Where to Call and Carry - The District

Owner Oji Abbott serves meaty chicken wings, greens and potato salad at Oohhs & Aahhs Soul Food Restaurant near Howard University. (By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)

The District has hundreds of carryout restaurants. Downtown is saturated with sandwich shops and by-the-pound salad bars that are convenient for lunch.

But takeout dinners are a little more difficult to find. True, most restaurants will package a meal to take home. Here are some of the places that specialize in food to go.

Chicken Tortilla is a new place near the Navy Yard and the Marine Barracks in Southeast serving Peruvian rotisserie chickens and burritos. The narrow space has a line of small tables on one side and an open kitchen on the other. The aroma of roasting chicken fills the restaurant, and each dish is made to order. The chicken is moist and flavorful, even when used in the quesadilla, a huge portion enough for two people. The limited menu includes a few subs and what the restaurant calls a burraso -- a very large burrito. 1100 Eighth St. SE, 202-543-1904,http://www.chickentortilla.com/.

Just up the street, Las Placitas Restaurant has been offering a more extensive Mexican and Salvadoran menu for more than a decade. It's a full-service restaurant, but any dish can be ordered for takeout. My taquitos dorados , chicken rolled in a corn tortilla and deep-fried, were crisp and juicy. The accompanying guacamole was fresh and tangy. The menu has mostly Mexican specialties and some Salvadoran favorites, including pupusas and yucca con chicharron -- cassava root and fried pork chunks. 517 Eighth St. SE, 202-543-3700.

New York Pizza is a convenient stop for anyone heading home along Pennsylvania Avenue SE in Capitol Hill. It operates in a former Pizza Hut and is family-owned and family-oriented. In addition to pizza, there are salads, pastas, gyros, fried shrimp, roasted chicken and overstuffed subs. There is convenient off-street parking, and you can order online. 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, 202-547-383 8 , http://www.mynypizzaco.com/ .

Although the number of destination restaurants in Penn Quarter has mushroomed in recent years, the new Clyde's has a special feature: a takeout called Clyde's on the Walk (next to the Verizon Center). Breakfast is served from 8 to 11 a.m., and sandwiches worthy of lunch or dinner are available until 8 p.m. daily. The limited menu is headlined by a great crab cake sandwich and a roast beef sandwich for which meat is carved from a giant round of beef right on the counter. There are also hotdogs and bratwursts, a Philly cheese steak, soups and salads. The cookies are bigger than salad plates. 707 Seventh St. NW, 202-719-1697,http://www.clydes.com.

A few blocks away, in the Ninth Street area in Shaw that has become known as Little Ethiopia, Dan the Man's Teriyaki & Subs is a recent addition that brings diversity to the mix. The owner is a former New York City tour guide who decided to relocate after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks. The items here have a Japanese bent. Yaki soba (noodle dishes similar to lo mein) and teriyaki dishes (grilled chicken or beef with a spicy Japanese sauce) are the house specialties. The teriyaki chicken wings are a local favorite, as are the generous-size subs. 1936 Ninth St. NW, 202-797-0090.

To describe Oohhs & Aahhs Soul Food Restaurant near Howard University as tiny would be an understatement. There is barely enough space to open the door without bumping into the diners filling the four bar stools at the counter. There is a very narrow hallway beside the open kitchen that leads to a few more seats upstairs. But Oohhs & Aahhs is a carryout at heart, with food that makes its moniker self-evident. Oji Abbott opened the two-year-old restaurant with his girlfriend, India Wilson, for one simple reason: He couldn't find good food. The former security guard went off to culinary school and learned his craft in catering before opening the restaurant, best known for its chicken. Although Abbott will cook other pieces on request, order chicken and you'll get fried chicken wings, meatier than any your mother ever cooked. The potato salad is scrumptious; the yams are too sweet for my taste. Salmon and baked chicken are other popular items. This carryout lives up to its name. 1005 U St. NW, 202-667-7142.

Across town, Wisemiller's Deli caters to the Georgetown University community and is busy day and night. The place is fashioned from two small rowhouses in Georgetown; one has a wall filled with beer cases and the other has the deli kitchen. There is no place to sit. The menu is extensive, with burgers and sandwiches from hot pastrami to a veggie wrap. There are salads and breakfast specials. 1236 36th St. NW, 202-333-8254.

Cafe Olé is a Mediterranean restaurant in the Tenleytown area that specializes in mezze, panini and salads, and anything can be prepared to go. The mezze, small plates not unlike tapas, include grilled calamari, hummus, chicken shawarma (chicken marinated in garlic and zahtar, tossed with pickled turnips and tomato and topped with garlic yogurt and pita chips), spinach and feta tatin (puffed pastry topped with spinach, feta and spices, then baked and served atop a bed of greens) and tabbouleh. More than a dozen items on the menu are vegetarian. 4000 Wisconsin Ave., 202-244-1330,http://www.cafeoledc.com.

Booeymonger is the original Washington signature sandwich shop, in business for more than 30 years. The original is in Georgetown, but the most visible is next to Mazza Gallerie in the Chevy Chase area. The sandwiches have names such as the Patty Hearst (turkey breast, melted provolone with Russian dressing on a baguette) and the Duke (thinly sliced Philly steak, grilled onions, mushrooms, cheddar, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on a baguette). The taste can be as dated as the names, but if you stick to the basics, you'll be rewarded. 5252 Wisconsin Ave., 202-686-5805,http://www.booeymonger.com.

These days, Wagshal's is probably best known as a premier butcher shop. But its sibling, Wagshal's Delicatessen, in the same Spring Valley shopping strip, is a source not only of deli meats and sandwiches but of an impressive collection of dinner courses, frozen and ready to be taken home and heated. The menu changes often, but the regular items include several kinds of quiche, beef lasagna, beef pepper steak, chicken curry, moussaka and veal stew. You can also purchase bread baked by Bonaparte in Savage and superb cakes from the Watergate Pastry. The store has a large selection of beer and wines, too. 4855 Massachusetts Ave., 202-363-5698,http://www.wagshals.com.