The crunch of batter-coated chicken. The slippery gush of a soup dumpling. Textures often manifest in our memories more readily than flavors. One major exception: mala, the tingly prickle of heat that characterizes many of the best dishes in the Sichuan canon.
After a meal at RH Bistro, the latest addition to the arsenal of excellent Asian food in Falls Church’s Founders Row, both flavor and sensation will live on in your head. Thinking again about the meaty little pieces of steak in the diced Angus beef with Sichuan pepper — festooned with a bunch of numbing peppercorns so lush they could almost be grapes — can’t help but activate your salivary glands anew.
Red-oil pork dumplings rest languidly in a crimson sea that comforts with silky wontons as it burns. But not everything at the elegant new restaurant is fiery. The name RH stands for “rong he,” the concept of glorious harmony, signaling that the intention of the menu is to combine the best of China’s cuisine on one large bill of fare.
For example, it would be a mistake not to add Shanghainese soup dumplings to your order. The best of these have black skins to foreshadow the earthy truffle flavor that suffuses the broth and pork within. It’s exactly the kind of thing that will make you salivate long after you’ve finished your meal.
RH Bistro, 912 W. Broad St., Falls Church
Feature image by Mike Ramm
This story originally ran in our September issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
