bengali in DC

Cuisine that is? Forget it, unless you get an elusive and rare invitation from me for dinner or know Bengali families, the closest you'll come is Brick Lane in London's Aldgate. Buuuuuut ... you could go to Chinatown and check out Burma Restaurant. Yes, the review is written by someone who's never probably had Bangladeshi cuisine so when they described Burmese food, they described it in terms of Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Cambodian food. What they forget is that Myanmar borders Bangladesh (the only other country besides India) and particularly in the seafood dishes, the taste of another drenched water-logged and silty river delta country come to mind. I had the recommended tea leaf salad, which is actually more like a dressing on shredded cabbage, very tasty refreshing, and light. My mother got the fish curry, a salmon steeped in tamarind, ginger, and other spices. We also got some fish broth soup, which I didn't like very much, but my mother claimed it was made from shutki, which is sundried fish (a famous and rather smelly delicacy in Bangladesh). Also there was the coconut cake, which was much like besbusa, another favorite of my family, made from cream of wheat. And this place was cheap! Lunch for my mom and I was less than $25 (both of us, not each). This place gets packed at lunch, recommend going early.