Suburban Tasteland

Bodega Beveraging Wonderland

When it comes to exploring ethnic food marts, sometimes discipline pays off. From the exterior, Tienda Izalco II appears to be just another dumpy and unremarkable bodega- the sort of place where locals stop in for lotto tickets and phone cards, and not much else. Nevertheless, I decided to take a minute to scout out their wares, and was rewarded with the motherlode of Central and South American beverage selection. Not only did they have some of my old favorites, many of which are widely available, but they also offered a handful that I had not tried before. Though I restrained myself, I still managed to walk off with seven different sodas.

Cawy Bottling Company, the makers of this watermelon soda, actually started in Cuba in the late ‘40s, and then relocated to Miami soon after Castro took power. The watermelon soda is a light pink and has a sickly sweet perfume of faux watermelon. Despite its assertive bouquet, the watermelon taste in the soda is fairly understated, quickly fading away to bland sweetness.

Although I’ve had other red cream sodas previously, I couldn’t resist this Pop Art masterpiece. The information on the can lists a Miami bottler, but according to my Google sleuthing, Milca is actually based in Nicaragua. Red cream sodas basically taste like bubblegum, a flavor of soda that is inexplicably popular in every part of the world except for the United States. Of course, Texas does have Big Red, but then Texas is always exceptional. Milca has an overpowering aroma, sort of like cracking open the door to the Bazooka Joe factory.  But the actual taste is somewhat milder, and quickly fades away. It’s a garish red with a nice creamy head.

Brazilia is amber colored and tastes like a weak ginger ale. But this soda is not at all about taste. Rather, it’s simply a mild mannered delivery system for the stimulant guarana. The guarana plant contains caffeine and is one of the featured stimulants in a number of energy drinks currently flooding the market. I recall trying another Brazilian guarana drink several years ago that had a bizarre fruit taste instead of ginger ale, so Brazilians evidentally enjoy more than one variety of guarana powered sodas.

Later this week, I’ll wrap up this beveraging tour with the four remaining sodas idling in our fridge.

In the meantime, check out Tienda Izalco II’s beveraging wonderland at:

3409 Payne St.
Falls Church, VA
(703) 931-5400

—AC

There's Always Room for Kvas

You might think that after gorging ourselves on imam bayildi at Taverna Cretekou’s Sunday buffet, and chasing our galaktaboureko with some Croation chocolate from Plava Laguna that we’d be ready to finally beach ourselves for the remainder of the afternoon. But after checking out the Bosnian grocer, my father suggested that we roll past a new commercial outpost on the edge of Old Town to see if Russian Gourmet had finally opened for business.

As we walked up to the door, we could see workers on ladders fussing with light fixtures, while others were busily stocking shelves. But we barged in nonetheless and became their very first customers.

Russian Gourmet is actually a burgeoning chain of Russian specialty shops. Their website lists several locations in Virginia and Maryland, and we’d previously schlepped out to their location in Mclean for piroshkys and homemade eggplant salad. So we were stoked that all of our favorite Russian treats would now be a mere five minutes drive from our homestead.

We only scored a few items that weekend, as the store had only had about half its inventory stocked.

My father insisted that we split a cake that was half poppyseed and half chocolate. The cake was somewhat like a babka, and the cake itself had an egginess that was reminiscent of challah, although it was a bit dry. Fortunately, the chocolate and the poppyseed only met in the middle, and were otherwise given reign over their own halves of the cake. I’m a huge fan of poppyseeds, but the poppyseed mix in this cake had an earthiness of taste at the expense of sweetness. The chocolate half of the cake was unremarkable. Perhaps one is supposed to alternate bites of earthy poppyseed with sweet chocolate to arrive at the happy medium the bakers may have intended.

