Tom Sietsema is Psyched for Sfoglina

The Washington Post’s Tom Sietsema visits Sfoglina, Fabio and Maria Trabocchi’s fourth restaurant in D.C. Starters are a hit, like the roasted Sicilian red peppers that “blossom with orange zest and flowers” and a “fiery” ’nduja.

As for the main event, classic pastas start at $22:

“Hat-shaped tortelloni filled with ricotta, bright with a bouquet of herbs and sunny with lemon, pick up texture with toasted almonds and richness with a wash of butter. Seasonal pastas cost $25 and currently include tender agnolotti del plin. The stamps are filled with braised beef and Swiss chard; in Piedmontese fashion, the pasta is anointed with a sage-brown butter sauce.”

A family-style order of a pasta trio costs $60, “but don’t get too attached” to flavor or shape combos, he says, as the lineup changes daily. The branzino, poached in white wine, lemon and rosemary, is “as lovely as it is luscious, suggests expense-account dining.” [The Washington Post]

The Washington Post posted a concise list of restaurants Tom Sietsema awarded the most stars to in 2016, and “his most highly rated restaurants are a mix of reliable standbys and relatively young upstarts.” They range from the four-starred Rasika (which he believes is “the best Indian restaurant in the country”) to 3.5 stars for Bad Saint (which “also caught the eye of the larger food world”) to the three-starred Le Diplomate, “hands down” the “best French restaurant” in D.C. [The Washington Post]

The Washington Post’s Tim Carman thinks 2016 royally sucked, and as a result, stress eating was a must. But he was “grateful to do so in Washington where our neighborhoods continue to reveal the riches that immigrants bring to America.”

He compiles a top 10 list of his $20 Diner cheap eats picks over the year. They range from Korean (Da Rae Won in Beltsville at No. 9) to barbecue (Texas Jack’s in Arlington at No. 7) to Chinese (Northwest Chinese Food in College Park at No. 4). His No. 1 restaurant on the list is El Sol Restaurante & Tequileria, an “intimate spot” that “brings a chef’s refinement to Mexican street food and home cooking.” [The Washington Post]

FROM THE BLOGS: Been There, Eaten That’s Lori Gardner gives Community in Bethesda a try; BYT treks it to Trummers on Main in Clifton; DCist ranks the top new restaurants of 2016; Bitches Who Brunch heads to La Jambe in Shaw; and DCFoodPorn checks out dishes at Owen’s Ordinary.