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Very Best Restaurants: Tachibana

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Tachibana **
McLean , $

If raw fish doesn't turn you on, Tachibana, with its many cooked and smoked versions of sushi, still can. Start with grilled salmon and salmon skin in a cone-shaped hand roll or another wrap-up referred to as "gourd" on the menuit's hard to imagine strips of pickled squash could taste this fabulous. Other choices for the raw-fish averse:nigiri sushi, sweet shrimp over an oblong ball of rice, California rolls with flying-fish roe and avocado, and unagi, or grilled eel. Which is not to say the usual (raw) suspects from yellowtail to tuna aren't glisteningly fresh as well.

Tachibana seems finally to have settled into its McLean digs after moving from Arlington last spring. The curved dining room looks spiffier than it did in the early going, and a third sushi bar was added a couple of months ago. Conventional tables exist, but the essence of the Tachibana experience is the sushi bar, where you can watch sushi chefs in balletic frenzy. There'll be gratis tidbitson a recent foray it was a small dish of addictive marinated fish ballsand you'll be gently steered to the tastiest morsels of the day.

Die-hards have many teriyaki dishes (the salmon is especially fine)and nabemonoone-dish meals of vegetables, seafood, poultry, and tofuto choose from. For tempura, go elsewhere.

Tachibana , 6715 Lowell Ave., McLean ; 703-847-1771. Open Monday through Friday for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. MapIt!

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

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