When my first reviews as The Washington Post’s new food critic publish in the coming days, they will include something new. Well, really, something old: I’m bringing star ratings back.

My confidence in this decision crystallized during a recent dinner at the Eden Center in Falls Church. As I recited my order at Truong Tien, a cozy Vietnamese restaurant inside one of the shopping center’s sprawling mini malls, it seemed like everything was sold out. I must have looked defeated, but the server was all smiles as she redirected me to one of the restaurant’s specialties, a noodle soup stained red with chiles and full of supple cuts of beef and pork. Sure, I’d have that. When it landed in a steamy haze of lemongrass, she circled back to make sure I had the right spoon for the job, then set off

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