Arlington
Bistro 360
For: Khachapuri
1800 Wilson Blvd., Arlington
In the crowded restaurant space that is Northern Virginia, it helps to diversify business. Bistro 360 is a market, wine bar (includes seats among the market goods) and restaurant.
Like many current menus, there’s a section on snacks, small plates, charcuterie and cheese, and this includes the standout starter of the moment: khachapuri. Since D.C.’s Compass Rose added it to its menu last spring, many restaurants have also been selling the Georgian, canoe-shaped dough filled with butter, cheese and a fried egg. In Bistro 360’s version the crust is chewy and easy to pull apart to dip into the unset yolk.
A small plate of scallops over a seaweed salad with corn and apple is bright and full of varied textures, but feels misplaced in a season needing warm, tender comforts. The menu pulls from all over the world and shows it’s hard to perfect every type of cuisine. Grits are so watery that it eats more like porridge and the lemongrass pork chop is too tough to enjoy, especially served without a steak knife.
(February 2015)
