Four Sisters (Falls Church, 1/11/09) - Phở Que

Tucked away in the utter mess that is the Falls Church "Seven Corners" area is a sight unlike almost anywhere else in the country. There, I'm sure off some incarnation of the ubiquitous Glebe Road, is the Eden Center - an all-Vietnamese shopping district to which members of the community flock from far away. Speaking from the perspective of a white, Jewish dude from the Baltimore suburbs, it's weird. Nothing is in English, most of the wares available for sale have uses to which I'm not privvy, and I think that they have the neon market cornered. It is a little dreamland -fairytale, really - of weird letters, spooky dolls, interesting haircut options and awesome, awesome food.

An unlikely candidate for all-Vietnamese anything, I was first taken here by J's brother and girlfriend who insisted that this was the place for Phở. Pronounced "fuh," Phở is a very basic soup, composed mainly of chicken (in the case of Phở Na, my favorite), rice noodles and broth. It is traditionally served with a few accoutrements on the side - lime, basil, bean sprouts, hoisen sauce and, the most important, siracha - Asian chili garlic sauce. Over the last two years, J and I have fallen in love with Phở. It is healthy, filling and soul-warming - an especially important combination in these winter months. Add some garden rolls and a little bar-b-qued pork and you've got yourself a nice little Saturday.

The Eden Center offers a number of different Phở options, but, for many years, the Four Sisters restaurant had the champion. Cheesy and plastic, this place was teaming with Vietnamese families looking for authentic cuisine and slurping this stuff up by the gallon. J and I have gone on a number of occasions - each time making sure to bring a native speaker along to do all the ordering for us. It felt as thought the dream would last forever, but as these fairy tales go, something evil was afoot.

It seems that the proprietors of Four Sisters decided that they had outgrown Little Saigon and wanted to crossover into the "mainstream." So they packed their stuff and moved to another, let's be nice and call it "less charming," part of Falls Church - right across from the multiplex cinema and next to the pottery store. J and I had heard that they had "expanded," so after a gathering at a friend's house in the area, we hit up the new digs in search of the Phở we had grown to love so dearly.

I will say this - the food remains excellent. We had, as you can see, an order of the garden rolls, big bowls of Phở, and some bbq. It all had the same great, unique flavors, hitting every note. But something is truly amiss at the new location. It's just....tooo.......nice. The floors are stone, and a big flat screen tv flashes blinding lights from behind the bar. There are bottles of wine displayed (albeit, crap wine) and a really nice bathroom. Gone are the jade-colored, plastic chairs and rickety tables. Even the famous painting of the four sisters, which was displayed so prominently in the old location, has now been relegated to a spot on a wall that you really need to seek out to see.

And, not surprisingly, the throngs of Vietnamese families who waited impatiently at the old place had not followed. This really scares me. Those who don't know the food won't hold this place to the standards it once had to meet in order to be the best at the Eden Center. People will flock to this place, ask the waiter what they should order, and leave thinking that they're really open-minded. Meanwhile, the place will cut corners, try to appeal to more Western tastes and generally blend right into the scenery. I bet they do really well here, but I am sure that the food is going to suffer. The Brothers Grimm would not be happy with the ending to this fairy tale.