Nooshi Open on The Hill

The second location of pan-Asian restaurant Nooshi softly opened this week on Barracks Row. This is the fourth restaurant from partners Vanessa Lim and Bill Tu. The menu will benearly identical to the downtown location, with a wide variety of dishes from all corners of Asia. Sushi will be freshly prepared for diners seated at the long, narrow sushi bar. Noodle dishes range frompad thai to spicy Singapore noodles, and include a number of Nooshi originals. Other specialties include General Tao Chicken, Salmon Teriyaki, and Korean BBQ Ribs. Bill sums it up: "You can eat here three times a week because we have so much variety!"

Bill, who is also the executive chef, tells us that unlike downtown, this Nooshi will offer Peking duck. This specialty is already served at Spices in Cleveland Park, their first restaurant, and was quite popular at their now-closed Yanyu. But for the Capitol Hill location, they've custom-built a barrel-shaped oven designed specifically for roasting ducks, "just like back home in Beijing." The oven's shape roasts the duck more evenly than a conventional oven, creating a crispier skin and more flavorful duck. Rather than pre-roasting and re-roasting, as most area restaurants do, Bill and his team will roast the ducks in batches every hour. This will mean a fresher, tastier dish--but a limited supply.

The space is open and bright, with a skylight over the sushi bar. Warm wooden booths are accented by steel features and walls made of dark river stones. Large wooden panels painted with Japanese cherry blossoms hang throughout, and the black and red lacquered sushi bar ends at a large, frosted glass sign reading "Peking Duck"--a nod to the pan-Asian concept. Reservations are recommended, for your table and your duck.