This is why I moved here.”
“To Northern Virginia?” I ask my friend.
“No, to Falls Church. Because of the food.”
We were in the middle of lunch, a feast of too many dishes at XO Taste, too many dishes because the wide-ranging menu demands it. We found roast pork snuggled into a soft, gelatinous wrap called a crisp. Chow foon is beef entangled in long, flat, chewy, doughy noodles that hint at smoke—and in not nearly enough XO sauce. A giant bowl of roast duck fights for attention against delicate wontons. In the back corner ducks hang from a glass enclosure, but we close the menu and vow to return for more another day. • 6124 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church; 703-536-1630
(April 2017 Best Asian Restaurants)