Have you heard of the Waffle House Index? It’s the unofficial metric by which FEMA gauges disasters. A red Waffle House Index means an occurrence so severe that the restaurants are closed. But I propose my own version: the Dim Sum Index. When Mark’s Duck House in Falls Church began welcoming customers back to its dining room on April 16, it signaled a return to normalcy that really meant something. The stalwart, owned by John Jiang, who took over from original owners Frederick and Esther Mark nearly a decade ago, is now back at it, with a packed dining room filled with the dim sum faithful on the weekends. But how is the food? I tried both the regular menu and dim sum to find out.
Duck is in the name at Mark’s, so it had better be good. After experiencing disappointingly flaccid skin when I visited Peking Gourmet Inn last summer (I plan to give it another chance), I was prepared for the worst. But the Peking duck at Mark’s is serious stuff. The crisp skin oozes rich fowl fat from its every pore, leaving the meat tender, juicy, and intensely flavorful. The flesh arrives at the table already separated from the bone, but tableside, an experienced server assembles the first pancakes; soft, sylphlike wrappers that barely contain a wash of hoisin, piled with duck and matchsticks of scallion.
A note about the excellent service at Mark’s: Most of the waitstaff have been there for decades, and it shows. They know the menu, and are uniformly comfortable communicating in English. It makes ordering a pleasure, despite a menu so filled with Cantonese classics that it can be difficult to navigate.
That bill of fare relies heavily on seafood, so I ordered as much of it as I could, but wasn’t thrilled with the results. The steamed oysters are Rubenesque specimens, offered in a number of modes, including the one I tried, loaded with scallions and doused in a lightly spicy soy-based sauce weighted with ginger. Only one problem: It wasn’t sufficiently cleaned before serving and left my teeth feeling like I was eating sandpaper. At $8 for a single Pacific Ocean oyster, it’s not an inexpensive error.
I sought redemption in the steamed flounder with black bean and garlic sauce. It arrived smelling like the sea, perhaps a little too much. But the firm white flesh wasn’t excessively fishy. The bigger problem was the watery sauce. I appreciated the funk of the fermented black beans and garlic, but other versions I’ve had have boasted a more substantial body–and more flavor.
Unexpectedly, one of the best dishes that I tried from chef Hua Tan’s regular menu was a special request. A dining companion with allergies asked for snow pea leaves and beef, prepared with no garlic. The velvety meat and tender leaves would typically be crying for the presence of an allium. But Tan’s deft use of oyster sauce and mushrooms produced a mouth-coating umami flavor, giving the dish a personality of its own without the garlic.
A small dim sum menu is available every day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but on weekends, dim sum chef Andy Wu takes over the kitchen with a large roster of dishes that are packed into carts. Three women do the rounds with all the classics, from siu mai dumplings to yeung hai kim, the stuffed crab claws that leer lustily from their plates.
A Saturday or Sunday dim sum meal is a good opportunity to try the roasted meats that hang in the restaurant’s front window in a small portion. The pork’s armor of skin is appealingly crisp, but served at room temperature, the fat doesn’t have the opportunity to gush quite the way that the Peking duck does so alluringly. It’s still worth ordering, but save room for cheung fun, the rice noodles that I introduce to newbies as “Chinese manicotti,” but are really so much more. The slippery, nearly transparent rice noodles are stuffed with a number of different fillings, including shrimp and pork, all of which benefit from the sweet soy sauce that a server pours over it before placing it on the table.
The dim sum offerings are not limited to dumplings and the dumpling-adjacent, however. The very best bite among the options may well be the steamed pork spare ribs. Freckled with black beans and garlic, the tender segments of meat burn with the unexpected heat of jalapenos. It’s not a profile I expect from Cantonese food, and is all the more thrilling for its surprise.
A few dim sum favorites are too ephemeral to survive in their optimal state after a few turns in a cart. Sensibly, the Mark’s team waits for you to order them, allowing the dishes to arrive hot and fresh. Those include the taro puffs called wu gok in Cantonese. Often, the centers of the mashed taro dumplings are on the dry side. Not so at Mark’s, where chef Wu fills them with a meaty, saucy center, but still manages to let the coral-like exterior crunch.
Ask for them with the egg custard tarts. The mildly sweet, warm custard is wrapped in a tart shell that comes to the table smelling of pure butter. It’s indulgent, but then, what is dim sum if not foreplay for a postprandial nap? The Dim Sum Index is now a cheery green in NoVA, and whether diners wait for the weekend or take advantage of a weekday Peking duck and some cheung fun, it’s delightful to be back in a crowded Chinese restaurant. // 6184-A Arlington Blvd., Falls Church
See this: The spare dining room is filled with customers and red paper lanterns, but the best view is of the roasted ducks, chickens, and pigs in the front window.
Eat this: Peking duck, steamed pork spare ribs, wu gok (taro puffs)
Rating: ★★★
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