Upon entering, the two “sushi men” behind the bar greeted us warmly and we were offered hot tea (jasmine, unfortunately, not green) and a green salad to start. We followed that with a selection of nigiri sushi (fish with rice) and several of the sushi rolls from the menu. Contrary to reports in Leesburg Today, they don’t seem to have the promised “Leesburg Roll” on the menu and the chefs had no idea what we were asking for when we tried to order it. But what we did have was quite good.

Being a fan of mackerel, I always have to give that a try. We also tried some fatty tuna (toro) nigiri, the California Deluxe roll, and a daily special roll with multi-colored roe and spicy tuna inside. The sushi was all fresh, and beautifully presented. It’s definitely the nicest sushi offering in the Leesburg area. Hardcore sushi fanatics will likely find their favorite restaurant elsewhere, but for a quick lunch or dinner bite in town, this fits the bill. And speaking of bill, the price for dinner was about $40 with tip. The prices seem a bit high for the quantity, but probably no worse than a sushi dinner inside the Beltway.

Jasmine Cuisine is in Market Station at 110 South St. in Leesburg.

When we lived in Houston, we’d regularly fly to meet friends from Austin at a little grass airstrip in the Hill Country, park the plane, dial a phone number written in Sharpie on the wall of the phone booth, and be met at the gate to the airport by a rusted out 1958 Ford pick-up truck for a ride to some of the best burgers and fried catfish west of the Mississippi. But after moving back to Virginia, the $100 hamburger runs gave way to local outings in the car and after 9/11 and all of the restrictions on general aviation around DC, our casual aviation outings for a $100 hamburger faded away.

But I had the opportunity to revisit the joy of a fly-in burger this week on a short “business” trip, flying from Leesburg to Gaithersburg in a friend’s Piper Comanche. While the 12 minute flight across the river stretches the definition of a legitimate $100 hamburger run, the results are worth bending the rules a bit. The Montgomery Co. Airpark is close enough to Leesburg to make this outing in a car and definitely worth the drive for a visit to the Airpark Café in the terminal building there. The menu is classic diner fare with a Greek/Mediterranean twist.

After our meeting was over, we retired to the Café for a quick bite before the grueling flight back to Leesburg. I ordered the cheeseburger while the pilot-in-command selected the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich. The service is lightning fast, but you can amuse yourself while you wait by watching the aircraft take off and land just out the window. There’s also a nice deck for outdoor dining if the weather permits. Given that both plates were cleaned in a matter of minutes, I have to give the Airpark Café two thumbs up for a classic $100 hamburger experience. And they get an extra gold star for being a real on-site airport restaurant.

Lunch for two was about $20, plus 20 gallons of avgas and an hour of tach time. So if you’re looking for something to do this Labor Day weekend, it’s worth the 30 minute car ride (or 12 minute flight through the Air Defense Intercept Zone, dodging black helicopters) for a visit!

Of course, no visit to Landover would be complete without sampling something deep-fat fried, so our selected entree was the chicken tenders and fries basket. The tenders actually lived up to their name, and were moist and juicy with a crispy batter that was slightly spicy. The black pepper of the batter was nicely matched by a dollop of Heinz Ketchup which was precisely dispensed by the large ketchup pumps nearby. The fries were reminiscent of those at Five Guys (see the review below), and clearly were taking advantage of SysCo’s best battered fry recipe.

We washed it all down with two bottles of vintage 2009 Dasani water. Appetizer and dinner with beverages came in at just over the Redskin’s final score (24-27) at $25.

All joking aside, lunch earlier this week at Five Guys in Chantilly was actually quite enjoyable in comparison to the snack bar. For those who aren’t yet initiated into the cult of Five Guys, they make what are arguably the best hamburgers and fries on the planet. I chose the cheeseburger with the classic lettuce/tomato/mayo toppings and a Coke. Everything is made to order and stuffed in a brown paper sack, with the fries dumped in on top.

Five Guys makes double patty burgers by default, so if you’re not feeling too hungry, you should make sure to order the “Little” version instead. The meat is cooked medium well unless you ask for something different, and the burger is juicy. So don’t skip on the napkins! But the real secret of Five Guys is the fries. These are the classic, square-cut, deep-fried lovelies that every burger joint on the planet used to serve before some marketing person got the brilliant idea that we wanted our fries dunked in batter before cooking. A small order of fries is enough for 2, but I confess to finishing most of mine myself.

