87. Ravi Kabob
When we went to Ravi Kabob, my friend kept giving me a hard time because I wasn’t taking any pictures of the restaurant. Well, here’s the deal: if I took pictures of it, you would never want to eat there. It obviously has the same interior decorator as those generic Asian restaurants in Chinatown with names that are suspicious double entendres. Linoleum floors and plastic forks do not a fine dining restaurant make. We were picking up take out, which I think was the best way to go. As a side note though, there are two Ravi Kabobs directly across the street from each other. We picked our food up from Ravi Kabob I, which I guess is the more casual of the two. Ravi Kabob II has actual servers, or so I’m told.
Aside from the less than bucolic atmosphere, or maybe because of it, Ravi Kabob is what it is: a kabob restaurant. All the kabobs that your heart desires are behind a glass case, with the requisite rice and chick pea sides steaming away. I ordered the seekh kabob, which is ground sirloin. It was so good—the way I always hope a hamburger tastes. That may not sound like much, but I really love hamburgers so it comes from the heart. The ground beef was mixed with onion and some spices (methinks mint?) that made it nice and spicy. I also tried (read: stole) one of my friend’s baby lamb chops which were really meaty and nice, and the fine folks at Ravi Kabob took the time to wrap the end of each chop with tin foil so I wouldn’t get my little fingers dirty. The chops were really tasty, but with the bone and the little bit of fat on there, it took a bit more effort to get a lot less meat than my ground beef.
Each kabob comes with a rice and spicy chickpeas, which were great, and a little garden salad that was kind of a waste of space in my overstuffed take out container. Also served with my meal was a large piece of naan and some yogurt sauce. The naan tasted good, but didn’t travel well and ended up steaming into a squishy mess in the bag. All of that food (had it not been so good I could have easily had a second meal out of it) and it came out to less than ten dollars. I’m not exactly sure how much it was (the menu said $7.95) but we either had an old menu or got charged for a few meals we didn’t order. Nonetheless, it was a steal.
Though it was a good meal, I’m not sure the Washingtonian 100 Best list should include this place. Cheap Eats? Definitely. But I think all the restaurants on the Best list should be worthy of a date. If someone took me to Ravi Kabob I, I wouldn’t exactly see it as the start on the road to a white picket fence and 2.3 children. I kid, I kid, but the truth is—subpar decor or not—it’s great food at an incredible price.
