Big Tastes in Little Korea: Annandale, VA
- Gus and Alex
- Oct 28, 2017
- 9 min read
안녕하세요 (ann-yeong-ha-seyo) to our fabulous readers! That's Korean for hello and it's hella befitting for the topic in our first travel article! Today we're going to go over all the best places to visit in one the east coast's most prominent Koreatowns, known as Annandale, Virginia.
The town of Annandale is located about 20-30 minutes outside of Washington, DC, depending on all the lovely (*note sarcasm*) traffic that takes place on the turnpike by I-495. If you want a delicious, authentic selection of Korean food, you want to visit this town instead of looking for places in DC. Annandale's population is a quarter Asian and has several hundred businesses ran specifically by Koreans and Korean-Americans, so it's safe to say that you'll be in good hands here.
Besides the Korean food, which in itself is enough reason to come here, there's also a few stores specializing in Korean skincare. The Korean skincare industry is ran by geniuses. I don't know how they do it, but Korean skincare products are some of the best face products we currently own. We'll talk about the two skincare shops we visited later on in this article.
From the Korean bakeries to the Asian grocery marts to even the bubble tea here, we both agree that this place just makes us happy. Like really happy. Like almost as happy as being licked in the face by dogs that love you or watching your succulent garden grow into a tropical masterpiece.
FOOD
Breeze Bakery Café
Website: http://breezebakery.com/
Instagram: breezebakerycafe
Green tea eclair (left) and the cheese and ham croquette pastry (right)
This is where we met up to start off our day with breakfast. This bakery has hundreds of fantastic reviews and we can pretty much see where they're all coming from. We got there around 8am on a Sunday, about an hour after they first opened. Walking in was like walking straight into a gastronomic paradise. The sweet and savory smells of the fresh baked goods took us in, but we had enough presence of mind to recognize some other smells not known to American or European bakeries, like rice flour and bean paste. There were dozens upon dozens of just-out-of-the-oven baked goods, still warm in their wrappers, and a large selection of bright and playful pastries in the cooler case up front.
We ended up ordering around 10 things to share amongst the 3 of us (Alex's husband, Jay, was there, too), but here's some of the most noteable items:
- Green Tea Eclair: this looked gorgeous due to its vibrant green icing, but the flavor wasn't like what we imagined it to be. The choux pastry was baked perfectly, with a light and airy feel, but the icing and the filling tasted too floral, almost like what the smell of perfume would taste like.
- Sweet Potato Bread: all 3 of us LOVED this. It didn't have an overpowering sweet potato flavor, but it was subtly sweet and had an amazing, rich texture.
- Milk Bread: if you ever get the chance to visit a Korean bakery, definitely try milk bread. It's soft, tender bread with a sweet, yeasty taste. It's something anyone would like.
- Ham & Cheese Croquette: this was one of their warm pastries, with melted cheese and ham on this inside. This also had imitation crab meat in their, which was a twist on a classic pastry that turned out fabulous.
- Green Tea Bingsoo: This. Was. Amazing. 10/10. We actually came back at the very end of our day in Annandale to eat this and it was such a great way to close this adventure. We had literally been eating all day, but because of how light and refreshing this was, we were able to eat almost all of the bowl. The shaved ice tasted sweet, like it had sweetened condensed milk in it, the mochi were bite-sized and perfectly chewy, the red adzuki beans added a nice fudgey consistency to an otherwise airy dessert, and the matcha green tea ice cream and sauce had the most exquisite earthy flavor that you could ask for.
The most amazing matcha green tea bingsoo
Besides the great food here, the interior of this bakery is gorgeous. There are several beautiful spots in this bakery for an impromptu photo shoot, like their frosted glass windows by the downstairs tables that has mysterious shadow outlines of the tree branches from outside.
Perfect for a brooding, thoughtful shot
If you go upstairs to the second floor, there's an outside area that leads to a bright, open balcony. They have a cute little container garden up there that adds even more happiness to this place. Since it was so early, we were the only ones up there so we had a serious photo shoot moment.
There a patio located down the stairs off the balcony, where the photo shoot continued...
"Citi Nails + Spa 20% Off"
If you ever get the chance to come to Annandale, start off your day here!
Red Holic
They don't have a website, but here's their Yelp page: https://www.yelp.com/biz/red-holic-annandale
Looking at this picture always makes me hungry
Probably one of the best lunches we've ever had was from here. This place is the literal definition of the word "cool." You have to take downward stairs to get to the front, which is painted an in-your-face red. It's a "cool" kind of red. The decor on the inside is simple. Red walls, white tables, black chairs, some Korean advertisements on the walls. That's it. Trés cool.
The food they specialize in here is Korean street food. Gus went to Seoul, Korea early in 2016, so he has a pretty knowledgable understanding of the ins and outs of Korean street food. Alex, the permanent stateside redhead, had no clue, but Gus taught all the essentials. We mainly wanted to indulge in obscene amounts of kimbap (a Korean dish that somewhat resembles sushi), but decided to broaden our horizons a little. They serve crazy cool dishes from soondae/순대 (a Korean blood sausage made out of pig's blood and cellophane noodles) to tteokbokki/떡볶이 (stir fried rice cakes in a spicy sauce) and loads more.
Before the main meal came out, we were served 3 banchan dishes, which are like the Korean version of an appetizer/side dish. We had danmuji/단무지, which is just sweet, pickled radish. It's a bright yellow color and super crispy, and the flavor is sweet and a little tart. Quite enjoyable to nibble on, really. We also had some pickled radish with jalapeno, which was the spiciest thing we had here. Lastly, we were served a clear soup that tasted in between chicken broth and miso, with some green onions for garnish.
