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Census-designated place in Virginia, US
Photo: Flickr user: anokarina https://www.flickr.com/people/anokarina/, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Annandale is a suburb of Washington, D.C. in Fairfax County, Northern Virginia. It serves as the unofficial "Koreatown" of the Washington metropolitan area, with numerous ethnic Korean-owned restaurants, bakeries, and other businesses in the area. Annandale's residents, however, represent a diversity of ethnic backgrounds.
You have to travel far and long to find good dim sum in the D.C. area, but you've found it once you get to this Chinese restaurant. It's small, a little dingy, but it has precisely the right dim sum to cure a good bout of expat homesickness, or simply to delight the tastebuds of a serious foodie.
Is there better Korean BBQ in the Western Hemisphere? That's debatable, but what is not is that this places knows how to prepare meat. Sirloin beef, sauce duck, pork belly of several varieties—the list goes on. Meat is the showstopper here, but if that's not your thing, you'll find excellent vegetarian entrées (although be forewarned that most are fiery!) It's not a relaxing place late at night, though, with blaring Korean hip hop, and plenty of young Korean men filling the big room with tobacco smoke.
pronounced way-gahd-jeep
It's hard to go wrong here, if you can find the place. It's poorly signed and hidden behind some Salvadoran carnicería in what looks like a bland office building across a parking lot. But the food is incredible, and as a plus, it's one of the most comfy spaces in Annandale. The cheapest option is to bring friends and do the all-you-can-eat barbecue, where enormous quantities of garlicy bulgogi and kalbi are grilled on your table, for you to then dip in hot sauce, and generally pig out. The à-la-carte menu is more expensive, but even more rewarding. A local favorite (among the Koreans, anyway) is the spicy skate stew.
Yechon is the Annandale restaurant. It's big and always bustling. Other restaurants here will beat it on specific dishes, but this is the gold standard, where just about everything is good, and where non-Koreans will find the service particularly accessible. In addition to its great à-la-carte and all-you-can-eat menus, Yechon rises above the pack with its banchan—some 10–15 small, free (but as in all Annandale restaurants, still all-you-can-eat) appetizers with your meal.
Big, busy, noisy, modern, and popular with the teen and early 20s crowd. The gold standard in proper KFC. Full bar.
A lively mix of billiards and darts hall, neighborhood sports bar, karaoke house, and Korean restaurant. A place to get a good beer cheap to go with your nachos— or your bulgogi sub.
By bus
Buses 29C,E,G,H,X operate service to Little River Tpk from the Pentagon Metro station. The journey takes 30 minutes. For more information on riding the Metrobus, see Washington DC#Get_In
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