The holy Muslim holiday of Ramadan continues until April 9, and each day after sunset, some D.C.-area restaurants will be offering fixed-price menus to cap a day of fasting with iftar meals.
“When they start the iftar, we must have juice, something with sugar,” said Dina Daniel, owner and chef of Fava Pot, whose iftar fixed-price, five-course meal is $55.
Daniel said those observing Ramadan often break their fast with dates, then soup to warm the stomach.
“They have to have a good amount of protein. So you don’t find one kind of protein in any iftar menu, you find at least two kinds of protein,” Daniel said.
Iftar meals also usually include stewed okra, stewed veal and pasta, then Egyptian or Middle Eastern sweets and black tea and Egyptian coffee. The restaurant is also serving meals a la carte.
Daniel began serving Egyptian food from a truck two decades ago, and now she dishes up her homestyle meals at her restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia, and at a fast-casual spot in the D.C. neighborhood Dupont Circle.
“This is what we do. We don’t buy anything from the shelf. Even the bread we bake is our own bread — everything made from scratch, as my mom and my grandma used to cook,” Daniel said. “We prepare our own ghee. We don’t use butter to cook. We prepare purified butter, which is ghee, and we use it for cooking. The fava beans take 12 hours to be cooked. I don’t have a microwave In the restaurant.”
The fava beans are cooked the old fashioned way — simmered in a big copper pot.
“Fava Pot is the only restaurant that is cooking in its original pot, an Egyptian pot, and cooking it overnight. So I … put it on the stove at 9 p.m. It is ready at 9 a.m. and we serve it all day. We have it on a very low flame so it is warm all day and we serve it all day,” Daniel said.
Daniel, who is from Cairo, started out working for a nonprofit organization in D.C. in 2004 before launching her food enterprise.
“It was a dream to put Egyptian cuisine on the map,” Daniel said. “I couldn’t find one single Egyptian restaurant in the area.”
But she posits that iftar is not a Muslim-only meal.
“What is interesting about Ramadan, especially in Egypt, I considered it a feast, gathering all backgrounds. I’m Christian. I’m not Muslim. And I used to celebrate Ramadan with all my Muslim friends at their table,” Daniel said.
In the melting pot of Northern Virginia, iftar at Fava Pot is often shared between Muslims and Christians, sometimes with Christians inviting their Muslim friends to dinner.
“It’s a month that stands out. And you feel warmth and love in this month,” Daniel said.
Other restaurants offering iftar fixed-price menus include ilili, a Lebanese restaurant at D.C.’s Wharf; Villa Yara, a Lebanese restaurant in Georgetown; Lapis, an Afghan restaurant in Adams Morgan and Ottoman Taverna, a Turkish restaurant near Mount Vernon Triangle, according to Eater D.C.
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