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5027 Wilson Lane, Bethesda, Md.
(301) 657-3383
Hours of Operation and Prices
Lunch: M-F 11:30-2; Entrees: $7-$14
Dinner: Daily 5-10; Entrees: $14-$25
Other Information
• All major credit cards
• Reservations recommended
• Dress casual
• Valet parking (fee) F-Sat
• Handicapped accessible
• For the Rockville branch, which has slightly different hours and provides free parking: Cafe Bethesda North, 121 Congressional Lane, Rockville, Md., (301) 770-3185
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All too often in the restaurant business, one and one add up to less than one. A good restaurant expands to a second location, and neither maintains the original quality. Maybe that's happened with Cafe Bethesda and its offspring, Cafe Bethesda North, in Rockville. At least I've found that the old Cafe Bethesda's food isn't quite up to past standards.
On my most recent visit the grilled chicken was a tad overcooked and its marsala sauce was unappealingly sweet and sticky. The day's special seafood salad was a big mound of boring, underdressed mixed greens with thin, tasteless strips of tuna scattered on top. But there was still much to love. The crab cakes are a vivid arrangement with a tangle of magenta-marinated red cabbage and a scattering of finely diced tomatoes and peppers on a stark white lemon cream. And the creamy crab cakes themselves are unorthodox but delicious, particularly since they are sharpened by the lemon, the cabbage and a few capers. The vegetables served with the entrees give me hope: wonderful lumpy red-skin mashed potatoes, perfectly cooked fine matchsticks of carrot, a few impeccable snow peas.
Still, the food wouldn't carry the day if Cafe Bethesda's service were less endearing. And on a sunny afternoon, surrounded by flower-laden window boxes and potted flowering trees under a flowered umbrella, a meal at Cafe Bethesda is as scrumptious as a Monet, no matter what is being served.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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