Moon Rabbit - Kevin Tien's new Vietnamese place in the old Kith and Kin space on the Wharf

[Bart]

As I’ve said in other recent posts, NOW IS THE TIME TO GO TO RESTAURANTS!  

I went to Moon Rabbit on the DC Wharf last night (in the former Kith and Kin space) and had a wonderful meal with some service issues, but since they’re only a few weeks old I’ll give them a pass (meaning, I’m going to write about what happened to me, but none of it would prevent me from returning).

All the staff wore masks the entire time and the tables were well spaced, and I felt completely safe and conformable there.  There’s probably more of a risk and more exposure to people at the local grocery store or Target.  We ate early (6pm) and ended up with a killer table right in front of one of the big windows.  In another time, the Wharf would have been packed with people strolling by, but the view didn’t suffer!

The food was very good and very pretty.  I’m no expert on Vietnamese food, but to me, this could have been served at any number of DC places like Roses or Reverie, etc.  That’s not intended to be a knock, but more of a reflection of what food looks like in 2020.  The menu itself was very appealing and I could have literally ordered anything on it and would have been happy.

When presented with the menus, the server immediately went into upsell mode by strongly and repeatedly recommending the two most expensive cocktails on the menu ($25 and $32 each!!!).  He really pushed the $32 VSOP Sazerac!  I’m not a cocktail drinker and rarely look at that portion of the menu, but these prices strike me as ridiculous and prohibitive.  We got a bottle of wine instead.

The upsell continued with the food portion of the menu.  The menu is broken up into four groups going from small plates to large dishes suitable for “one and one half people”.  In each category, the highest priced option was recommended.  It took me a second to notice this, but when he got down to the final category, I KNEW his recommendation would be for the $67 ribeye over the $48 pork blade dish.  He didn’t disappoint and pushed the most expensive item on the menu.

I wrote into Tom’s chat earlier in the day to see if he’d been in yet.  He said his review is coming out tomorrow (Nov 20) but made some recommendations, all of which we took.

We placed our order for three items and asked the server if that was enough, and shocker!, he recommended we order TWO more items.  We sort of humored him and ordered the Pineapple Milk Bun with Hoisin butter for $9.  This was not one of Tom’s recommendations but it was pretty good: two types of sweet dough merged into something that looked a bit like a cupcake.

The first real course was the Scallop Crudo with pickled pearl onion, shisho, and crispy pieces of kelp ($16).  It was a very good and very pretty dish with lots of layers of colors and flavors.  I wish they supplied some bread or something to sop up the broth though!

The next course was recommended by Tom and was the highlight of the meal for flavor and uniqueness.  It’s called Charred Caraflex Cabbage with romesco, pineapple and herbs, for $16.  It was a layer of pineapple on top of a layer of charred cabbage on top of a layer of romesco.  Somewhere in the dish was some very nice spice/heat that was countered wonderfully by the sweetness of the pineapple.  The heat may have come from the sauce or the stuff (peppers/spices?) sprinkled on top (see the photo below).  It doesn’t really matter where it came from, the important thing was that it was there!!!!   If you get this dish, make sure each bite contains a good slice from the top layer to the bottom.  Mine sort of fell over on the plate and I ended up eating the layers separately for the first few bites.  This wasn’t bad, but the entire dish came together to become extraordinary when all of the layers were contained in one bite.

The service issues continued during these courses.  At one point we were deep in the midst of an animated conversation (in other words, it was quite obvious that we were in the middle of something and not just sitting there silent) and a manager barged right in and asked how everything was and if he could do anything for us…….yeah, how about rewind the clock by 30 seconds and stay wherever you were!!  This type of interruption never bothered me in the past but this was so blatant and flagrant that it really broke the mood, ended the conversation and ruined the moment.

There was also a lot of unnecessary fussing and “help” from the staff.  Lots of water refills of mostly full glasses, lots of questions if everything is ok when we had mouths full and lots of hovering and near hovering while waiting to clear plates.  At one point the serving dish was empty, but I was still eating the last bites on my plate and I noticed a guy out of the corner of my eye waiting to clear the table.  The event was half annoying and half comical and tailor made for a movie script.  He came in to clear the plate, but then paused at the table while waiting for me to finish my plate which had a couple more bites on it.  He hung there tableside for a few seconds, and then kind of took a half step back to wait for me to finish which made me feel weird and under pressure to please him, so I just set my fork down.  He then came in and cleared the serving plate and left me (finally) in peace to finish my dish.  A minute or two later, he returned to clear my plate.  First world problems for sure, but also a mood killer.  It almost seemed as servers and managers spent more time at the table than away from it!

