Posts Tagged ‘Four Sisters’
Seeking Nominees for City Paper’s Inaugural D.C. Dish Hall of Fame
The Margherita at 2Amys: Does it make the cut?
Earlier this week, I was noshing on the roast chicken at Palena Cafe, reveling once again in Frank Ruta’s ability to add and coax flavors from this generous, succulent portion of breast, wing, and leg meat. That’s when the thought struck me: This is, hands-down, one of the area’s greatest dishes. It deserves a spot in some sort of local culinary hall of fame.
The roast chicken is an obvious one, but what other dishes would make the cut? I’ve been pondering this and have drafted a number of nominees. The list is, by no means, complete. It needs your suggestions.
Once we get a solid roster of nominees, we’ll put them to a public vote here on the Y&H blog. The top 10 vote getters will go into the City Paper’s inaugural D.C. Dish Hall of Fame. Winners will receive everlasting glory.
The working list of nominees:
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Young & Hungry Dining Guide by the Day: Four Sisters
Chef Hoa Lai of Four Sisters
One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.
The members of the Lai family have understood one thing better than any other Vietnamese restaurateur: They’re not in Vietnam anymore. So while their institution’s initial success was based on its ability to appeal to transplanted Vietnamese at the Eden Center, the restaurant has shown an ability to adapt to its adopted country. I don’t mean to imply that chef Hoa Lai has sold out Vietnam’s cuisine to cater to the American palate, because he hasn’t. But the Lai family hails from South Vietnam, an area that has two distinct advantages in competing in the American marketplace: It prefers sweet-and-sour flavors over the chile heat of central Vietnam or the hard saltiness of the north, and the region has shown a historical willingness to adopt outside influences. The Lai family has carried on that tradition well, whether emphasizing the fruits and sugars that play to America’s sweet tooth or dropping the odder ingredients that don’t play at all in the United States. Now, the family has built a new restaurant outside of the Eden Center, a gorgeous space full of dark woods and yellow hues, designed to recall the French colonial period in Vietnam. With this, and its other moves large and small, the Lai family has put Vietnamese food squarely in the American mainstream, and it looks great there.
Addendum: To learn more about the Lai family’s rise to prominence, read my cover story, Exit from Eden.
Four Sisters, 8190 Strawberry Lane, Suite 1, Falls Church, Va., (703) 539-8566
Photo by Darrow Montgomery
Garden Rolls Are Porking Out
The pork-laden product at Pho 14
Salad or garden rolls, not to be confused by their deep-fried cousin, the spring roll, have always been one of my favorite Vietnamese appetizers. These gorgeous, transparent cylinders of rice paper come stuffed with a jungle of rice vermicelli, thin strips of pork, crispy lettuce, bright orange curls of shrimp, and light, refreshing leaves of mint, cilantro, and Thai basil (or some variation on the herbs). When dipped in a “peanut” sauce — which, more accurately, should be a cooked-down hoisin sauce with chopped peanuts as a garnish — garden rolls may be my definition of the perfect bite.
They’re meaty, nutty, cool, light, crunchy, fragrant, and gummy in the best way possible. Plus, you eat them with your hands, giving you the soft, tactile immediacy that’s often missing in utensil-driven food.
But the key to a great garden roll, for me at least, is balance. Each ingredient must know its place — like a worker in a Socialist production collective — and never try to dominate the others.
Lately, however, I’ve noticed that garden-roll makers at the new Vietnamese outlets in D.C. — specifically Saigon Bistro near Dupont Circle and Pho 14 in Columbia Heights — have taken to overstuffing their appetizers with pork. Far from giving you more meat for your money, this piggy indulgence merely disturbs the delicate balance of a garden roll. The dry, bland flavors of boiled (or maybe roasted) pork dominate in the most unpleasant way.
