Trường Tiền (2), Eden Center, Falls Church, Virginia

A dinner in the Eden Center is always an experience, and this was no exception. Nancy and I ventured to the Schlesinger Hall in Alexandria for a concert, about which more anon. The concert ran from 5 to 7:00 pm, which meant dinner after. We narrowed the options to either Ruthie’s All Day or “Somewhere in the Eden Center.” Nancy had just had lunch with a friend at Ruthie’s as it turned out (the salmon was great!). She opted for the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.

We drove from the concert to the Eden Center, parked, and started looking in at the restaurants to the main building’s right. Many were carryout only, and others, like Rice Paper, had a long wait. That moved us inside the main building where we found a table available at Trường Tiền. I’d dined there earlier with Doug Herbert. You can read more about the restaurant itself in that report here.

I ate a whole lot of Vietnamese food while enforcing Vietnamese-American citizens’ voting rights in San Diego and Harris (Houston) Counties, but I always let others order and never quite knew what dish I was eating. Since then although I’ve paid more attention I’m still heavily (ok, completely) reliant on English translations and the kindness of strangers. Translations, alas, are not a strong point of Trường Tiền.

I started with the Bánh Bèo Tôm Thit, described on the menu as “Steamed rice dumpling with shrimp.”

I had this on my first visit and it was okay. It didn’t have much in the way of flavor, but I have only myself to blame for ordering it a second time.

It was cold out — I’ve been hemmimg and hawing for months before finally getting around to posting this — and I’d been thinking about pho, so I ordered Bún bò Huế, described on the menu as Huế beef noodle soup. That seemed to be Huế style pho, and I’d heard lots of vague but positive comments from Doug Hebert and others about the dishbeing quite spicy and containing pork blood — not a big selling point, but then I’m game. The order caused consternation among the attendant staff. They said “Spicy!” to me several times, and I nodded and said, “Good!” I then smiled and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up and said, ” I like spicy! Spicy is good!” Alas, mine was a voice crying in the wilderness. Here it is.

That looks like a standard pho, doesn’t it? It was, indeed, although it did not include the usually pho accompaniments –basil, jalapeño, etc. — and it wasn’t the least bit spicy. Not at all. It also didn’t include blood, which I would have been less surprised for them to skip the blood without asking me whether I wanted it. But spicy for which I’d all but begged? And there was no sriracha on the table, so I couldn’t jump start it myself. The staff seemed to have disappeared so I couldn’t ask for any. It was, at best, a mediocre pho. Being hungry, I ate it but without much pleasure.

Nancy ordered the Cà Ri Bánh Mi (Bun), a vegetarian dish laconically described on the menu as “Curry with bread (bún).” The menu picture promised much more.

Looks good, doesn’t it? The bread turned out to be not a Vietnamese/French-style crusty loaf but a single square piece of bread in the soup. Imagine my disappointment. After all, Nancy would have given the loaf to me. The parenthetic bún, vermicelli, came in a separate bowl. The curry sauce had a nice flavor but the bread didn’t add a lot and its only other element, a single large mushroom, was rubbery and flavorless. All those pictured vegetables were nowhere to be found.

We finished and left, taking the remaining curry broth home with us. It still sits in our freezer downstairs. What a disappointment this meal was! What were they thinking? I cannot remember being so thoroughly let down by a meal since DCity Smokehouse. And while I’m sympathetic to the language barriers, having done more minority language voting rights cases than any other person, I cannot remember less considerate service.

All was not lost. Ah, the concert! The concert saved the evening. It featured opera choruses by the City Choir of Washington, backed by the Washington National Opera Orchestra and four soloists, soprano Mia Mandineau, mezzo-sorano Rosario Armas, tenor Logan Wagner, and baritone Adam Partridge. The first half was a precis of Carmen on its 150th anniversary, and the second half featured ten choruses from various operas and arias by the soloists.

We enjoyed the performance immensely. The City Choir really showed their chops handling the verbal gymnastics of the Witches Chorus from Macbeth and the dynamics of the irresistible “Va pensiero” from Nabucco. The soloists did full justice to the gorgeous music of “Au fond du tempe saint” from the Pearl Fishers and the Flower Duet from Lakmé.

I’ve been mulling over posting about Trường Tiền for months. I usually skip reviewing bad experiences out of sympathy for the challenges entrepreneurs face. Mistakes recur. I’ve made quite a few myself, and they can be fixed and we learn from them. A bad attitude toward customers is more problematic. Given the dining disaster, I don’t think I’ll go back to Trường Tiền and I can’t recommend it for others. But I most certainly recommend that you hop on the City Choir of Washington website and check their schedule of events. And check the Georgetown Chorale, too. Their spring concert was superb!

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