Chinese restaurants

They're everywhere. And this is not a restaurant review web site. These are some of the places the Chinese eat at.

Joe's Noodle House, 1488-C Rockville Pike, 301 881 55, is a formica-tabled cafe serving such challenges as ducks' tongues on an amazingly wide-ranging authentic Chinese menu with plenty of less challenging dishes for the faint hearted, served up to an almost exclusively Oriental clientele. (When we put our , for us, adventurous order in, the chef slid his head round the door to observe the first foreigners who had ordered what we chose. We were honor bound to slip what we couldn't finish into our paper napkins and sneak it away. But actually only half our ducks' tongues found their way into the trashcan because there had been just too many of them...)

A & J Restaurant in the North Congretional Plaza almost at the top of the Rockville Pike is an amazing bargain in surroundings fancy enough to take a date who isn't anxious for formality (there's no linen, no wine list). But you get excellent and unusual dim sum, soups and noodles. $20 fills two very greedy people.

If you want to eat like the Chinese, try The Blue Diamond, 1915 18th Street NW, go after 8 p.m. and don't look at the menu - ask George to cook something for you.

Yuan Fu, 798 Rockville Pike, 301 762 5938, serves Chinese vegetarian food.

The Vegetable Garden, 11618 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 301 468 9301, has a wholly vegan kitchen.

Mr Chen's Organic Chinese Cuisine is a small, competitively-priced Woodley Park dining room with carry-out at 2604 Connecticut Ave NW, 202 797 9668.

The Royal Dragon, 4840 Boiling Brook Pkwy, Rockville, 301 468 1922, keeps Kosher.

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