My Favorite Restaurant

Fontaine Cafe, Alexandria. Not my favorite, still very good.

Down a rabbit hole I went this morning on my walk. I started thinking about food and how important good food has been to my family for…well, always. My wife is a superb cook who maximized nutrition and wholesome ingredients as part of her recovery from cancer. I went to a French cooking school (not in France!!!) to balance that out. All our kids cook and cook well. Where did it all begin? Hmmm…rabbit hole, here I come.

We had little discretionary income when we married some 33 years ago. We lived in a small “cabin” of about 800 square feet but in a forgotten part of Crystal City. It’s not so forgotten in today’s market. We often walked three blocks to 23rd Street where several reasonably priced restaurants were flourishing. Two of them were our go-to places. One was a pizza place with dirt floors…or at least that was my memory. We loved the pizza and my law school classmates hung out there as a counterbalance to tuition. The other was a Chinese food place.

To me, a good restaurant is like eating at home, or at least an extension of home. We went there every week, sometimes two or three times a week. That’s what this small, family owned Chinese place was…an extension of our home and of our family. After a year living close by, we moved several miles away but continued to visit the place every week or two. We came to know the owner and his family quite well. Sadly, their names are buried in other memories and I can’t bring them back but the times we had in their place are quite alive.

The owner was Chinese but his family had moved to Vietnam sometime in the 1950s. He was a fighter pilot who flew for the French in the First Indochina War. After the War ended, he came to the U.S. His son also worked in the restaurant as did his wife and mother. We used to swap pilot stories but his were always more exciting since he was in combat almost every mission.

They would take me to the kitchen where impossibly large woks rested over burners that seemed to have the heat of hell as their source. The menu was small as was the restaurant, maybe 8 tables, inside and out. On the deck were planters where they grew peppers, very, very small white and red peppers. Less than an inch long. I asked if they were edible. The son said they were but they couldn’t serve them. Later, as we were leaving, he brought a small jar of paste. “These are the peppers we use that you see here.” They were awesome. This ritual was often repeated. We exchanged gifts, small gifts, nothing elaborate, to thank them for the peppers and hospitality.

Two years after we had moved away, our first child was born, a girl. The restaurant owner’s son came to the hospital with a large bag of new diapers. But he didn’t know our last name and so didn’t get to see us.

When our daughter was three days old, we took her to the restaurant. Everyone there came out and made a big deal of her. Lots of “Ooos” and “Ahhhs.” I was walking back to the kitchen, the son met me at the doorway and said something like, “You have a beautiful daughter, may she be blessed with happiness and wealth and may you soon be blessed with a baby boy.” We both smiled.

So that’s my favorite restaurant. I don’t remember the names of the wonderful owners or even the restaurant’s name, just that they welcomed us into their place with good food and treated us like family.

I was on a long photo vacation and so have no images from those years except for those in my memory. The image above is from Old Town Alexandria, the Fontaine. Great crepes.