Every year around the end of December and beginning of January, we start to see slogans boasting something like, “New Year, New You!” The actual products being advertised are always different. The words might be attached to a billboard boasting discount membership rates at the gym, or they might be declaring a big sale at your local department store, but the underlying concept is the same: This is the time to reinvent yourself. In with the new, out with the old.

Asian Recipes, a newly opened restaurant in Merrifalls Plaza, joins several similar restaurants in the Falls Church area marked by a miles-long list of Chinese cuisine, carry-out and delivery options, and affordable prices. But at this new restaurant the familiar is done well, and sometimes even gives way to a few surprises. The result may make Asian Recipes a new favorite takeout spot for those looking to satisfy Chinese food cravings.

At the food court outside the AMC Theaters in the Tysons Corner mall where the movie version of the hit musical, “Les Miserables,” opened on Christmas, over a dozen members