The main course was another Tom recommendation and the cheaper of the two large plates: Lemongrass Pork Blade Steak with coconut rice, lettuce and herbs for $47.  This was a dish of sliced up pork that you added to the “wrap” of lettuce and added rice, a sauce (there were two to choose from) and fresh herbs.  You sort of built your own pork “taco” inside the lettuce wrap.  One sauce was spicy the other was sweet.  Both were good and both were used!  This was a fun and yummy dish, but I only wish they supplied some moist towels for clean up after the meal.  Maybe my lettuce wrapping skills are not up to par, but I ended up with some very sticky hands at the end of the meal and had to hit the bathroom to do a clean-up.

They only had one dessert on the menu and we go it:  Banh Flan Caphe with condensed milk flan, coffee caramel and chocolate pearls for $10.  It was very tasty but I’m not qualified to deem it a Vietnamese dish.   Like I mentioned above, this would have felt right at home at dozens of DC places……..not a knock!

The photos below are of the Scallop Crudo, the Charred Cabbage and Pineapple, and the Pork Blade dish.

 

 

 

[Ericandblueboy]

My brother and SIL were in town and they've never been to the Wharf so I made reservation at Moon Rabbit.  It was also the DC jazz festival.  So the area was quite crowded but luckily it wasn't ridiculously hot.

The tables were all properly spaced and they opened the glass walls so the entire place felt really well aired.

We asked to try all 4 snacks:

Fillet of Fish - Panko fried turmeric catfish, iceberg, smoked dill tartar.  I thought this would be like Cha Ca La Vong but it turned out to be more like Mickey's D Filet-O-Fish.  It was indeed a fish sandwich, with dill tartar sauce.  It was a good fish sandwich, but nothing special.  Neither the turmeric nor the dill was especially prevalent.

Banh Mi Pate - Five spice chicken liver mousse, chili cherry jam, brioche.  This only showed up on our bill, not on our table.  It was removed from the bill after I notified our server.

Xiumai - Lemongrass pork meatballs, black pepper tomato sauce, peanut satay powder.  I never got to try these as the kids were like starving urchins.  I was told they were good.  Why were they called xiumai?  I dunno.

Chaotom - Sugar Cane Shrimp, Thai basil & garlic butter muoi ot xanh sua dac, lime.  This I tried and enjoyed.  

We asked for 2 entrees and a veggie (which arrived late and not pictured).

Ga Chien - Fried chicken, chili maple fish sauce, pickled carrots, fried garlic.  This has the flavor and texture of Korean fried chicken with a banchan of bean sprouts.  Tasty - yes, but not special.

Lemongrass Pork Blade - Scallion pancake, gem lettuce, bouquet garni.  This dish continues to evolve.  It was a whole steak at Emilie's.  @Bart had it sliced.  Now it's cut into even smaller pieces, with both scallion pancakes and lettuce.  We all loved this dish - so I got very little of it.  Of the 3 sauces, most were pretty spicy but I love eating all the herbs.  The best part of eating Vietnamese food, IMO.

The veggie was Ca Tim Xao - Twice cooked eggplant, sunflower miso satay candied pumpkin seeds, Thai basil.  Nothing special.

We also ordered 2 desserts, the flan I tasted - very good. 

[Mark Dedrick]

We ate at Moon Rabbit in like May or June and had a wonderful meal. The only negative is that the wine list is terrible, and overpriced. As in, with the exception of Krug, you could purchase every single wine on their list at a Safeway. This is a problem that Kith and Kin also had, so is likely related to the InterContinental. But I really hope they can fix this. Apparently corkage is $30, and I'll be taking advantage of this next time I eat there. 

[Mark Slater]

15 hours ago, Mark Dedrick said:

We ate at Moon Rabbit in like May or June and had a wonderful meal. The only negative is that the wine list is terrible, and overpriced. As in, with the exception of Krug, you could purchase every single wine on their list at a Safeway. This is a problem that Kith and Kin also had, so is likely related to the InterContinental. But I really hope they can fix this. Apparently corkage is $30, and I'll be taking advantage of this next time I eat there. 

This is a problem I ran into with corporate places. I worked at a place that had "partnerships" with Gallo, Terlato and Kobrand. This obligated us to give their products  1/3 of the list. This leaves out the small, family owned wineries that I prefer to utilize. Gallo and Constellation dominate the supermarket category. Ever wonder why you see La Marca Prosecco everywhere? Gallo. Kim Crawford? Constellation. 

[Ericandblueboy]

Xiumai, pronounced shu mai means meatball in Vietnamese?  

[eatruneat]

8 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

Xiumai, pronounced shu mai means meatball in Vietnamese?  

No. Meatball in Vietnamese is bo vien, which literally translates to beef tablet. I don’t know why they are called xiu mai, maybe it’s supposed to be the meat inside a xiu mai dumpling?

