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Night 26: Green Papaya
After the simple humility of Vegetable Garden, I'm still
in Asia the next night, but I'm back to indulgence.
The ambience at Green Papaya, while not quite as lushly
evocative as films like "Indochine" or "The
Lover," is redolent of unapologetic pleasure. The
Vietnamese menu opens before me like a storybook, and
every chapter is enchanting.
My companions have just spent a month in Vietnam visiting
friends, so they are considerably savvier than I. Their
first reaction is sticker shock: an evening at a Hanoi
nightclub — with food, entertainment, and wine
— costs $2.50 a head. But soon they return to our
own economic realities. We take so much time studying
the menu you'd think we were planning the D-day invasion.
This is an embarrassment of riches. Appetizers alone
offer us more than too many choices. Then there are
soups and salads, stir-fries, braises and caramelized
dishes. Pork, beef, chicken, lamb, mangoes, shrimp,
papayas, scallops, pineapple, ginger, garlic and lemongrass
— dozens of fresh and fragrant possibilities.
Our patient waiter checks on us several times and brings
us drinks. My piña colada seems absurd and infantile
next to my friends' bottles of beer. With its orange
slice and maraschino garnish, in a glass so tall I have
to hold it away from the table as if I were playing
a saxophone — I feel like I'm drinking a Shirley
Temple.
In 1979, when Green Papaya's owner, Michael Phan, came
to the States from Saigon, he must have been a kid.
This is his second place (he owns Little Viet Garden
on Wilson Avenue in Arlington). When our food arrives
— baby clams the size of pearls, spicy ginger noodles
with shellfish, rack of lamb with jasmine rice, rice
paper rolls of delicate seafood and tender vegetables,
we are transported. I am unlikely to get to Vietnam
any time soon. I am very grateful that Mr. Phan has
settled in Bethesda.
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