If you’re in that part of town and feel the need for an awesome burger, Five Guys will definitely fix you up. They’re located at 14421 Chantilly Crossing Lane, just southwest of the Rt. 50/28 intersection at the end of the strip mall. A burger, fries, and drink will set you back about $10, 1500 calories, and 20 minutes of guilty dining pleasure.

The menu is pretty standard fare, with gyros, souvlaki, and subs. Entrées include various pastas and pizzas, strombolis, and calzones are all on the menu, too. We decided to try the Souvlaki Sandwich and the Chicken Shawarma sandwich. Both were served piping hot, wrapped in a pita and rolled in foil to make it easy to eat. A side of battered fries came with each sandwich. The souvlaki was big chunk of well-seasoned chicken, lettuce, tomato, onions, feta, and olives. The shawarma was slices of chicken with the same veggies and tahini sauce, which added an interesting twist.

The service was prompt, especially given the crowd, and the food was tasty. It’ll be interesting to go back and try the pizzas, pasta, and calzones for dinner. Two lunch sandwiches with fries and a couple of iced teas came to about $10 a head, which is not bad for a sit down lunch. They are open for lunch and dinner every day and you can find Anthony’s at 620 West Main St. in downtown Purcellville.

Our second suggestion this week is Moe’s Southwest Grill situated at 667 Potomac Station Dr NE. For being part of a chain, the food was surprisingly good. After being greeted by the traditional “Welcome to Moe’s” yelled by all employees when someone comes in, we picked a ground beef taco meal and a pork salad from the menu. Both portions were huge and the taste and spices were excellent. The taco was so full of meat, guacamole, salad and pico de gallo that I had a hard time not getting any all over my shirt. The pork salad is made with pulled pork meat and was dressed with our choices of ingredients : cheese, pico de gallo, beans and cilantro. Of course it did not replace a trip to New Mexico or South Texas, but it was good southwest food for Northern Virginia.

Finally, we made a nice discovery during our First Friday outing. We sampled some of the products (apple cobbler, beignets, hushpuppies and cornbread) from Woodpecker Farm Foods. This Virginia company was founded in the early ’90s by the great grandson of Betty Washington, George’s sister. The gourmet batter and dough mixes are made with simple, natural ingredients.  You add a little water to the mix, stir, bake or deep fry and voilà! Their products, very affordable (between $3.50 and $4.50 a bag) can be found at The Pink Shop or online.

Lowry’s now sports indoor and outdoor seating, live music on the weekends, and is the only place you’ll likely find within 40 miles to get a bushel of steamed blue crabs to pick. The lunch crowd was impressive, with the indoor seating filled and overflowing into the outdoor area by noon. The daily specials included several “salad” sandwiches with sides, including crab, seafood, tuna, chicken, and egg salad for around $6. We decided to order from the regular menu, putting the kitchen’s blue crab acumen to the test by ordering the Crab Ball Basket and the Softshell Sandwich.

The Basket came with four big balls of seasoned backfin crab meat, a couple of hushpuppies, and a choice of side dish which was cinnamon applesauce in our case. The crab balls are just smaller versions of the crabcake elsewhere on the menu and were nicely spiced with large pieces of crab and a minimum amount of filler to hold it all together. As usual, the hushpuppies were nice and crispy, with a light texture that would have gone well with a little butter. While tasty, the applesauce could have done with a lot less cinnamon, which made it a bit bitter.

The softshell sandwich was served with lettuce, tomato, and tartar sauce on a buttered and toasted bun, with a side of Lowry’s signature waffle-cut fries. The crab was a nice size, bigger than the bun could hold, and was very lightly breaded and cooked just so. Having grown up in Hampton Roads, one can be a bit snobby about one’s crabs. For a landlocked seafood shop at the foot of the Blue Ridge, Lowry’s does softshells better than most places I’ve dined at within a stone’s throw of the Chesapeake or Atlantic.