[Ericandblueboy]

I ask the question because I was watching Luke Nguyen's Railway Vietnam.  In the second episode, he makes pork meatballs and he calls it xiu mai.

https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/vietnamese-pork-meatballs-banh-mi-xiu-mai?cid=inbody:episode-guide--luke-nguyens-railway-vietnam

[Ericandblueboy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shumai
 

Answer in link.

 

[DPop]

Crummy wine list aside, the beautiful bar is now open and has very extremely comfortable seats.  We sat there on Saturday and had a lovely Angel's Envy special bottling (name is escaping me now) and really enjoyed ourselves.  Almost felt like pre-pandemic times again, sitting at a bar without masks and chatting with people over a good glass of booze.

[Mark Dedrick]

We're having our holiday party at Moon Rabbit later this week, so I was looking at their menu and they've totally overhauled their wine list. It doesn't suck! It's really good!

https://www.moonrabbitdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cocktails-beers-wine-9.16.21.pdf

[DonRocks]

8 hours ago, Mark Dedrick said:

We're having our holiday party at Moon Rabbit later this week, so I was looking at their menu and they've totally overhauled their wine list. It doesn't suck! It's really good! 

https://www.moonrabbitdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cocktails-beers-wine-9.16.21.pdf

I agree, Mark - they either have an F&B Director (dare I say “sommelier?”) who knows a few things, or they’ve gotten on the good side of their distributor.

[Mark Slater]

14 hours ago, Mark Dedrick said:

We're having our holiday party at Moon Rabbit later this week, so I was looking at their menu and they've totally overhauled their wine list. It doesn't suck! It's really good!

https://www.moonrabbitdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cocktails-beers-wine-9.16.21.pdf

They seem to have moved away from relying on one immense national distributor (Southern Glazer, National, Breakthru) and found some of our local, small distributors (Elite, C'est Vin). That's always a good thing. The amount of corporate junk wine is greatly reduced. The markups seem very moderate, too. 

[Ericandblueboy]

Had a wonderful dinner at Moon Rabbit last Friday.

We started with some snacks and a salad.  The snacks were (i) foie mousse tart ($12) with 5 spice foie mousse (absolutely delicious, could've ate half a dozen easily), and (ii) banh cam ($18),  deep-fried glutinous rice ball with sate mushroom duxelle and summer truffle (pretty good but I'm not crazy about fried glutinous rice balls - mostly associated with sweets in Chinese cuisine).

The salad, goi du du ($17), consisted of papaya, herbs, lychee, stone fruit, and crushed peanuts.  I thought it was lacking in flavor compared to some of the salads I've had at Eden Center.  The only miss for the night.

The 3 mid-sized dishes were all banging.  They all arrived at the same time.  The tom nuong ($28) was one perfectly grilled head on prawn with Thai basil & garlic butter, served with muoi ot xanh (that green dipping sauce).  Is $28 for one prawn a bit much these days?  The Middendorf's laing ($22) is huge plate of cornmeal fried catfish with snow pea tips, fermented mustard greens, and pork floss.  Everything is plated in a circulate fashion, resembling a wreath.  Importantly, the greens did not soften the crunchy catfish below, which were some of the best fried fish I've had.  I only remember catfish that tasty in New Orleans.  The crawfish noodles ($32) with confit garlic miso, crab fat and aromatic panko was the second fantastic noddle dish we've had lately (the other is the KING TRUMPET NOODLES  zha jiang sauce, daikon, cucumber at Rooster & Owl, we ordered 2nds because it was that good).  

Afterwards we checked out the 2nd phase of the Wharf, which will include a Gordon Ramsay joint.  

[mtureck]

On 8/10/2022 at 12:45 PM, Ericandblueboy said:

Had a wonderful dinner at Moon Rabbit last Friday.

We started with some snacks and a salad.  The snacks were (i) foie mousse tart ($12) with 5 spice foie mousse (absolutely delicious, could've ate half a dozen easily), and (ii) banh cam ($18),  deep-fried glutinous rice ball with sate mushroom duxelle and summer truffle (pretty good but I'm not crazy about fried glutinous rice balls - mostly associated with sweets in Chinese cuisine).

The salad, goi du du ($17), consisted of papaya, herbs, lychee, stone fruit, and crushed peanuts.  I thought it was lacking in flavor compared to some of the salads I've had at Eden Center.  The only miss for the night.

The 3 mid-sized dishes were all banging.  They all arrived at the same time.  The tom nuong ($28) was one perfectly grilled head on prawn with Thai basil & garlic butter, served with muoi ot xanh (that green dipping sauce).  Is $28 for one prawn a bit much these days?  The Middendorf's laing ($22) is huge plate of cornmeal fried catfish with snow pea tips, fermented mustard greens, and pork floss.  Everything is plated in a circulate fashion, resembling a wreath.  Importantly, the greens did not soften the crunchy catfish below, which were some of the best fried fish I've had.  I only remember catfish that tasty in New Orleans.  The crawfish noodles ($32) with confit garlic miso, crab fat and aromatic panko was the second fantastic noddle dish we've had lately (the other is the KING TRUMPET NOODLES  zha jiang sauce, daikon, cucumber at Rooster & Owl, we ordered 2nds because it was that good).  

