Maple Ave Restaurant
147 Maple Ave W - Vienna, VA 22180
- $$
Small Gem with Big Flavor
Highlights
- There’s as much focus on what you imbibe as what you eat at Maple Avenue, and the drinks list proves it. There are craft cocktails like the Tincho with Malvasia Citrus; Sauvignon Blanc with lemon and lime; artisanal beers like the hoppy Hazed and Confused from Boulder Beer Colorado; and the eclectic wine list.
Good to Know
- The restaurant has a lively blog. Check it out for specials-to-go on holidays like a whole version of that yuzu-lime pie, recipes and news of multi-course prix-fixe tasting dinners.
- Due to limited seating, parties of 5 or more guests will be seated only once everyone in the party has arrived. The reservation will be held for 15 minutes after original reservation time.
Recommended Dishes
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·Lemongrass Chicken with Brussels Sprouts Salad
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·Moroccan Spiced Chicken with Saffron Sauce
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·Beer-Braised Beef Cheeks
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·Scrambled Eggs with Chinese Sausage and Caramelized Kimchi
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·Funnel Cakes
Best Bottles
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·Good Value: Bone Dry Riesling Kim Crawford New Zealand, 2007, $38
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·Splurge-Worthy: Pinot Noir Porter Creek, Russian River Valley, 2008, $74
Full Overview
“Good things come in small packages” might well be the motto of this Lilliputian glass jewel box on Route 123, also known as Maple Avenue.
Owner-chef Tim Ma, an engineer-turned-chef with stops at New York’s French Culinary Institute and David Chang’s Momofuku Ko along the way, repurposed this former Mexican eatery into a shrine to seasonal and local ingredients. His wife and partner, Joey Hernandez, who also has a restaurant background, is general manager.
Together they’ve created a fusion of Asian (he’s Chinese-American), Latin (she’s Salvadoran) and French cuisine in this 28-seat eatery with an eclectic playlist that on weekends competes with the din of the crowd.
Here is one of those menus where nearly everything sounds appealing — or at the very least, interesting. Dishes to hone in on: lemongrass chicken with the zing of ginger and the crunch of Brussels sprouts (vegetables get star treatment in most dishes), aromatic Moroccan-spiced chicken with creamy saffron sauce, and briny shrimp and grits with blueberry venison sausage. Ma is a fan of braising, so there are long-steeped pleasures like pork belly with sweet and sour onions and beer-braised beef cheeks. At lunch, pork barbecue with a not-too-sweet sauce on a brioche bun is a toothsome handful. Brunch brings plates like wonderfully original — and delicious — scrambled eggs with Chinese sausage and caramelized kimchi. And then there are the spicy housemade Bloody Marys. Desserts are by turns whimsical, sophisticated and homey: fun fair funnel cakes, gingered crème brulee and velvety bread pudding.
A reservation will now earn you: 200 Reward pts.
For every reservation that you make and honor (you actually show up at the restaurant and have a meal) on CityEats.com, you will earn 200 CityEats Rewards points. If you then write a review of your dining experience, you will earn an additional 200 points. Once you have collected 2,500 points, you can redeem them for either a $25 gift certificate or a charitable donation in the amount of $25.
