DCDining.com Reviews

Here’s your key to a successful visit to Milan Bakery & Miss Doughnuts.

This tiny little strip-mall carryout bakery is a *Bolivian* bakery, and the doughnuts are being sold, I would think, so they can stay in business for the morning rush crowd driving down Lee Highway in Falls Church (this parking lot is easy-in, easy-out).

But it *is* Bolivian, and that’s where you will find your rewards; not on the donut shelves.

This morning, I ordered an extra-large coffee (Green Mountain Roasters, pumped out of a canister, I’m afraid to say – bad, but not completely undrinkable because it was made properly, and hot). Honestly, I would put a well-made, fresh version of this just one step below Mayorga presented in the same format (once you reach pump-canister format, you’re on your own!)

Interestingly, the business card says “Milan Latino Bakery” and mentions nothing about “Miss Doughnuts,” with the tagline, “Delicias del Oriente Boliviano” which I *think* translates to “Delicious things (Delicacies?) from Eastern Bolivia,” so it’s either regional, or I’m interpreting it incorrectly. Only one of nine pictures on the back shows any doughnuts; this is a Bolivian bakery, with much of the pastry being sold savory, not sweet.

With my coffee, I got three Bolivian savory pastries:

Pastel con Queso which was quite large, and looked something like this. It’s traditionally eaten with a purple drink called Api (which you can see in the glass mug in the photo). Api Morado is a thick, purple, corn drink served at breakfast, and I’d bet they have it here if you ask for it. This large pastry was nothing more than a flaky pastry, wrapped around mozzarella, and sprinkled with a little powdered sugar. That’s it! It was more savory than sweet, and nothing special except for its cultural aspect – I’ll bet a breakfast of this and api morado, in La Paz, could be a memorable affair, even if bought from a food truck. Yet, this pastry pales in comparison with the next two.

Empanada de Arroz with rice, yuca, and cheese was served in a banana leaf, and was a step up both in quality and interest from the Pastel con Queso, looking just like this. Delicious by itself, the starches from the yuca lent a complexity that rice alone just wouldn’t have. In looks, I would have called this a tamale rather than an empanada, but I’m out of my area of expertise once I leave the world of Bolivian Salteñas. Golden brown and delicious, it went just beautifully with my cup of coffee. Yes, *that* coffee.

Last, and certainly not least, was my Cuñape – a dense, roll-like structure made with yuca flour, yuca, and cheese (lots of queso in these Bolivian pastries!), looking just like this. This was the best of the three because the yuca (flour?) gave it a light, airy, rice-like, almost Korean-like texture inside the crusty periphery. There was just enough sweetness in the Cuñape to call me back, bite-after-bite, and once you graduate to the “next one of these” three pastries, you have to force yourself to go back to the prior one. Needless to say, I did not finish all three, despite them probably having been baked just this morning – they certainly tasted completely fresh.

The total for all this was $7.03. On this snowy morning, I gave the very nice, pleasant, patient lady – who wrote down two of the ingredients’ lists for me in english – a $10, and told her to keep the change.

If you come here, do try the Empanada de Arroz (in the banana leaf) and a Cuñape. These are the items you want.

Milan Bakery is a little hole-in-the-wall where a budding connoisseur has to do some work to end up rewarded, but the rewards are there for you to find, and they’re not on the doughnut shelves, although if you’re driving down Lee Highway and absolutely *must* have a doughnut, this is about your only option, and they’re not *that* bad; just not the best things on offer. (And I’m telling you, even the Green Mountain Roasters coffee wasn’t *that* bad because it had been correctly made, and I assure you I’m well aware of how awful this coffee can be). I had been here a couple of times before, having gone the doughnut route, but this time I came away with a much more solid impression.

I’d been to Mykonos 1-2 times in the past (the last time I went, my young dining companion and I had gone ice skating first, and neither of us has skated in over five years).

I called to make sure they’d be open (’twas the night before Snochi), and we showed up in an empty restaurant around 7 PM – I suspect we were the last, and perhaps the only, dine-in customers of the evening.

I was dismayed that Mykonos was out of the three Greek beers they had advertised on the menu, so I was stuck with a very pitiable list, and ended up getting a skunky smelling Corona Extra ($4.50) while my young dining companion wisely stuck with water.

Generally, I let Matt order first (sometimes throwing in a hint or two), and this evening he was set on the Mykonos Combination ($18.95) with mousaka, pastichio, soutzoukakia, and spanakopita, served with oven-roasted potatoes and fasolakia. Since Matt ordered it, I decided I would as well – we’d both either sink, or swim.

General advice: don’t ever order a combo platter, anywhere. Each item has disparate cooking times, and things are bound to be either cold, or sitting under a heat lamp. While it might give you a nice overview of any given restaurant’s wares, I’ve more often than not been disappointed.

Mykonos was not only empty on this evening, with cars flying down Michael Faraday Drive, trying to beat the snow home, it was also very cold – even the wooden seats were cold. We ate with our coats on.

“Do you want to split an app?” I asked.

“I think I’m just going to get the salad bar.”

“There is no salad bar.”

“It’s right behind you.”

Sure enough it was, and the entrees at Mykonos come with unlimited trips to the soup and salad bar (making the $18.95 price of the combination platter very easy to swallow – not to mention the two generous, piping-hot loaves of garlic bread we were served). The one soup on this evening was Avgolemono, and not much was left at the bottom of the kettle. There were perhaps a half-dozen salads, and they looked very colorful and appealing: kidney beans, green beans, marinated mushrooms, as well as the standard lettuce-tomato-red-pepper tray. 

