Joe's Burgers

One reviewer says it's the best burger in metropolitan DC after Ray's, but who knows. It's a very good burger, and a very good bun. Fries are good and the sweet potato fries are divine, served with a buttermilk ranch dressing to dip them in -- and they are served hot, straight out of the frier. The BLT is also very tasty, with a layer of ripe avocado added to the traditional ingredients.

Joe's is a cozy little restaurant in McLean, on Old Dominion Drive, just off Chain Bridge Road. It has a bright, freshly painted interior with some old retro signs to give it a whiff of the roadside diner. Burgers are cooked from scratch, so it's not fast food. There are about a dozen different burgers to choose from, including the Millionaire's Foie Gras Burger for $26 with a seared New York foie gras in it, and burgers made of turkey, lamb and ostrich. (My Joe's Classic was $9.50, without cheese but including fries.)

I didn't have any onion rings but probably put on a couple of pounds just watching them go by to other tables -- big, fat rings with puffy crust fresh out of the frier.

The meat for the burgers comes from the Organic Butcher of McLean next door. This is another bright interior with a great butcher case displaying open cuts and some packaged specialties like wild boar shoulder, duck breast and fresh rabbit. They get some beef and regular deliveries of chicken from the Polyface Farm featured so prominently in Michael Pollan's Omnivores Dilemma. Much of the meat is local, they say, though some is not. It's all fairly expensive, of course, with pork chops at $13.99 a pound and steaks above $20 a pound.

It's a little far for us for regular visits. If I was going to venture across the river for a burger, I'd probably just go to Ray's. But a good butcher is hard to find and it is on the way to the Tyson's Corner malls.