My post-grad-school eating spree
DND Edition Seven: Hannah is FREE!
Long time no see!
First, an apology: I’m sure you’ve been refreshing your email every fourteen seconds since last Sunday, jittery and confused, waiting for the next DND to be delivered. I wish I had a better excuse for neglecting my public like this. Unfortunately, between finishing up my year of grad school and celebrating said completed year of grad school, I didn’t have the time to write up many meals. As atonement, in this newsletter I’m offering up even more content than ever before (gulp), starting with my biggest recommendation of all time: the Eden Center.
The Eden Center
Two weeks ago, my friend Izzi brought me to a hot pot spot that she thought I would like which happened to be located right outside the Eden Center. With a 45-minute wait in front of us, we decided to explore, and as we turned the corner, a beautiful sight unfolded in front of us: so many shops in so many languages, so much cheery light on a dreary day.
The Eden Center is a Vietnamese shopping mall located in Falls Church, with more restaurants than could possibly be financially viable cuddled up next to various small businesses selling everything from shiny bric-a-brac to massages. Their website boasts that the complex holds over 120 stores. This curious piece of real estate exists as an indirect result of the war in Vietnam; in the aftermath, an estimated 20,000 Vietnamese refugees found a new home in Virginia. That new Vietnamese population had a brief stint owning a department store in Clarendon which was dubbed “Little Saigon” by those in the know, but they were pushed out soon after by rent inflation. So it was that almost ten years after the end of the war, in 1984, the community picked up and moved yet again, banding together to purchase the Center. Eden was originally founded by Vietnamese-Americans, but expats from other Asian countries have recently begun filling vacant storefronts, and the mall is currently host to many cultures.
Dazzled by neon and the number of options at our fingertips, we first chose to pop into a bao bun seller’s store, and then realized that if we exited through the back, there was a whole hidden corridor to other shops. There, we opened the door to a billiards parlor and literal smoke wafted out, like something out of film noir. Inside, we saw dozens of men under fluorescent light, arguing and chain smoking. We closed the door.
I’m not the only one who loves the Eden Center; it is, after all, the number one gathering spot for the Vietnamese community on the American East Coast. Once upon a (better) time, even the king himself paid a visit.
Bourdain at the Eden Center in 2009. Source: TripAdvisor.
So it’s clear that the Eden Center is not kept secret from the masses. Yet I was dismayed to see that on a Saturday at 7pm, the Eden Center was totally dead: despite the number of open restaurants, there was no bustle anywhere but the billiards hall.
While we waited for our hot pot, I decided to try some bubble tea from a place called TeaDM, which specializes in bubble tea with an EDM twist. (Why? Unclear.) I did a deep-dive into this place and the more I found out, the more obsessed I became. Read all I could unearth about the two unrelated EDM-themed bubble tea shops owned by two men with the same last name here.
When we finally got seated at Happy Lamb Hot Pot, it was phenomenal, which only added to my general delight over the Eden Center. Read all my tips for what to add to your broth here.
Finally, if you take nothing else away from this newsletter today, my hope is that you pay a visit to the Center. The name “Eden” may come from a now-closed shopping mall in Saigon, but it’s a pretty apt description of this little slice of the world, too: it’s a culinary haven, a worthwhile day trip, and a historical landmark all mixed into one. This might just be my Michelin Guide pretensions popping out, but I think it’s well worth a day trip.
Okay, enough, back to DC
I went to i Ricchi in DuPont Circle with my grandparents for Mother’s Day. I particularly loved taking pictures of all the old people sitting around in the faux-glamour of this room. Read about the drabbest yet poshest restaurant I’ve ever been to in America here.
Some other places I’ve eaten recently without writing an article:
The Grill from Ipanema (Adams Morgan): For me, this place started off with +5 points immediately because of the goofy name. It was pricier than I wanted it to be, but I ordered seafood stew, so that was kind of on me. Luckily I saved half of my dish and had it for lunch the next day. (Yes, I was nauseous for hours afterwards, but I’m letting the Grill from Ipanema off the hook because, again, that was probably my own faulty decision-making.)
Doi Moi (14th St): I tried my first daiquiri!!! Those who know me know that this is growth. It was watermelon-flavored, and altogether pretty unobjectionable. I would recommend the happy hour—as anybody who has ever walked down 14th street can attest, they have $7 daiquiris before 7 pm, 7 days a week. I would not recommend the drunken chicken banh mi, which was well-flavored, but overcooked.
Some NYC business as well…
As part of my celebration, I also went to NYC, where I had the chance to eat at some new and old places. Here’s a brief summary of where I went and why:
Cafe Mogador (Ukrainian Village): I got the Moroccan Benedict, which was kinda jazzy: they substituted a tomato-based, shakshuka-esque sauce for the classic Benedict ham. It was yummy, but I don’t think I’m going to return to Cafe Mogador, because there were a bunch of fratty guys in baseball hats and henley shirts sitting at a table near us—a universal sign that a restaurant is run through. See more coverage of what we ate on my friend Gillian’s food Instagram, @gillymmmmmyummy.
Long Island Bar (Cobble Hill): This bar-slash-diner is right near where I plan to move when I get back to Brooklyn, so I was excited to try it out. The place has a real history, dating all the way back to 1951, when it was still owned and operated by a woman named Emma Sullivan. You can feel that history in every inch of the place, from the period-appropriate diner booths to the cigarette burns that Sullivan’s husband left on the wooden bar when he was taking care of guests. I love a place with a short menu—it always makes me think about the benefits of limiting your pool of options, both in eating and in dating. My spicy chicken sandwich was unremarkable, but the atmosphere was great.
Olde Brooklyn Bagel Shoppe (Prospect Heights): My mom gets twelve bagels delivered from here every single week, eats one half-bagel in the morning for breakfast each day, and sometimes has another half for dessert—they’re THAT good. In my household growing up, failing to properly reseal the Ziploc bag of bagels we kept in the freezer was the only thing guaranteed to get you in trouble. A trip to Brooklyn would simply not be complete without touching base at our family’s Mecca.
Okay, that’s it: my roundup of the past three weeks of eating. I’ll get out of your hair/inbox now. My final plug is that if you’re a teacher and looking for a funky new unit, or maybe you know a teacher who could use a funky new unit, you should check out my TpT store, where I just posted this semester’s big project: a UbD unit plan interrogating the idea of making it out of your own community. It’s my get-financially-stable-quick scheme of the moment, and a real labor of love.
Sending even more love your way….
Hannah