Food Factory

As everyone else has noted, the front door is difficult to find. However, you can now walk through their adjoining bar's front door to get to the main restaurant portion in the back. At the time of writing, they had just opened back up since renovating (adding the bar). The bar's and main restaurant's atmosphere oddly clash, in my opinion.

I'm not sure if this is new, but there is a secluded, full service dining area in the back with comfortable lounge furniture and pillows. This might be a cozy, yet affordable place to have an intimate party.

The food is fantastic. These guys really know how to flavor their Middle Eastern and Indian dishes. The buffet offers a large variety and all-you-can-eat naan. Daily specials are good, too, if you're looking to save a couple of bucks.

The small dining tables are beautiful and look expensive.

I'd give this place four stars for the food, but the addition of the loud, obnoxious bar towards Fairfax makes me feel like the place is now less intimate.

I wouldn't come here with a date, unless I could rent out the entire place for the night. I will come back for the food, though.

Absolutely outstanding kabobs and naan.

After you find the door in the alley out back, you order at the counter and they cook your kabob and naan fresh, right then and there. The meats are well trimmed, juicy and amazingly flavorful. The naan is light, fluffy and a perfect complement to the meat, creating an ample meal for lunch or light dinner.

To preface, I often viewed Food Factory with a degree of suspicion, as it was attached to a bar I avoid like the plague. During this past football season, I witnessed a fist fight spill out from that bar into the streets while I procured a delicious post-game slice from neighboring Pizza Roma.....Anyway, my quest for good kebob and curry overpowered my security precautions and I recently found myself enjoying the buffet on a weekeday lunch.

This place offers a well-priced, incredibly delicious variety of good eats. The circa 7 dollar buffet features succulent South Asian favorites including lamb, eggplant (!!!), chickpea dishes, which were flavorful and spicy.

My two qualms: 1) the naan for the buffet (at the bottom of the basket) was probably sitting out too long. 2) while it was but 11am, the lights were debaucherously dimmed 12 hours ahead of schedule. May not bother others, but us Daywalkers enjoy any sun/light we can get.

As I left, I discovered why the food was so good....out of the corner of my eye, near the cash register, I saw it...proudly-placed but by no means in-your-face...a small Afghan flag. :)

An inexpensive and convenient indian buffet renovated with plasma tvs. The food is nothing special but they have about 4-5 selections to choose from each day. Good for a work lunch or if you are craving a indian food and don't want to wait but I wouldn't recommend it as a regular outing. There are too many other good spots in the area.

Not aptly named. I'm not really sure of the origin, but this no-frills counter service " place is always hopping. I was first introduced to this place about 8 years ago when a co-worker dragged me along. Had she not taken me here I would have never found it on my own (you know the saying location! location! location! - well they don't). The charcoal-grilled chicken tikka kebabs (order extra sauce) and naan are keepers. People watching is great here (so is eavesdropping - which you really can't help but do). Kebabs come in meat and lamb and there are PLENTY of vegetarian options too. I hear the samosas are really good, but I haven't tried them yet; I was skeptical since they are about a buck a piece. Thanks, Missy!

The Food Factory has changed. There's now a bar where I was afraid to bring in alcohol in a brown paper bag for fear of jihad. So It's anybody's guess where this ends up. So the stuff in ()s below reflects the new.

Now if you are looking for fine dining go elsewhere. So why the 5 stars?

What it doesn't have: Atmosphere - none, zero, nada, zilch; most MacDonald's and Burger Kings have nicer decor. (It's now a bit nicer than that, and a waitress in high heels came in at 5 or so) High prices - it's flat out cheap for what you get. (still cheap) Alcohol - none (I got a Guiness with my kabob, a cross cultural winner if you ask me).

What it does have: Great kabobs. I personally like the "boneless chicken" which comes with a big hunk of Naan (which may have been baked as the chicken cooked) and a dollop of yogurt and some lettuce. Simple heaven. There's lamb etc as well. Some get the somosas and other stuff, and I would as well if there weren't a bunch of better kabobs to attend to.

Some find the place a bit, err, "ethnic". (Not so much, anymore)

Important tips: you may want to order "spicy", the default seems not. I like a bottle of my favorite wine with the kabobs, but that means a paper bag or take out.

Its one of my DC area cheap eats trifectas. (Better still, now)

Despite the weird name, this is the place to go if you want KABOBS. You could dine-in, but the point here is to order to go (so it helps if you live in Arlington). They have really tasty beef, marinated lamb, and chicken kabobs, the BEST naan bread, and you get a lot of food for the money--it's pretty cheap! It's bare-bones basic service though--you order at the counter and wait for your name to be called after the kabob has been grilled and ready for pickup. Note: you could easily walk right past this place and not notice it--located in the alley behind the Hunan Gate restaurant. A quick walk from the Ballston metro, and they have a small parking lot too.

The first day I started my work at Arlington, I was introduced to this place for lunch. Ordered Buffet which was for 7.99 plus tax. I must have liked the food that I could take two full plate servings and almost finish the second plate. What I did not like is there is nothing Indian about the food.

OK - this place has changed considerably from the great kebab place it used to be. Changes had been occurring over a long period of time but the most recent has also been the most problematic.

As you can read from earlier reviews, the Food Factory was once a great bare-bones kabob (kebab, kabab - spelling it as you wish) house. Prior to the arrival of Charcoal Kabab in Herndon some years ago, this offered the best naan and best kabob in the area (in no small part because it was among the first to offer proper charcoal cooking and tandoori-baked bread. One used to actually pick one's skewer to be grilled from the cold case that you passed on the way to the register and eat off of paper plates with plasticware as one would in a cafeteria. One could also shop for halal meats, south asian spices, etc. in the adjoining mini-grocery.

A few months ago, the final(?) renovation took place and I was a bit taken aback by the changes as I walked in recently. Food factory is now a sports bar (flat screens everywhere, proper tables, bartenders, etc.) that seems to sell more hot wings than kabobs. The halal market has been turned into a hookah lounge. It loooks nicer, of course, but that is not what I went there for (there are plenty of decent looking sports bars in Arlington). The really sad thing, though, is that the food is no longer worth buying.

When I opened my take-out box (about half of the time I would eat in and half of the time I went there for take-out), I immediately noted two things: the chapli kabob (spiced meat patty) and the rice looked different. The former was smaller and overcooked; when eating it, I concluded that they must have gone to frozen, pre-formed, mass-produced patties from a wholesaler -- I have received nearly the exact same thing from what should be termed faux-kabob houses and the over-crisped outside, mealy inside and lack of flavor was a dead giveaway. The latter, instead of being basmati with saffron, was, basically, Uncle Ben's with food coloring. I had also ordered the lamb kabob (to split the dishes) -- poor quality here as well (gristly, with less flavor than before). The scrap of iceberg lettuce was there but there were no chick peas on the side (I can't remember if this used to be standard or not). The bread was still ok (the tandoori oven was still there) but I can't possibly recommend the place now based solely on that.

I think the positive reviews by Drew S. and Paul M. were based on their experiences at the restaurant prior to the changes; others were written before the overhaul. Perhaps the location in College Park, being in a lower-rent area, has been preserved as it was -- fresh meats, bare-bones decor, excellent flavor. If not, it is sad that a DC-area original has, in essence, passed on.

get the boneless chicken tikka kabob with extra cucumber sauce. that's all you need to know