I also walked off with a bottle of Georgia’s Natural Pomegranate Juice. That’s Georgia, as in Tbilisi, not Savannah. And Georgian pride abounds in this humble juice as the label boasts, “Consists of premium fresh sun-ripe pomegranates to preserve the distinctive Georgian taste.” If a fruit juice could ever be described as “manly,” then this is it. The juice is the deepest shade of dark red, and, at first, its robust smell is almost beet-like. It tastes of maximum tartness with only the faintest hint of sweetness. In fact, it may be the closest a fruit juice can get to tasting like a vegetable juice without actually being vegetable juice.

And there’s always room for Kvas. Kvas tastes like fermented raisin wheat bread and actually has a very low alcohol content, usually not more than two percent. Indeed, it turns out that Kvas is actually made from fermented fruit and Russian black bread. I have no idea how Kvas is meant to be enjoyed. Like, do Russians just kick back on the couch for a leisurely afternoon of channel surfing accompanied by a bubbly glass of Kvas? Or is it only enjoyed on special occasions? Despite its awfulness, Kvas has somehow captured my affections. I’ve been trying to teach myself how to properly appreciate it, but so far my efforts have been unsuccessful. But the more it repulses me, the more I want to love it. Perhaps by my fifth glass, my sense of taste will have finally assimilated to Kvas.

Check out Russian Gourmet’s latest location in Alexandria at 907 Slaters Lane.
—AC

Thai Retailing Roulette

Though it may be difficult to muster the enthusiasm to shuffle through a Thai grocery store after gorging yourself at Bangkok 54, I highly recommend that you walk around the corner after your next meal there to survey the wares of their food mart. Bangkok 54 actually owns and operates not one, but two grocery stores- the aforementioned one in Arlington and another in Alexandria.

The one in Arlington has a couple of aisles featuring an extensive array of exotic spices, canned goods, and beverages, as well as a modest table of prepared foods. Unfortunately, all of these prepared foods are idling at room temperature, which is an unappealing setting for meats and other perishables. Still, we figured the desserts might be immune to whatever ill effects come from festering in a Thai grocery store all day, so we took  a chance on a couple of their dessert items.

We were absolutely charmed by their Luk Chub, which are these incredibly detailed dessert miniatures that are modeled after various pieces of fruit. The strawberries are dappled with little indentations to imitate the seeds, the cherries seem to have actual cherry stems poking out, and the other fruits feature delicately cut paper leaves. The skin of each of these fruits is thin and rubbery, and yields to a tan colored center of lightly sweetened bean paste. The bean paste is largely bland, though there did seem to be the faintest hint of coconut, and a somewhat bitter aftertaste. Though the actual taste and texture is disappointing, you’ll still feel compelled to purchase a container of Luk Chub just to have them around to marvel at their exquisite detailing.

We also walked off with their Three Kings Rice dessert. We gave it some time in our fridge to cool to a more appropriate dessert temperature, and once we dug in we were surprised by its excellence. Three Kings Rice features a thick slab of eggy Thai custard resting on a bed of sticky rice and sprinkled with a handful of these sweet fibrous shreds of indeterminate origin. The latter item merely adds an additional texture, but is mostly superflous. The custard is extremely rich, and the texture is somewhere between creamy and gelatinous. It pairs wonderfully with the grains of sweet sticky rice, and the addition of the coconut milk elevates it to a heavenly level of decadence. It actually took us three days to eat it, as a little goes a long way.

And from the exotic beveraging department, I decided to finally sate my curiosity about the Aloe Vera drinks I often see in Asian food marts. I scored a can of Aloe Vera Drink with Honey. I wasn’t sure if this would be akin to drinking hand lotion, but that actually might have been preferable to the reality of this beverage. While the liquid in Aloe Vera Drink is clear, it’s clouded by the inclusion of bunches of fruit sacs that look like translucent pieces of barley. The honey flavoring is sickly sweet with a chalky aftertaste. And though the aloe vera fruit sacs are initially alarming, their pulpy texture and mild fruit sweetness are a brief respite from the sickly sweet honey flavor. Like bird's nest drink, this is yet another Asian beverage that is clearly not consumed for its taste, but rather for its supposed health benefits.

