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Best Bargain Restaurants: Rabieng

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Rabieng
Baileys Crossroads

You can bone up on your knowledge of Thai cuisine at Rabieng. The menu lays it all out, province by province. Rabieng offers many regional dishes--a few extremely spicy--not routinely found at other area restaurants. Among these are Esan-style dishes from the northeast region of Vietnam, such as a starter of grilled sausage made from pork, rice, and lemongrass.

Other novelties include cashew nuts pan-fried with butter, chilies, and spring onion; country-style fried beef with chili dipping sauce; and rice cakes paired with minced pork in coconut sauce. Carbo-load with the chicken in green curry, a hearty stew served over rice and noodles. Wild boar with basil, which tastes like a gamier version of roast pork, is another searing proposition.

Rabieng doesn't give short shrift to the food of Bangkok either. Try the mild soup of mustard greens and chicken; bhram, chicken and napa cabbage in a somewhat spicy peanut-coconut sauce, topped with a stack of frizzled shallots; and roast pork, thick slices in sweet, dark soy, plum sauce, served with an eye-watering chili vinaigrette.

Desserts, from Rabieng's sister restaurant, Duangrat's, include a super mung-bean mousse and a delicious sticky rice with a double whammy of coconut custard and coconut cream sauce.

Rabieng , 5892 Leesburg Pike, Baileys Crossroads; 703/671-4222. Open Sunday through Thursday 11:30 am to 10 pm, Friday and Saturday 11:30 am to 10:30 pm. AE, CB, DC, MC, V. MapIt!

QUALITY: ****Excellent; *** Superior; **Very Good; * Good
PRICE RANGE: $$$= Very Expensive; $$ Expensive; $=Moderate; ¢=Inexpensive

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