From my front door, the trip to Tasty 68 in Damascus takes about an hour, or even longer, should I decide to stop for coffee or just pull over for the night at the nearest bed-and-breakfast. It’s a long trek, one that I wouldn’t normally risk without an endorsement from someone whose tastes I trust. But I had spotted this curious photo of Tasty 68’s menu on its Yelp page.
The takeout menu declared that chef Jinsong Xie won the Best Sichuan Chef Competition in 1996. “He worked at some of the most acclaimed restaurants in China, including the historical five-star Jinjiang Hotel in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan,” it continued.
I didn’t have much of a clue what any of this meant, but it was enticement enough to get behind the steering wheel of my car and drive north to the upper reaches of Montgomery County. I found Tasty 68 tucked into a corner of a strip center, which also hosts a gun shop, a CBD dispensary, a State Farm agent, a salon and a mixed martial arts studio (motto: “Leave egos & excuses at the door”). The local water tower looms over the center, looking like a Funko Pop! figurine painted in Damascus High School’s colors.
Tasty 68 has not returned to indoor dining, so when I first arrived, my path into the main room was blocked by a pair of tables. A woman behind the counter, on the other side of the dining room, asked me what I wanted. We had to speak, as my colleague Tom Sietsema might say, “with a raised voice.” I ordered the Chengdu fish fillet and some scallion pancakes.
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With no table at which to dig into my meal, I retreated to the car and pulled out my steering-wheel tray table for the spread. The silken slices of flounder in my Chengdu fish fillet were buried at the bottom of a quart container, under a forest floor of dried Chinese peppers and red and green Sichuan peppercorn husks. I had to use the empty side of a clamshell container to compose an entree of rice and fish. The ivory fillets were almost creamy, coated not just in chile oil but in what tasted like doubanjiang, a spicy fermented bean sauce. The slippery fillets were piquant. They smelled of pine needles and green tea. They made my palate hum with the unmistakably sour and metallic notes of Sichuan peppercorns.
I knew right then I had to learn more about chef Xie.
This turned out to be easier said than done. I speak no Chinese dialects and Xie didn’t feel comfortable enough with his English to conduct an interview without an interpreter. I drafted May Kuang for the task. You may know her as the face and co-owner of Great Wall Szechuan House on 14th Street NW, where her husband, Yuan Chen, is a master chef from Chengdu. Kuang didn’t want me to reveal any of her or her husband’s background until after the interview. She feared it might intimidate Xie.
Sitting in his empty dining room one morning, Xie cut a figure much younger than his 53 years. Tall and slender, outfitted in a Spyder fleece jacket and jeans, Xie said he opened Tasty 68 seven years ago after emigrating from China in 2002 and kicking around restaurants in Maryland, West Virginia and the District. He picked Damascus as his base of operations because the rents are cheaper and the competition not as fierce as in D.C. proper.
Xie, it turns out, is not a master Sichuan chef, but he studied under one for more than 10 years at the Jinjiang Hotel, the historic property famous for hosting foreign dignitaries, including numerous presidents from around the globe. Lu Chaohua, one of China’s most revered chefs, plucked Xie from obscurity and put him to work in the kitchens at Jinjiang, teaching the young cook everything he knows. It was a decade-long apprenticeship that shaped Xie as a chef.
The best way to tap into Xie’s experience is to order from the “chef’s special” and “classic Chengdu cuisine” sections of the menu. I’ve eaten my way through many, if not most, of the dishes under those categories and have found much to admire: cumin lamb, light on spice, but more tender than the jerky-like preparations found at other spots; Chengdu spicy chicken, these breaded nuggets whose heat is secondary to the savory scorch marks left by the hot pan, a cooking reaction known as “wok hei”; spicy crispy fish, a pile of battered-and-fried flounder fillets whose heat releases ancillary fumes, a garlicky aroma that perfumes every bite.
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But I’ve also sampled enough dishes to spot a pattern: Sichuan dishes that were skimpy on mala, the cuisine’s celebrated numbing and spicy qualities, or even just the la, the heat so characteristic of the province’s cooking. I ordered mapo tofu in which the chile oil lacked the expected fireworks. I tried an entree of double-cooked pork in which the pork belly had been stir-fried with bell peppers rather than long hot ones. Even the Chengdu squid with spicy salt and hot peppers — a name that telegraphs its intentions — escalated its heat slowly, bite after bite, instead of blasting its way to my heart.
During our sit-down, I asked Xie about his approach to Sichuan cooking in Damascus. I wondered if he toned it down for those unfamiliar with the cuisine, reserving the real pyrotechnics for the Chinese American customers who make their way to Tasty 68. He reassured me that he prepares his signature dishes the same for everyone. But later I talked to an employee who told me the locals, generally speaking, stick to General Tso’s chicken, orange chicken, beef and broccoli and other Chinese American carryout staples.
Which made me think of an alternative theory: Does Xie, more or less, pull his punches across the board, unconsciously catering to the community where he has planted his flag? I can’t answer that, but I do know one way to take advantage of Xie’s skills. Request the kitchen prepare your Sichuan dishes extra spicy. Or, better yet, don’t order ahead and just talk to the employees behind the counter. Tell them that you want the real thing, Sichuan dishes as Xie would prepare them in Chengdu.
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I did just that one afternoon at Tasty 68. I was rewarded with a mapo tofu that was conversant in the lip-tingling language of mala. But the real gift was my order of sliced fish in fiery sauce. My flounder fillets were slathered in a dark paste, concocted with ungodly amounts of red chiles, Sichuan peppercorns, fermented beans and more, the pepper seeds sitting atop the mixture like highway caution signs. Two bites in, and I started to feel it: The chile heat igniting my head like a furnace, the sour electricity of the Sichuan peppercorns racing down my jawline.
This was it. This was why I drove an hour to Damascus.
Tasty 68
26131 Ridge Road, Damascus, Md.; 301-391-6138 or 301-391-6139; tasty68.com.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday; noon to 9:30 p.m. Sunday.
Prices: $1 to $19.99 for all items on the menu.
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