A taste of home - Eat First in Chinatown, Washington DC

(Check out the chilli sauce in the foreground)

As we get older, W and I often find ourselves missing chinese food when we are away from home for an extended period of time. Guess that is why we found ourselves heading straight for Chinatown after we checked into the Harrington Hotel in DC.

Chinatown in DC is pretty small. Just a couple of blocks but as with other Chinatowns that we have been to, the Chinatown in DC teems with people and activity. Every few steps we took, we were greeted by bold signs pronouncing that they served the most authentic chinese food ever. Then we look at the menu, see dishes such as "egg rolls" and "Singapore noodles" and are unimpressed.

So it was certainly a stroke of good fortune that brought us to "Eat First" (Shi Wei Xian - or "Food Comes First" which has somehow been translated to the doubtful "Eat First"). It was a nondescript Chinese restaurant, much like those that we passed earlier but W decided to try it anyway. Really really glad we did.

You can imagine how good the food was that we had 3 of our 4 dinners in DC at this restaurant.

Having tried Chinese food in various western countries, we had learnt not to expect too much. But the first sign that things were different at "Eat First" was that there were a good many Chinese guests dining at the restaurant.

More impressively, the restaurant actually had Chilli sauce. Not the Maggi variety but good old chilli sauce made from ground fresh chilli. Think the chilli that we have with our chicken rice back home and you get the picture. W was of course sold by then but I decided to reserve judgment until the food arrived.

The food was very good in itself and was exceptional when you consider that this is DC. We have learnt that most "authentic" chinese restaurants in the western countries adapted the flavours of their dishes to suit the western palate (but not so pleasing for the Asian palates, unfortunately). However, the dishes at "Eat First" retained their original flavours and the sweet and sour chicken that we had that first dinner was arguably the best that I have ever had.

W even remarked that if "Eat First" was a restaurant back home, he will not hesitate to journey there for a meal.

Over the next few days, we tried dishes such as claypot tofu, stir-fried prawns/beef/chicken and I am glad to say that not a single dish disappointed.

It was only later that we found out that this small chinese restaurant had not escaped the attention of the city's food critics and it had previously received awards from the Washingtonian. There was even a photograph of John Travolta dining at the restaurant, stuck on the wall.

So if you are ever in DC and if you are craving a taste of home (like we were), do check out "Eat First". It will not dissapoint.

Eat First Restaurant

609 H Street, N.W

Washington DC, 20001

- M

P.S: This is a series of food posts that I will putting up on DC as we had the good fortune of trying out some really good places in DC. W will be blogging about the sights that we saw in DC during our short stay.