Mostly Semantics

The way things have gone lately, I’m beginning to think we should be posting at that other site. By now you’ve read about Halloween. Yeah. Good times. But we are busy and resilient types, inclined to pick up and continue on. In that spirit, CV, MBG, and I made our way to the Halloween store at Cleveland Park, motivated by the need for costumes for a soiree this weekend and enticed by a post-holiday 50%-off sale.

In retrospect, we might have known it wasn’t our night before we made it into the parking lot. Every space was filled, and the two cars in front of us had reversed back to the gate, awaiting the departure of other patrons. It took us several minutes just to get into the lot. By the time we’d parked and approached the store - NOW OPEN! banner flying out front - a handwritten sign posting a 7pm closing time had been posted, and the doors had been locked. It was 7:05pm. Balls.

All was not lost, though (I told you we were resilient!): we were still psyched to hit Nam Viet for dinner. We were seated immediately, and knew a moment after that what we’d order. Now, this establishment may well have any number of tantalizing dishes on the menu, but we’ve all pretty much found our favorites already, and are unwilling to forgo them to try something new. (If you go, even if you know your order before you walk in the door, you MUST read the descriptions of the items on the menu. The prose is awesome. Really.)

We chatted for a while before we realized no one had paid any attention to our table. At all. We had water. We had menus. And no one cared. We became fixated. Conversation stopped and we stared, silent, at each other, our watches, and any waiter who walked near. They avoided eye contact. It got so bad we set a time - 7 minutes hence - if they weren’t there by 7:25, we were gone. At 7:23 someone arrived to take our order. When asked if we were ready… I couldn’t help it… I noted - as politely as possible - that we’d been ready for quite some time. It’s amazing what an apology can do. But our server responded only by glancing at HIS watch, and saying shortly and twice “fire away.” It’s also amazing what a lack of apology can do. We were not pleased.

When the food (finally) arrived, ’twas the solid fare for which we came. Our favorites: shrimp garden rolls - soft, translucent skins stuffed with cellophane noodles, shrimp, mint, and cilantro, and served with thick, spicy, delicious peanut sauce. So. Good. CV also swears by the lemon grass beef - “like beef jerky,” he says, except tangy, lemony, tender, and topped with scallion, fried onion, and peanut perfection. I’m obsessed with the soups. You can get better pho, but theirs is perfectly serviceable. The Vietnamese wonton soup, though… sweet, salty, pork-filled lemon-grassy tinged heaven. Really.

We left sated, if frustrated by unexpected poor service. In previous experience, the wait-staff had been quite attentive, though the restaurant was busier last night than on our previous visits. TM had a similarly frustrating recent experience with the service. I hope these are outliers rather than indicative of a trend… but was so frustrated by the experience that I’m not sure I’ll return to find out.

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