This is the blog post equivalent of a #latergram: an extremely belated review of a dinner I enjoyed in March (!). (Why now? I’m on a long-weekend vacation with Steven, so no new content till Tuesday! Pre-scheduled posts to the rescue.)

For my birthday this past March, Steven and I visited Fancy Radish, a new-ish vegan restaurant in D.C. that we’d been meaning to hit up since it opened in early 2018. Helmed by the same team that made Philly’s Vedge the plant-based hotspot it is today, the Fancy Radish has gotten rave reviews from all my friends who’ve visited. The perfect spot for a birthday dinner! And the perfect opportunity for a Fancy Radish review, only five months late. :)

I really love the concept: you order a bunch of small dishes and share them with your dining companions. It’s a spin on the tapas experience, except here the server brings them in carefully considered courses rather than all at once, and the servings are a little larger. Our waitress recommended that we share four to five dishes, so we went with five “medium” plates. It was my birthday! Time to splash out and eat up.

I started with a cocktail, and I’m 99% sure it was the Marbles Found: tequila, bitter rose, and grapefruit. I’m a sucker for grapefruit! I really enjoyed this, even though I don’t usually drink tequila outside of a margarita.

Our first course was the rutabaga fondue, a truly heavenly crock of mild, gooey goodness served with a pretzel roll and a small bowl of lightly pickled veggies. (They had me at “pretzel roll,” tbh.) Would I ever have paired pickled vegetables with fondue on my own? I would not. Was it amazing? It was. Ugh, this was such a perfect starter. As soon as I tasted that fondue, I knew the hype about Fancy Radish was real and I could not wait to experience the rest of the meal.

Next up were two dishes served at once: the eponymous fancy radishes (a plate of roasted and raw radishes served with a yuzu-avocado puree) and a Chioggia beet “lox” toast. The radishes, if I’m being honest, underwhelmed. There wasn’t a lot of substance there, and thinking back on the meal today, I barely remember that we ordered this dish! I really enjoyed the beet lox, though. It was served with some kind of creamy spread and an herby topping. Someone in the kitchen must be exceedingly proficient with a mandoline, because those beets were sliced incredibly finely! I really appreciated that the lox flavor was not overwhelming. I’ve had some plant-based lox dishes that were just overpoweringly smoked, including one salad topped with carrot lox that I had to stop eating because it was burning my mouth! No such issues here.

For our final course, we had the shaved brassicas and spicy dan dan noodles. The former was tasty, but not my favorite. The shaved Brussels sprouts came heavily dressed with a smoked mustard sauce and crispy shiitakes, but by the time the plate got to us it was all kind of lukewarm and limp — not ideal conditions for my beloved Brussels sprouts. Those dan dan noodles were killer, however. They packed a serious spicy punch thanks to the liberal use of Sichuan peppers, but I couldn’t stop eating! The bowl also included a topper of fried five-spiced glazed mushrooms along with a respectable helping of noodles.

These five dishes were the perfect amount of food for the two of us. If we’d planned to order dessert, I would’ve gone down to four savory dishes instead. (Steven had made me a birthday cake, though, so no dessert needed this time!) I was blown away with how fresh and creative and nuanced the flavors were; it was some of the best vegan food I’ve had. (Even the dishes that underwhelmed were still creative and tasty!) For a splurge meal, it was totally worth it. The menu changes seasonally, so I’m eager to return and try some new options. Perhaps for my 10-year veganniversary this October…?!

Apologies for the photo quality; Fancy Radish had “atmospheric” lighting, shall we say.