RSSNew grill in Reston featuring kebabs, wraps shows promise
Naveed Ahman likes to explain how he happened to open Roti Grill at Reston's Lake Anne Plaza: He wanted to show his 4-year-old daughter the Potomac River, but without his GPS, he got lost and showed her Lake Anne instead. It was a fortuitous change. She liked Lake Anne and thought it would be a good place for the restaurants her parents dreamed of.
As it turned out, there was a restaurant space available. With sunshine yellow paint, new pale blue, white and red contemporary tables and chairs, and flower prints on the walls, the place was transformed into what is now Roti Grill.
By any measure, Roti Grill is still a work in progress, but judging by the food that comes out of the kitchen, it is a work worth watching. The menu is still spare because Ahman and his wife, who do the cooking, wisely wanted to perfect the staples before adding to the menu.
Only a couple of weeks into the venture, the menu now offers a steak wrap ($6) and a chicken wrap ($5), featuring tender chunks of meat encased in a puffy flatbread, with tomatoes, onions and sauce. Each wrap is substantial enough to feed two.
For now, other options include a tandoori chicken kebab, a chicken tikka kebab, and lamb and steak tikka kebabs. The meat has been marinated with spices such as turmeric, typical of the Indian subcontinent, to achieve a distinctive, mildly spicy flavor with just a bit of zip. The kebab chunks are served on a bed of rice with sides such as a helping of chickpeas or spinach with potatoes.
A chaargha chicken is marinated with tandoori spices and herbs and rotisserie-roasted is also available for $12.
As a fringe benefit, homemade soup -- chicken vegetable one day last week -- is made fresh daily.
In the future, Ahman plans to add pakoras and samosas, vegetable kebabs, and other dishes from his native Pakistan, and to make his own nan bread in the tandoori oven.
The grill's Web site explains the inspirations for the fledgling restaurant. The Ahmans and their friends wanted a restaurant that was "a smart, comfortable space, friendly service with fantastic food," a place where food was freshly prepared, healthy, natural, tasty, nutritious -- and reasonably priced.