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When Ted Moon has a hankering for noodles, he makes the 40-minute trek from his Fairfax, Va., home to Da Rae Won, a Korean-style Chinese restaurant tucked in the corner of a rundown strip mall off of Route 1 in Beltsville.

Moon, 44, heard about the restaurant from relatives who live in Columbia. For Washington, D.C.-area foodies living in the District, Montgomery County, or — as in Moon's case — Northern Virginia, Prince George's County doesn't always come to mind when making restaurant selections.

"I don't really think of it as a great bastion of dining and so going to a nice gem of a place there was really neat," he said.

Prince George's County is home to hundreds of eateries, but Hyattsville resident Todd Kliman, a restaurant reviewer and food and wine editor for Washingtonian Magazine, said the abundance of chain restaurants means diners who live elsewhere around the region tend to see little reason to make the trip.

"The places that we write about are places that have something to bring people in ... something that's worth getting in your car for," said Kliman, who grew up in the Greenbelt area and said he jumps at any opportunity to review a hometown spot.

Like Da Rae Won, which Kliman recommended for its authentic, handmade noodles, there are several restaurants that have extended their reach beyond the county line.

American University law student Ashlee Hodge, a Texas native, said she drives 45 minutes to KBQ Real Barbeque in Bowie when she gets a craving for "legit" barbeque. She said she read about the restaurant, which opened in late 2007, on several area food blogs.

Hodge said she'd never visited Prince George's County before she made her first trip to KBQ this summer but said she hopes to go back soon.

"I thought KBQ put so much thought into every single thing in their menu," she said. "It was all really legit."

Boris Zilberman, 26, of Alexandria, and Adam Muhlendorf, 30, of the District, who run a food blog called Beltway BBQ, said KBQ not only brought both of them into Prince George's County for the first time when they first went in 2008, but has become their go-to spot for barbeque.

"Anytime anyone has ever approached me and said, ‘You eat a lot of barbeque, you fancy yourself a barbeque expert, where can I go?' The first place I tell them is KBQ," Zilberman said.

Owner Kerry Britt, a Bowie resident, said he is seeing a slow but definitive increase in "mom-and-pop" restaurants. Britt owns the restaurant with his wife and sister-in-law, who helped him develop the recipes.

"People won't necessarily travel for pizza or Chinese or chicken wings, but people will travel for good barbeque," he said. "It's something that once they get hooked, they know that that's where they need to go and they will cross over everybody else to get to that place."

Sharmika Bennett knows firsthand the lengths one will go for a favorite meal. The Martinsburg, W.V., resident drives almost two hours to get her sweet potato pie fix at Henry's Soul Café in Oxon Hill. Bennett, 30, fell in love with Henry's food when she used to live in Suitland. She said that because she still works and has family in the county, she'll visit Henry's a few times a week, but added that she has made the trek on several occasions just to visit the restaurant.

"I would recommend everything [on the menu]," she said. "When Henry's did come around, it was like, ‘Wow, we have new food.' It's a different food and different scenery [from chains]."

Henry's flagship location in Washington, D.C., has been a soul food mainstay since 1968, according to president and co-owner Jermaine Smith. Smith said the Oxon Hill location quickly attracted loyal customers from around the region and from cities up and down the east coast.

"The people that travel, they'll say, ‘Whenever we go down 95, or up north, we're stopping at Exit 3,'" Smith said, referring to the closest exit off Interstate 95 to the restaurant.

Smith said he also believes the migration of District residents into Prince George's County over the last few decades helped spread word-of-mouth throughout the region about the location in Oxon Hill.

Da Rae Won manager Inyoung Choe said she is shocked when out-of-towners and non-Koreans come to her restaurant, since Da Rae Won does not advertise or even have a website. She said she thinks one possible reason for the restaurant's growing popularity is its handmade noodles. It takes at least a year to teach chefs the noodle-making techniques that are done by machine at most other restaurants, she said. The sound of noodles banging against a table in the kitchen carries out into the dining room.

"I'm surprised non-Koreans come," Choe said. "I'm very proud about that. They know the taste."

ztillman@gazette.net

Da Rae Won

Type of food: Korean/Chinese

Location: 5013 Garrett

Avenue, Beltsville

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Monday, Wednesday through Friday; Noon to 10 p.m.

Sunday. Closed Tuesday.

Information: 301-931-7878

KBQ Real Barbeque

Type of food: Barbecue

Location: 12500 Fairwood

Parkway, Bowie

Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Information: 301-352-8111

www.kbqrealbarbeque.com

Henry's Soul Cafe

Type of food: Soul food

Location: 5431 Indian Head Highway, Oxon Hill

Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday; 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.

Information: 301-749-6856

www.henryssoulcafe.com