“No ramen?” said a disappointed Toki Underground fan upon realizing
Erik Bruner-Yang’s pop-up at Hanoi House didn’t involve slurping noodles. “What do you mean no ramen?”
We’d all love a sister Toki—more stools! Shorter waits?—but as with any restaurant
family, siblings, rather than twins, make for a more interesting mix. And there are
plenty of exciting things happening with
Maketto, Bruner-Yang and partner
Will Sharp’s mixed retail-dining space bound for H Street in late 2013. While the permanent
project will be more of a market than a sit-down restaurant, you can get a taste of
what’s to come over the next three months while Bruner-Yang and chef de cuisine
James Wozniuk take over the 14th Street spot.
Prawn heads and wagyu
lok lak
(but no menu)
While Maketto has echoes of
Johnny Monis’s Little Serow—servers
are similarly hip, the Asian menu is set—dishes draw from a larger pool in Southeast
Asia rather than sticking to Thailand. Yang recently returned from his honeymoon in
Cambodia and Taiwan, and Wozniuk from a stint in Vietnam. The six-course meal may
draw from their travels as well as influences from other countries; we started with
spicy green papaya salad and bowls of crispy fried prawn heads before moving on to
seared Wagyu beef
lok lak (lettuce wraps with vermicelli noodles and herbs) and sour shrimp and pork soup. Two
standouts from our meal:
amok trey, a Cambodian comfort dish of steamed, curried fish, and tender squid stuffed with
sour pork sausage and topped with crispy garlic and cilantro.
Tempting carts
The menu is set with no substitutions—even for vegetarians or those with allergies—but
there’s still some room to choose. Servers pass the tables several times throughout
the meal with carts offering drinks and food. If you’d rather quench your thirst with
canned Mr. Brown iced coffee, green tea, or Taiwanese Apple Sidra than beer, summon
the cart carrying boxed and bottled beverages. Others roll by dim-sum-style, laden
with crispy shrimp rolls, house-made kimchee, pickled cucumbers, and steamed pork
buns; dishes run $2 to $10 in addition to the $30 set meal. Customized carts in the
shape of bicycles are on the way.
Cooling cocktails
The funky Vietnamese-inspired decor of Hanoi House remains the same—think dim lighting,
red-and-black-accented walls, and antique gold mirrors—making it a cool spot to escape
the heat. Increase the chill with one of the specialty cocktails, like a tall gin-cucumber
concoction or a spiked iced coffee. The latter and a variety of cold beers pair well
with the meal and help tame the heat of hotter dishes.
Even colder desserts
Wozniuk says the menu will change every week, if not more often. Hopefully a recurring
item—or at least temperature—will be the Taiwanese shaved ice. After all the robust
flavors (not to mention scorching weather), it was a refreshing way to wrap up. The
ice gets soaked in beet juice and condensed milk for a clean, lightly sweet flavor,
studded with fresh peaches and mochi, and scattered with mint.
Online reservations (if you can get one)
You won’t wait hours for a spot here like at Toki; in fact, waiting isn’t an option.
Reservations are required, and are currently available through OpenTable on the Hanoi
House/Maketto website. Prime-time tables are booked for
weeks, so make reservations far in advance or plan to eat with the early birds or
after 9.
Maketto at Hanoi House. 2005 14th St., NW. Open at 5 Monday through Saturday. Closed
Sunday.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