Our lunch with drinks and two entrees was about $25. That seems the norm for most sit-down lunch places in our area now, but still seems a bit high to my out-of-date dining sensibilities. Regardless, Lowry’s is a great place to head if you have a desire for some good seafood for lunch or dinner, or for some fresh fish to take home and cook. It should still be one of the more popular destinations for bikers on the W&OD with live music outside on the weekend, and it’s a great place to bring the kids, too. And nothing beats being able to drive a few miles to dump a basket of crabs on the table and whack away with a hammer for a weekend afternoon meal with friends. Lowry’s is at 420 West Colonial Highway (old Rt. 7), just west of downtown Hamilton at the old Planet Wayside Location.

Our second stop for the week was just a few blocks east of Lowry’s (52A West Colonial Highway) at the Hamilton General Store, which is owned and operated by the same family that runs Lowry’s. Wanting to find a bit of dessert to top off the seafood lunch, we pulled into Hamilton’s take on the classic small town general store. Much like its peers in Bluemont, Aldie, or Waterford, this is a classic general store, with local produce, organic meat, eggs, and dairy products, big jars of candy, freezers of ice cream, and the usual grocery items you might need in a pinch. Obviously the focus is on local producers, with everything from heirloom tomatoes to hand made candies for sale. The store would be an awesome destination for the family wanting a quick weekend outing. Leaving Leesburg along Dry Mill Rd. takes you on a nice, scenic 15 minute ride through neighboring horse farms and vineyards, the Loudoun Co. fairgrounds, and scenic little Hamilton. It’s certainly worth the short drive from Leesburg for a quick time warp to the early 20th century.

Finally, a quick update about one of our favorites. Thai Pan, the little Thai restaurant next to the Liberty gas station, recently received their beer and wine license. So now you can have a nice glass of wine or a Thai beer with your dinner. Enjoy!

Here’s a map to Lowry’s and the Hamilton General Store:

The dining room is spacious and immaculately clean, with a large TV and free WiFi for diners who need to be entertained while eating. But the food is the highlight of Red Kabob, as it should be. The meats are perfectly cooked, side dishes quite tasty, and portions are more than enough for one person. We had the beef and the chicken kabob plates, which came with basmati rice and a small salad and a large, locally baked pita. Along with the dinner came two very nice dipping sauces, a minty, spicy one that went very well with the beef and the classic yogurt/mint tzatziki sauce.

I can’t overstate how nicely the meats were prepared. So often, kabob restaurants have the meat pre-cooked and it ends up dry and tough as it is reheated. The chicken and beef were tender, moist, and very nicely spiced.

In addition to the main courses, we had a side order of hummus, which would have been nice with a little olive oil, but was fine by itself, with probably more tahini than some recipes, which made it quite tasty.

The owners are very enthusiastic about their new restaurant and are quite happy to offer you a taste of something else, or a little bit more of what you were having if you’re still hungry. My only regret is not realizing how large the portions are. Two full plates is really more than enough for 3 or 4 people, so you can probably get away with splitting one of the combination dishes if you want to keep the per person lunch cost under $10. Our bill for 2 dinners, drinks, and a side of hummus was $24.

The graciousness of the owners and the perfect preparation of the meats make this place a repeat visit for sure.

Our second small but nice restaurant is Lesher’s Hot-Dog at 26 South King St. You better look up for the sign to not miss the place! First of all, we have gone several times to this place and it’s always super clean and the staff is very friendly. The menu is not very large (3 kinds of hot-dogs and 2 choices of burgers if I remember correctly) but the food is good. I really like the chili hot-dog. They burgers are well cooked and juicy. Unfortunately they do not serve fries, but they do have a variety of chips and sodas. I hope one day this place will add a few mores items on they menu like more toppings and some side dish. That would make it a lot more interesting place. But you can get 2 hot-dogs and a soda for about $5.30, which is not bad for lunch.

A quick “tasting” follow-up to our story on Shoe’s Cup and Cork Club. I went back yesterday and tried both a café americano and a latté. The coffee in both drinks was very good. I like it much better than the darker roast that Starbucks serves as their house blend. Very nice!

If you are looking for something really different to do today, you should check out the Flying Circus Airshow in Warrenton. The show starts every Sunday afternoon at 2:30 PM. We’ll be visiting soon, so check back for a more detailed report.