26. Four Sisters
First, a word to the wise: Please do not confuse Four Sisters with Three Sisters. Here is the difference: Four Sisters is a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church/Annandale/Merrifield; Three Sisters is a nail salon known for pain-free bikini waxes. I only said “I’m going to have lunch at Three Sisters” about fifteen times before someone corrected me. Alright, public service announcement concluded.
When I finally got my place names straight, I made it out to Four Sisters, which is not in Falls Church as they claim but actually more like Merrifield. My point? It’s far. My friend Rachel and I decided to go for a leisurely weekend lunch, and that appears to be the only way to do it unless you live in the greater Dunn Loring area. As a person unfamiliar and generally unhappy with Virginia, trust me when I say that this place is worth the trip at twice the distance.
In the past year, Four Sisters has moved from the very Asia-happy Eden Center to what appears to be the retail space of a generic “luxury” condo building. Methinks there are hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances somewhere in there. Smacked right between a Maggie Moos and a Chipotle, you would never assume this restaurant is teeming with authenticity, much less anything not smothered in gouda and chipotle mayo. We opted to sit outside since we dined right smack in the middle of the six hours of spring we’ll have this year, which was delightful except for when the sun umbrellas weren’t toppling over/almost decapitating us.
But enough of that, the food is the real star of the show here. We started with the shrimp toast since everyone I’ve met claimed it alone was worth the trek out there. Here’s what I have to say about that: Run, do not walk to get this shrimp toast. This tiny appetizer embodies why Vietnamese food can be so great—blending Asian flavors with those crazy French flavors of Imperialism. Unlike the shrimp toast I’ve had before, this incarnation was not shrimp blended in to toast form. Instead, a piece of French bread was hollowed out and stuffed with seasoned shrimp, then battered and fried. Sounds okay, right? It was served with a sweet sauce that was not necessary, but added an extra dimension that really made the dish a religious experience. We figured that there was no way our main courses could live up to the shrimp toast, but to our delight they did not disappoint. We tried one bun (scallop and shrimp), one lettuce wrap (Hanoi-style pork), and one rice crepe (pork crepes with grilled shrimp). My favorite was the lettuce wrap—the pork was spicy and crispy and I found myself soaking the sauce up with my extra vermicelli when the pork was long since finished. I also loved the rice crepe dish; the crepes were so fluffy and light but glutinous enough to stay together in our less than professional chopstixed hands. All the grilled items, the shrimp and scallops, were cooked perfectly without too much seasoning to mask the flavor of especially good quality shellfish.
Next time I go (and believe me, it’ll be soon) I probably will order something off the grilled meat and seafood section of the menu since we tended to stay on the super-carb heavy track. All our entrees were served with vermicelli, which though handy in soaking up the little bits of extra sauce we left around our plates, I would have rather had more pork/shrimp/scallop. The staff is incredibly attentive, going as far as to dive in front of the aforementioned sun umbrellas of death. That all being said, I now wish to speak directly to the Four Sisters: Please, please for the love of shrimp toast open a second location in DC proper. Lord knows we need you much more than another Cosi. Save us from ourselves!
