Most of the restaurants within walking distance of College Park campus offices would not deserve stars in the restaurant review sections of commercial publications. One obvious exception is the on-campus Rossborough Inn, where Randi Dutch and her staff provide first-rate week-day luncheons (as well as catered events at other times). In downtown College Park, another exception, one of my favorite restaurants, is the previously-reviewed Planet X. It serves a variety of tasty salads and other vegetarian dishes as well as some exotic non-alcoholic drinks.
Food Factory (8145G Baltimore Avenue in the Campus Village shopping center, 345-8888), a new favorite, is the focus of this issue's column. Don't let the fast-foodish name fool you; this restaurant serves good, expensive food, but it certainly is not a factory. The food is heavily influenced by Pakistani culinary traditions, and there are also traces of Afghanistan, India, Iran, and Turkey. The customers provide authentication; most of them are from these countries. The restaurant is not elegant looking, but its simplicity is tasteful. The audio system plays the lovely popular music of Pakistan.
A brief survey of students revealed that all Pakistani respondents knew about the restaurant but no other student was familiar with it.
Wais Latif and wife Sabeeha are in charge, and they often oversee the food preparation seven days a week. Perhaps the most popular items are the kebob dishes, which are cooked on hickory charcoal and served spicy or mild by request. The chicken, ground beef, and lamb kebobs range in price from $4.75 to $5.95. Chicken Jalfarizi ($5.95) is served on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. This is a delicious and lovely-looking combination of small pieces of chicken breast, green and red bell peppers, spring onions, and lemons. Haleem ($4.95) is offered on weekends; this is a mixture of beef, rice, lentils (dal), wheat, and a variety of spices. The thick sauce is a special pleasure. I've also thoroughly enjoyed three of the restaurant's vegetable dishes: sabzi ($4.50), a mixture of spinach, potatoes, and spices; chic peas ($3.75) in a tantalizing sauce; and a vegetable combination ($4.95, no exotic name provided) of califlower, eggplant, potatoes, squash, red and green peppers, tomatoes, and sauces.
The Food Factory's meat dishes are Halal. Most main dishes are served with with tandoori bread (nan), or basmati rice, home-made yogurt, and a simple tomato-lettuce-onion salad. Pakistani and Indian sweets are available for desert. There's a small Pakistani-Indian grocery store at the back of the restaurant. Be sure to bring some cash; the restaurant does not accept credit cards or checks.
Other Walking Destinations Two dining opportunities within walking distance have items on the menu worthy of exploration. Marathon Deli (4429 Lehigh Road; 927-6717) is fast-food with Greek influence. The poster menu includes pies such as spanokopita and kotopita. Penguin Pizza and Grill (7409 Baltimore Avenue; 864-7900) is fast-food with Iranian influence. On campus, the Campus Dairy (405-1415) is, not surprisingly, a great place for ice cream -- especially on a warm summer day.
NOTES: The 22 September 1996 issue of The Washington Post Magazine includes reviewer Phyllis C. Richman's description of her fifty favorite restaurants. (The issue also includes an advertising supplement on plastic surgery so that those of us who overeat know where to repair the results of our gluttony with liposuction.) Two of the eight Maryland restaurants on her list are on University Boulevard close to the College Park campus: Pho 75, the Vietnamese pho (beef soup) restaurant just west of Riggs Road, and Swagat, the vegetarian Indian restaurant just east of Riggs Road. Her description of Pho 75 includes such phrases as "sumptuous one-dish meal" and "feeling full, healthy and oh so comforted." Swagat, she writes, "has transported South India to suburban Maryland" and many of the dishes are "inspirational." Both restaurants have, of course, been reviewed in previous editions of The Faculty Voice.