Check out Bangkok 54 Grocery Store at the following locations:

3837 Mount Vernon Ave.
Alexandria, VA
(703) 549-8488

2927 Columbia Pike
Arlington, VA
(703) 521-4207

—AC

A Balkan Bounty

It’s always fascinating to discover that an ethnic group has assumed a sufficient enough density in the suburbs to support their first market and restaurant. And unbeknownst to most residents of Northern Virginia, apparently enough Bosnians have settled here to merit the presence of Plava Laguna European Food Store, a Bosnian food mart, as well as Restaurant Cosmopolitan. Sadly, Restaurant Cosmopolitan, which opened in 2004, has closed temporarily, and will reopen as a smaller scale carry-out rather than the full service restaurant and bar of its previous incarnation. We chatted with one of the proprietors, who hilariously mistook me for one of his fellow countrymen, and he said that their new carry-out, Cosmopolitan Cafe, should open in a few weeks.

Although we were unable to satisfy our craving for cevapi and pljeskavica, we were happy to poke around the two aisles at Plava Laguna, which is well stocked with plenty of adjvar (the preeminent Balkan condiment consisting of a puree of roasted red peppers, eggplant, and chilis), as well as jars of pickled vegetables, and even Macedonian jams, including one jam that offered the unlikely flavor combination of pumpkin, grape, and eggplant.

Candy fetishists should note that Plava Laguna easily has the most extensive array of Milka chocolate bars in the area, a respectable collection of Kinder chocolates, and is the only D.C. area source (that we’re aware of, at least) offering a nearly complete product line of the Croatian chocolate maker Kras. I first became acquainted with Kras during my final six months in New York, when a Bosnian entrepreneur opened a coffee shop and gourmet chocolatier in a narrow storefront in the Fulton Street subway station.

He proclaimed Kras’ Bajadera to be one of the finest chocolates in the world, and though skeptical, I bought a box and found that he was right. Bajadera are comprised of a thin top and bottom layer of milk chocolate sandwiching a sizable middle layer of almond and hazelnut nougat. If a chocolate is capable of tasting elegant, then this is it: smooth and slightly buttery with a faint taste of the hazelnut and almond blend and a wholesome dairy finish. Thankfully, Plava Laguna has an excess of Bajadera.

We’ve enjoyed several of Kras’ Dorina chocolate bars, and though all of them are worth trying, our favorite is the milk chocolate with puffed rice. Unlike the brittle crunch of American bars like Hershey’s Krackel, Dorina’s puffed rice are full grains puffed to Kashi-like proportions. It sounds off-putting, but it’s so novel to have a chocolate bar with such a fibrous texture, that it works. And the malted taste of the puffed rice perfectly complements the milk chocolate.

The other powerhouse Kras offering is Bananko, a small, banana-shaped confection filled with lightly banana-flavored marshmallow fluff over a thin wafer of biscuit, all of which is covered in chocolate. Though we enjoyed our Bananko at room temperature, they’re apparently  even better when they’re frozen. Plava Laguna offers Bananko both individually and by the case.

Who knew that Croatia is host to one of the world’s great chocolate companies? Hopefully, other chocolate lovers will have the opportunity to discover Kras, so that it can some day enjoy a reputation as widespread as that of Milka, Kinder, Cadbury, and Hershey’s.

We were also stoked to discover that Plava Laguna stocks the Slovenian soda Cockta. Cockta is primarily bitter with a faint citrus sweetness, not entirely dissimilar to the Italian bitter soda Chinotto. It’s worth trying at least once- besides when was the last time you had the opportunity to try a Slovenian soda? And according to the Cockta website, the fact that it’s caffeine free means that Cockta “is good and safe drink for every generation, even for the infants.” So be sure to swap out that formula for some Cockta.

If you’re still intrigued by Cockta then the following passage, which offers a surprising degree of candor about Cockta’s marketing and packaging efforts, should sate your curiosity:

The mystery of a special Cockta flavour lies in the supplement of eleven different herbs. Its basic ingredient is a dog-rose berry offering its specific flavour. Its irresistible freshness is reached, however, by a drop of lemon and orange flavours.

