot to mention waffles - prepared on request. They are fresh, crispy toasted on the outside and melt in your mouth, especially when topped with whipped butter and warm syrup, but you gotta ask for it! 

Our friends have commented about how much they love j. gilbert's mixed drinks, particularly the Manhattan.  When we have guests in town or when we want to be certain of an enjoyable experience, both in food, service and atmosphere, this is where we head first.  This can be a festive family occasion or an intimate meal shared between two friends or a couple.

We have eaten dinner here, too, but brunch is what we most highly recommend. 

The only drawback is the dim lighting in the dining room and the less than sturdy booth benches. They can stand to refurbish some of their aging furniture....  Although sitting next to the fireplace can be cozy, especially during the cold months, we always ask for the table near the window so that we can have a little more light. They only have a few tables near the window, so we recommend reservations if that's where you'd prefer to sit. 

Full Kee Restaurant - Authentic Chinese Cuisine - Falls Church, VA

5830 Columbia Pike
Falls Church, VA 22041
(703) 575-8232

If you don’t know it’s there, it’s easy to miss Full Kee Restaurant at the Bailey’s Crossroads Shopping Center, home to Best Buy, Trader Joe’s and Moe’s Southwestern Grill. But miss it you should not. That is if you really enjoy delicious authentic Chinese food with no fanfare, lousy service, second- (or third-) rate ambience, and a variety of dishes that can keep you coming back for years. Yes, Full Kee is a gem of an ethnic dive.

Our friends recommended that we eat at Full Kee on Christmas Day. Good thing we made reservations! Even though we had a relatively large group, the restaurant was packed with people waiting for a table even at an unusual meal time in-between lunch and dinner, we went at 2pm. Had it been only several of us in a party, considering the slow inefficient service, it would still have made sense to reserve ahead. Yelp says that they do not take reservations, so perhaps Christmas Day was an exception to this policy, we just are not sure how flexible they are, especially if there is a language barrier with whoever picks up the phone. (Note that they have a new feature on their website where you can reserve a table online.)

If you are looking for an immaculate setting, service with a smile (or even with good English), personalized explanations of the extensive menu with literally hundreds of choices consisting of items that are for the most part unfamiliar to the American Chinese diner (although a whole section that is familiar), then this is not the place for you.

If you enjoy trying a variety of flavors, you will not be disappointed if you eat here! We ordered just under 20 different dishes of appetizers and entrees to share among the 8 people in our party. There was not a single dish that was bland or unsatisfying, all were wonderful. From the dumplings to the lo mein to the variety of their popular meal-portioned soups to the beef, shrimp, pork and poultry dishes, all were delightfully savory with just the right amounts of sauces, flavors, and variations. With prices so affordable, if we had bottomless stomachs, we could have easily stayed in Full Kee until they close (at 2am!) to try as many of their choices as possible. 

To us the quality and flavors of food are worth coming back to Full Kee and recommending it to our friends, the same way we found out about it. Thanks, Joe!

McLean 1910, McLean, VA - CLOSED

1394 Chain Bridge Road
McLean, VA 22101
(703) 356-1700

Several months ago one of us dined here with a neighbor and had an enjoyable dining experience despite the pricey menu.  So, when a Groupon came out for McLean 1910, we jumped at the chance to dine here together and save a few bucks. 

Despite the beautiful wooden tabletops, the over-the-top minimalist décor gives this place a sterile feel.  The large windows seemed to open up what is a rather a small dining space with a full bar in the back behind the booths.  One nice thing about the spacing was that we felt we had some privacy at the booth which we always prefer.  In other words, other diners, that were scarce anyhow, were not breathing down our necks.   

This mid-to-upscale restaurant was named for the year the municipality of McLean was established by the founder of the Washington Post and its first editor, John R. McLean.  For many years, McLean’s Three Pigs barbeque resided in the corner lot in this McLean strip mall laced with nick-knack shops, a lighting store, a Russian store, a pharmacy and a paint store. 

Although the menu was rather limited, we appreciated the fact that McLean 1910 serves humanely-raised meats and other sustainable ingredients.  The server, Eduardo, helped us to select our food.  Our appetizers included a rich Lobster Bisque and the “1910 Salad.”  The bisque’s aroma and taste were superb.  We had to order a second (or was it the third?) plate of fresh bread to dip into the bisque—a combination that represented the best lobster roll this side of Boston.  A signature bread spread on the table was a combination of a green chimichurri sauce and a white bean sauce.  Neither of these was particularly tasty, though the presentation had an aesthetic appeal, but the rest of the food more than made up for it. 

For our entrees, we ordered the Buccatini pasta and Diver’s Scallops.  The homemade pasta was thick long tubes of spaghetti in a rich tomato-based gravy, spinach and pine nuts, as well as two slices of garlic toast.  The scallop dish was served with a green-tinted lemon caper sauce.  The five scallops sat atop a circular presentation of spinach sauté, tomato, garlic and an abundance of crunchy fennel root (perhaps they can back off on the fennel a bit).

From the bisque to the check, the attentive service, including a visit from the chef, made this an enjoyable dining experience.  Though the meal was indeed pricey, the quality of the dining experience was worthwhile.  It might be a good venue for small special occasions or special nights out rather than a regular place to visit.  It will probably be a while until we return.