Cafe Tu Ah, Columbia Pike in Annandale

[winger1930]

Couldn't find a thread on this...

Four of us went out for an excursion in Annandale this weekend, and we needed a place to kill time between Bon Chon and late night Honey Pig, and we ended up at Cafe Tu Ah. It's right up Columbia Pike from Honey Pig. The outside of the building looks like a converted VFW Hall with lots of wood paneling and a giant wooden door, but the inside was actually really modern. There's a bar and some seating (maybe 40 or so) to the left, and some Karaoke rooms to the right. The place is REALLY dark, and has an upscale lounge feel to it. The karaoke rooms were all wood paneled, and were kinda creepy. They reminded me of a 70's porn den, complete with floral couches. Except this den was equipped with a 46" LCD tv and a gauze covered mic. We asked one of the servers, and they said that the rooms rent for $33 an hour, and I have no idea if that's a good price or not.

We were here mainly for drinking, and ordered mostly soju, both plain and flavored. This was pretty much everyone's second time drinking soju, the first time being about an hour before this when we were at Bon Chon. We were fascinated in how they made the flavored ones. Take for example the grape one...they open up this little can of what looks like white grape soda (the can was the size of those old school V8 cans), pour it into the bottom of a plastic carafe, and then add in a bottle of soju, and top it off with a little clear soda (I'm guessing Sprite). At some point, they add in peeled grapes, and we theorized that the grapes were actually IN the can of grape soda, which may have explained their jelly-like texture.

Their bartenders were all really nice, but there was a little language barrier. When we asked for some other flavored soju, the one bartender thought about it for a minute, and then you could tell a light bulb went off in her head. "Yogurt" she said, and we nodded. She brought out these five little drinks, and I instantly remembered the Yakult drinks I used to have when I was a kid in Hong Kong. We used to call them "little drinks", and I actually had to look up on Wiki to find out what their "real" name was. So, she mixed up five of these "little drinks" with the soju, and handed us the carafe. This was by far the best one, and it reminded my Indian friends of lassi. A little tart, a little sweet, and really dangerous. I think all soju was $9.99, but it's all a little fuzzy. I wouldn't call any of these drinks "good", but sweet and easy to drink seems about right.

The menu was probably 2 pages long, full of some interesting stuff. We saw a $25 fruit plate, which was HUGE. But $25? There must be more to it. Someone at the bar ordered a big plate of meat, and what looked like another huge plate (think a pizza pan) of white noddles. They also have some larger private karaoke rooms downstairs. All in all, not a bad place to kill a few hours between Bon Chon and Honey Pig, and we'd go back again just to mess around in the karaoke rooms.

[DonRocks]

[Just when I got the threads that need to be added/changed in the dining guide down to 11, then 10 ... we're up to 11 again.

Sigh. ]

ETA: 10.

ETA: 9.

ETA: 8.

ETA: 7.

ETA: 6.

ETA: 7 courtesy of Hog Thaid thread

ETA: 8 thanks to Ted's Bulletin opening

ETA: 9 thanks to Acqua al Due opening

ETA: 8.

ETA: 76.

ETA: 5.

ETA: 4.

ETA: 3

ETA: 2.

ETA: 10! Yee-Ha!

Uh oh, I forgot about Yee-Hwa.

Edited May 11, 2010 by DonRocks