Cockta is a beverage made of completely natural ingredients, suitable for seniors and juniors since it does not contain neither caffeine nor orthophosphoric acid (aggressive ingredient significant for cola drinks).

The outlook and prestige of a beverage is of utmost importance should we wish the young to drink it. Kolinska is completely aware of it so Cockta got a completely new look. New logo and label communicate with younger generation. The colours that are already known and accepted and a new attractive bottle preserve a part of nostalgia respected by all generations.

Check out Plava Laguna European Food Store at:
5900 N. Kings Highway
Alexandria, VA 22303

-AC

Ode on a Grecian Pastry

The next time you head over to grub Thai food at Rabieng, you should make a brief pitstop two doors down at Aphrodite Greek Imports. Of course, you may also want to check out Duangrat’s Asian Market, which is conveniently sandwiched between Aphrodite and Rabieng, and is incidentally also owned by the family behind the Rabieng and Duangrat’s Thai food empire. But today, we’re talking Greek and Mediterranean imports. Besides, we discovered that sometimes nothing goes down better after an onslaught of roasted Thai chilis than Greek pastries.

Aphrodite is just a sliver of strip mall storefront, but nevertheless has an impressive array of olive oils, dried fruits, nuts, and spices. They also had four or five different types of feta from Greek feta to Bulgarian feta to Egyptian feta. Some day, AK and I hope to be knowledgable enough about feta that we can easily discern the differences between Bulgarian feta and Egyptian feta. But that day, we chose to continue living in feta origin ignorance, as we were scouting for sweets more than for savories.

We picked out two unusual book-sized flats of what may be the Lebanese version of American brittle. One candy flat was comprised entirely of large flakes of coconut, sprinkled with golden raisins and pistachios, and bound together in a light sugar syrup. The second candy flat added an additional sprinkle of almond slivers to the mix. Both candies were tough and chewy, and a bit oily from the coconut, but ultimately a must for coconut fiends.

We also sampled another Lebanese import, a cookie-sized disc of roasted pistachios bound together with a candy syrup. Apparently, this item is called “Kisses”, as is evidenced by the logo featuring two green and yellow parrots using their beaks to suspend a heart emblazoned with the word “Kisses.” The pistachios had a wonderful roasted and smoky taste, which was leavened somewhat by the candy syrup.

Next, we had the proprietor wrap up a couple pieces of their basboussa and katayif pastries, as well as a thin cake-sized slice of halvah from one of their several loaves and cakes of fresh halvah.

The katayif was like a small fist of shredded wheat, sweetened and moistened with what may have been orange blossom syrup, and stuffed with chopped walnuts. I was surprised that it didn’t also have a layer of cheese, as is customary with most of the katayif that I’ve had, but this turned out to be a good thing. The cheese in katayif is typically bland and rubbery, and its presence really adds texture more than taste. And anyway, AK and I are big shredded wheat fans, so we hardly need a layer of cheese to enhance the katayif experience.

The basboussa, a small square of semolina cake with a few slivers of almond on top, appeared dry on the outside, but was surprisingly moist and saturated with orange blossom syrup. Basboussa may be the single most addictive Mediterranean pastry, as somehow the moist texture and the sweet and buttery semolina cake seem to continually beckon me back to the fridge for more.

And the halvah with its roasted pistachios fulfilled my semi-annual need for sweet sesame paste, but was not anywhere nearly as revelatory as the Macedonian halvah that AK scored at the food market in Grand Central Station a few years back.

Aphrodite appears to make many of its Greek pastries in house, as the proprietor, proud of their wares and mindful of our excessively gluttonous haul, insisted that we try one of their Greek cookies gratis before we left. It was a buttery almond cookie, similar to shortbread, with the only real sweetness coming from the powdered sugar. Next time, we’ll have to add a few of those to our tour of decadence.

Check out Aphrodite Greek Imports at:
5886 Leesburg Pike
Falls Church, VA 22041
(703) 931-5055

-AC