Unexpected Delights

Discovering tasty (and inexpensive) food in three unlikely places

WHEN I INTERVIEWED for this job eight years ago, one of the things I told my bosses-to-be was that I was interested in more than fancy restaurants -- that if I found good food in, say, a bowling alley, I wanted to be able to share the news with readers.

I have yet to find anything worthwhile in a bowling alley. In the past few months, however, I've had the pleasure of finding respectable eats in several places -- a pharmacy, a church basement, a dowager apartment complex -- that aren't a food critic's typical wellsprings for subject matter. Because of their distinctive status, and because I didn't visit each place my usual three times, I'm not tagging my discoveries with star ratings or noise readings. But I wouldn't be doing my duty if I didn't let you in on their charms.

THERE ARE COUNTLESS PERKS associated with living on the grounds of the sprawling Westchester apartment complex in Northwest Washington. Among them are a grocery store, a gym, a barbershop, a library -- even a single-pump gas station. Designed as an eight-building luxury retreat in 1929, the developer's dream was interrupted by the Depression; only four buildings actually made it up. But, in the Westchester's heyday, the apartments housed a who's who of senators, congressmen and Cabinet officials.

The Westchester Restaurant (4000 Cathedral Ave. NW; 202-333-1882), off the lobby of the main building, looks as if it stopped aging in, oh, 1950. Little lamps and fresh roses grace the linen-draped tabletops. Bird prints decorate the walls. The carpet is thick, the ceiling soars, and mirrored columns only add to the expansiveness. The dining room, whose curtained windows look out onto a green lawn, could pass for that on a vintage ocean liner, or at a poor man's Greenbrier.

The menu embraces yesteryear, too. When's the last time you spotted vichys-soise or chopped steak in a restaurant? But there they are, sharing a few pages with fillet of sole, an omelet, eggplant Parmesan and -- baba ghanouj and lamb kebabs? It turns out that the chef, Hakki Muslu, is from Turkey, as is his wife, Ayse, the restaurant's hostess. The bow-tied waiters who deliver your chilled cucumber soup (rich with yogurt and dill) or chopped steak (a patty of ground beef sauced with brown gravy) are Turkish, too.

Several visits have taught me to stick with the kitchen's succulent kebabs and Turkish liver -- thin slices of liver sauteed with oregano, parsley and a hit of cayenne -- and to avoid fish and desserts, which taste tired. There's nothing sleepy about the man behind the meals, though. Muslu, who makes frequent rounds of the tables to chat up his patrons, counts three decades of service under his belt here. He's 67 years old and has no plans to retire (thank goodness).

Lunch entrees $9.50 to $12.50, dinner entrees (including soup or salad, dessert and coffee) $17.50 to $21. Open: lunch Tuesday through Saturday noon to 3 p.m.; dinner Tuesday through Saturday 5 to 9:30 p.m.; continuous service Sunday noon to 9 p.m.

THE SMALL WHITE SIGN touting the lunch special outside Hills Drug Store in Easton looks out of place, especially after I peer through the window and spot only the usual trappings of a drugstore: rows of neatly stacked bottles and packages, a card rack, seniors waiting to have their prescriptions filled. The Soda Fountain at Hills (30 E. Dover St., Easton; 410-822-9751) is tucked away in the back of the longtime, family-run business, with seven stools lined up before an ice cream case topped with fresh cinnamon rolls. A skylight intensifies the sunniness of the tidy, mint-green dining room, which can seat 28 people at a handful of tables and a single booth. Yellowed newspaper clippings shed light on the pharmacy's place in town, and a community bulletin board is kind enough to promote a lunch competitor.

If "Mayberry, R.F.D." ever had a cafe, this would be it.

"Where are you from?" a waitress wants to know after she takes our order. Her tone is friendly and curious; everyone around us -- the mom with the little girl, the elderly man picking up soup to go -- appears to be a regular (good luck finding a seat at high noon). It's easy to understand the devotion. A Hills hamburger, top round beef supported on a terrific French roll, oozes juice and sports a nice char, and its skin-on french fries actually taste like potatoes. Actually, all of the sides I try are class acts. Onion rings the size of coasters show off sweet onions and a delicate tempura-style batter that barely clings to each slice. (One reason the fried potatoes and onions taste so true: Those vegetables are the only things that go into the deep fryer.) The best coleslaw I've had in recent memory -- crunchy, creamy, sweet, fresh -- surfaces here. Chicken marengo, the day's special, is a bit of a snooze, but dessert makes up for it. A malted milkshake is actually two malted milkshakes, counting the tall metal cup of extra shake that shows up, and the ginger cookies hint at a pro at the oven.

That would be Stephen Mangasarian, who won praise for his high-end cooking at the late Restaurant Columbia in Easton and took over the soda fountain -- which has been around in some form since 1928 -- last November, following a months-long makeover. "I wanted to try my hand at classic American food" and re-create "what I remember growing up in the '60s," says the chef, a quality-conscious type who bothers to bake the bread for his grilled cheese sandwiches and whips up rib-stickers such as brisket and lasagna as daily specials.

His good work at Hills tempts me to check out his other business, a deli carryout around the corner called the Lazy Lunch -- which turns out to be the "competitor" highlighted on the soda fountain's bulletin board.