Doner Bistro and Waterford Fair

It was my birthday a couple weeks ago.  The big 3-3.  Woohoo.  Anyway, my mom took me out to the Waterford fair and to lunch that day to celebrate.  The fair exhibits lots of historical/colonial crafts as well as Civil War re-enactments and such.  There's always lots of neat things to see and do there for the whole family.

 

After wandering around there for a couple hours, we decided it was time for lunch so we ventured into Leesburg looking for a place to go.  I remembered seeing a place back in August when I ran my 10K.  Right at the finish line there was a little interesting looking German bistro.  Let's go check it out!

my mom and I taking a picture of ourselves

weird, right?

Its an odd little sort-of-fast-food-cafe kinda place called the Doner Bistro. Apparently "Doner" is a traditional Turkish dish of meat cooked by turning (like on a rotisserie) served on a platter with rice. Then somewhere along the way a Turkish guy living in Germany decided to change the dish and serve the meat in a flatbread with sauce, similar to a gyro. So its kind of Turkish meets German meets Greek, all combined onto one plate. Their menu also offers falafel, bratwurst, and currywurst. French fries on the side were served with curry ketchup.

ooh a fancy chandelier

we ate outside next to the Mighty Midget Kitchen

My mom chose the bratwurst which you could order with or without the bun.  It seemed to be a decent brat sausage on crispy bread, juicy and savory. The fries were crispy and well seasoned and had a fresh potato flavor.

I ordered the currywurst.  While it was tasty, I have to say I was a little disappointed.  I'm even more disappointed now that I've seen their website.  Basically what I got was a fancy German corndog...a long sausage of some sort wrapped in a fried batter.  There was no curry flavor except when I dipped it in the curry ketchup which was yummy and interesting.  And now having looked at their menu and pictures of the currywurst on the website, I'm left wondering exactly what was I served?? Because what was on my plate was nothing like their pictures or their description of the currywurst.  In fact theres nothing on their website that even comes close to matching what I ate. 

Its a mystery.  One that, should I ever go back there, I will definitely be inquiring about.

Happy birthday to me!!

Today is my birthday. The big 3-2. Yay.


After discussing what we were going to do for a special birthday dinner, we decided to go on a food adventure and go somewhere we've never been.  I looked up Indian restaurants in the area just to see what was available.There were 3...one of them we've been to before and it was good.  The other 2 also had pretty good reviews when we looked them up at Yelp.  But one of them had all rave reviews and after checking out the menu, we hopped in the car and were on our way.


Its exciting trying out a new restaurant, especially with so many good reviews.  We both love Indian food and it fits very well with the whole pesca-vegetarian diet.  This place is called Swagath.  It is located in Ashburn, VA and its in the middle of a shopping center.  A shopping center restaurant? Sounds a little suspect.  But do not be fooled by outward appearances.

We were there for an early dinner so there were only a few other customers there.  The decor was neat and modern, a few oblong mirrors lining the walls above the booths and small flat screen TV's  mounted above the tables playing Bollywood videos.  The menu was extensive...not one piece of meat on there either!! They specialize in vegetarian and vegan recipes, using mostly organic and seasonal ingredients.

Garlic Naan

We ordered a basket of garlic naan, which is a thin crispy bread covered with melted butter and fresh garlic and herbs.  Then we ordered an onion masala dosa.  A dosa is like a thin crispy crepe filled with yummy stuff.  This one was filled with onion and potato curry. 

Dosa

Dosa insides

It was served with 3 sauces...a spicy red sauce, a white coconutty sauce, and a lentil veggie soup type sauce.  I don't know what any of them were but they were all so yummy.  The dosa was huge! And they accidentally brought us 2 of them! But they were nice enough not to charge us for one.    

Yummy sauces

Then we also ordered paneer butter masala.  Paneer is a type of cheese used frequently in Indian dishes.  It's white, usually cubed, and has a mild soft flavor similar to cottage cheese or a fresh mozarella.  And in this dish its smothered with melted butter and a thick creamy tomato sauce and served with rice.  It is heavenly! So much cheese and butter!!

Paneer Butter Masala

It was a lot of kinda heavy food but we did our best to polish off as much of it as we could!  As we rolled our way out to the car and back home, we knew we had found a hidden gem.  We knew we wold have to go back for more.