The avgolemeno, which I generally adore, was very mild and good, but it was barely above room temperature – I doubt it even cracked the 80-degree threshold. The salads were very boring, and must have been bought that way – while attractive and colorful, they tasted like they came straight from a food-service container. Not off-putting, but very, very bland from A to Z. 

Two massive plates of food arrived, and they must have weighed several pounds each. The mousaka and pastichio were each the size of softballs, the spanakopita was about a six-inch equilateral triangle, and the soutzoukakia was the only item that wasn’t portioned for gorillas.

Back to the cold restaurant again. The avgolemono soup was, unfortunately, a mere preview of what was to come. Except for my soutzoukakia, all items were still colder than room temperature. Although I didn’t see it, Matt said he saw our server put both our plates into a microwave – unfortunately, she didn’t microwave them long enough. The meal was somehow feeling “cramped and rushed,” even though our server was delightful, and I’m not sure I can explain why (Matt agreed with me on the way out).

You might think I’m going to trash Mykonos, but I’m not. It was a frigid evening, there were no customers, and I suspect the three or four people working there desperately wanted to close and get the heck home (it had begun to snow as we walked out to the car). I only took a few bites of my meal; Matt finished maybe half of his, and we got two styrofoam containers which we filled up to the brim.

Later that evening, I got hungry, and microwaved most of my dinner. As I pretty much knew at the time, this food was very good with the notable exception of the spanakopita. When it was hot, it was just fine, and the mousaka and pastichio had clearly been oven-baked at some earlier point in time. 

So while our experience was sub-par (wonderful server aside), it was all due to external factors, and the food itself is certainly something I would get again as carryout – these items (other than the spanakopita) all microwave very well. 

A Yelper would trash this as a one-star meal; but that’s just not the case. Mykonos serves perfectly decent homestyle Greek food – I remember from before that I enjoyed it, and, other than it becoming a bit more run-down over the years, and tragically being out of all their interesting beers, this meal was a one-off. This place is a mom-n-pop that, while not outstanding by any means, is certainly “good.”

I’ve been enjoying #S28 on their carryout menu: Fish Fillet and Bean Curd in Hot and Red Bean Sauce ($13.45). While this might sound odd, it has the flavors (sans pork) of a very mild Ma Po Tofu – a lot of Ma Po Tofus are just too numbing for me, and while this has some of that, it’s just a hint, not a dominant feature. There is a *lot* of fish in this dish, and it’s an excellent value for the money – I’ve ordered it twice in a row.

If you like dried-fried beef, sometimes knows as Szechuan Beef Proper, get #F20: Crispy Shredded Beef ($13.95). It’s a massive amount of battered, fried, bite-sized strips of steak, and if you know this dish, it’s a very good rendition, with a few thinly shredded carrots thrown in so you can lie to yourself and think it’s healthy. Highly recommended.

Actually, I recommend both of these dishes in tandem – since they’re so utterly different, they play off one other well. You’ll need a green if you get these in order to balance your meal, so order something steamed from the “Healthy Choice” section, or one of the sautéed beans, snow peas, or spinach entrees – you’ll have yourself a really nice carryout meal for two, with leftovers for lunch the next day. Yes, the beef reheats pretty well in a microwave – and although you already know this, I want to end in a rhyming couplet since I’m reading Shakespeare:

leave the steamed rice unopened, sealed tight,

and outside of the icebox overnight.

Before a long trip to Baltimore, my young dining companion and I had a Saturday brunch at Artie’s 

Not having had any caffeine injections that morning, I started with my Diet Coke ($3, cheerfully refilled), while he wisely stuck with his usual ice water. The bread basket, previously generous, has now been reduced to four items: two tiny slices of jalapeño-cheese bread, and two donut holes which this time around, were as good as ever.

Wanting something to split for an appetizer, we got the Blue Crab Fritters ($9) with grilled corn salsa, and lobster ginger butter – a plate of three round troughs, each holding a deep-fried fritter sitting atop its own dipping sauce, and each about the size of a golf ball – these were very generously sized fritters, filled mostly with leg meat, and a good use of the whole crab if that’s the restaurant’s strategy. They weren’t cheap, but by no means were they “cheaply made” either – despite not having much (any?) lump, they carried their weight well. I saw Matt was starving, so I demurred, and let him enjoy the third since I knew there was a lot of food coming afterwards.

For entrees, we’d both ordered the same thing for once: Pecan Crusted Trout ($16), two large pieces of trout – a lot of food for the money – battered with ground pecans in the crust and pan-fried (I assume), and served with “the original” chardonnay citrus sauce and basil redskin mashed potatoes. If I remember correctly, these also came with something green on the plate to round out the meal. This was a wonderful dish, especially for $16, and the only thing I’d change would be to remove the whole, candied pecans that gratuitously strewn atop the presentation – they didn’t really go with the cuisine, and just weren’t necessary (in general, I tend not to like sweet or spiced nuts thrown onto a savory dish), but it was easy enough just to push them away. The trout was served in such large portions that I didn’t finish mine (I could have, but would have been stuffed), and the citrus sauce was tart enough so everything retained its flavor interest, even towards the end of the meal when things were getting colder. For sixteen dollars, you could sure do a lot worse than this.