Afterwards we checked out the 2nd phase of the Wharf, which will include a Gordon Ramsay joint.  

That is a wonderful description of what sounds like an excellent meal, but all that’s going through my mind is “$28 for that prawn?!?”

[Bart]

Amazing pictures as usual, Eric!!!   Thanks!!

[seanvtaylor]

We had a fun, mostly great dinner here on Thursday night. The five of us did all three of the current snacks--the foie mousse tart was delightful, and the cornbread was also very nice, but the sesame mochi was a miss--a good amount of sesame flavor but not much else. Interesting experiment. Our medium-sized dishes were the kombu scallops (delightful), the prawn (a few orders, and perfectly grilled) and the tuna crudo with beets (a bit underwhelming in flavor, to be honest; but perhaps it just paled in comparison to the other dishes that were on the table).

The large plates that we ordered were the flounder (really nicely-done) and the whole fried chicken--a mountain of a dish, with a powerful amount of fish sauce. It was the showstopper and I would absolutely order it again. I'd had Anju's KFC earlier in the week, and while both were amazing, I'd probably tip my hat to Moon Rabbit's if for no other reason than that heroic fish sauce, boldly standing up in the middle of that mound of fat-fried chicken.

Cocktails were very impressive, and service was generally pretty good.

[Bart]

Closed.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2023/05/22/moon-rabbit-closing-kevin-tien-union-fight/

This sucks.  

This hotel is two for two, for killing unique and successful restaurants.  That should be a huge red flag for anyone thinking of opening a place here.

[Ericandblueboy]

10 hours ago, Bart said:

This hotel is two for two, for killing unique and successful restaurants.  That should be a huge red flag for anyone thinking of opening a place here.

I assume you included Kith and Kin?  I was never a huge fan of K&K but its closure has to do with Kwame wanting to leave, nothing to do with the hotel based on the various articles I just read.

[Keithstg]

16 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

I assume you included Kith and Kin?  I was never a huge fan of K&K but its closure has to do with Kwame wanting to leave, nothing to do with the hotel based on the various articles I just read.

Agreed, two different scenarios and an, ahem, "opinionated" headline in the Post do not necessarily constitute red flags. That said, the Pendry is around the corner, is a better hotel by miles, and also has unique restaurants (esp their rooftop bar, Moonraker) so all isn't lost in that area of the Wharf.

[Bart]

I was basing my comment on the abrupt departure/closure of both places and the nearly identical wording in the statement from the hotel.

And shame on those workers for trying to get a living wage, amirite?

[Ericandblueboy]

39 minutes ago, Bart said:

And shame on those workers for trying to get a living wage, amirite?

I don't blame the workers for trying to unionize.  I similarly don't blame the hotel.  Each party can decide what is in its best interest.  Whether unions are good and whether the hotel has the right to avoid unionization are complex legal and economic issues that I'm not qualified to opine upon.  

[DonRocks]

5 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

Each party can decide what is in its best interest.

Therein lies the fundamental problem with Homo sapiens. Also the reason why poverty will exist until species extinction, and why that beach house is destined for the ocean floor. 🙂

[Ericandblueboy]

https://www.dokidokihospitality.com/concepts/moonrabbitdc

Moon Rabbit is currently in the Bryant Street Market.  The menu is smaller but delicious.  We tried all 9 dishes - the mussels are musselly (so don't go for for it unless you like them pungent), the salmon was overcooked, and the carbonara's sauce is a bit weird.  Other dishes were smashing.  When I asked if they have wine, the answer is no but you can bring your own right now with no corkage.  So we brought 3 bottles and then ordered some after dinner cocktails.  I think few people know this place exists right now so it's not very busy yet.    

[DPop]

I went last weekend as well and was not as impressed.  None of the dishes had the 'wow' factor that some had at the Wharf, and I found the mussels to uninteresting, the carbonara to be a big miss, the duck breast a bit bland, and the king salmon to be cooked into submission.  All that said, I understand that it is probably hard to operate in the space they are in now versus where they were, and having a limited cocktail program and no wine (not their choice) really limits the experience.  All that said, I will not be heading back despite this being very close to my house.

[Ericandblueboy]

5 hours ago, DPop said:

the duck breast a bit bland

That's true but the salad in that dish was pretty good so I didn't want to deter anyone from trying it.  We would go back if there's substantial change in the menu.  I think they would work out the kinks.