We decided to order the 3-item platter with kimbap, fried mandu dumplings, and the spicy tteokbokki. Everything was great, hands down. The tteokbokki wasn't nearly as spicy as what is common in Korea (it was probably a 5 out of 10 on the spicy scale), but it made it easier for us to appreciate the flavors. *Pro tip: eat the hard boiled egg that comes in the tteokbokki first because it's supposed to coat your stomach to combat the effects of the spiciness in the sauce. The mandu dumplings were a good, large size stuffed with pork, garlic, and cellophane noodles and had a crisp outside. The kimbap rolls were stunning, you can tell a lot of love went into creating those masterpieces. Overall, everything came together nicely and all the flavors complemented each other.
The kimbap was packed full of flavorful goodness like bulgogi, egg, pickled radish, carrot, and drizzled with sesame oil
The front of the restaurant is the perfect place for more Instagram-worthy pictures. Gus was having a serious moment here...
This is right in front of Red Holic's iconic red store front. Perfect.
A definite jean jacket and exposed brick moment
Kung Fu Tea
Website: https://www.kungfutea.com/
Instagram: kungfuteausa
Kung Fu Tea is a world-renowned bubble tea specialty chain that has multiple stores throughout the United States and Australia, and will soon have a presence in Canada and Vietnam. If you've never tried bubble tea, it's usually a tea base (either made of black tea or green tea), syrup, ice, and dark, chewy tapioca pearls, which are the bubbles in bubble tea. If you're looking for a place to try out bubble tea, this is a great place to go. If you've already converted to #TeamBubbleTea, this is the a great place to go. You can customize your order, from how sweet you want your tea to be to how much ice you want in it.
This was our first time at a Kung Fu Tea, so naturally we couldn't help ourselves and ordered 4 different flavors to try as many as we could handle. Just a FYI, these stores have gained immense popularity from their success at making bubble tea, so just prepare yourself for a line.
All the teas we ordered were with 70% sweetness, tapioca pearls, and a little bit of ice:
~ Coffee Milk Tea: This was amazing. It tasted like a great ice coffee and the bubbles tasted almost mocha-y when paired with coffee. The tapioca pearls were soft and chewy and added great texture.
~ Kung Fu Milk Tea: This is one of their house flavors and it was also amazing. It was sweet and tasted like a classic black tea.
~ Milk Green Tea: We didn't really care for this, it was alright, but there was no true green tea matcha flavor which we wanted.
~ Taro Milk Tea: Neither of us liked this. It tasted exactly like the liquid version of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans in the buttered popcorn flavor. Or the lukewarm milk left after eating really sugary cereal. Either way, this wasn't for us.
Stunned into heaven by this bubble tea....
ChiMc Chicken and Beer
Website: http://chimcusa.com
We caught up with Jay and had dinner together at ChiMc, which is one of the best Korean fried chicken places in town. For the purpose of wanting to be catchy and/or clever, we're going to be referring to Korean fried chicken as KFC 2.0 on this blog. Just go with the KFC 2.0 flow.
This chicken was the crispiest chicken we've ever had. It's a little sweet since we got the soy flavored sauce with it, and there was a lot of good, white meat to bite off. Which is important, because some people present at the table (read Alex and Jay) are incredibly picky with chicken wings and legs. The medium combo came with like 7/8 wings and 4 legs, which all looked larger than normal to us. But we weren't complaining.
Make sure you call at least 30 minutes prior to showing up to let them know what your party will be ordering. Due to the way they prepare/cook KFC 2.0, it takes them a pretty long while to make the chicken. Be aware, they fully expect you to show up EXACTLY when you tell them you will.
All smiles for KFC 2.0
The Face Shop
Website: https://thefaceshop.ca/en
Instagram: thefaceshopcanada (in English)
thefaceshop.official (in Korean)
The Face Shop is a premier Korean skincare and cosmetic brand that has the philosophy of a "natural story," referring to their use of high-quality, natural ingredients, eco-friendly containers, and their opposition against animal testing. You can see this theme in their packaging, with very simplistic text on their products and muted, earthy tones in their color scheme. We were impressed with it here, the price is extremely reasonable for the high quality sold here. The sold a wide variety of face masks (which is what we were really interested in) from around $2-$8.
A 3-step blackhead remover that (1) opens the pore, (2) removes everything in the pore, and (3) closes the pore back up
Tony Moly
Website: https://tonymoly.us/
Instagram: tonymoly.us_official (in English)
tonymoly.official (in Korean)
Tony Moly is a equal competitor in the Korean skincare and cosmetics game alongside The Face Shop. Tony Moly may be more well known in the United States since trendy stores like Urban Outfitters sell their products in-store. Some of their most popular products are their large line of sheet masks in their signature packaging. While The Face Shop focuses on natural looking packaging, Tony Moly captures attention with bold, vivid colors and bright cartoon designs. The price range for their masks are around $3-10. Gus also purchased a toner for pore health and he loves it. It has a fresh scent and doesn't dry the skin or make the skin feel too tight.
Two sheet masks from Tony Moly. Note the bright and cartoonish packaging on their I'm Real line
Lil' Thingamajigs
They don't have a website, but here is the page to their Yelp reviews: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lil-thingamajigs-gift-shop-annandale
This is a novelty store specializing in Asian stationery, cute knickknacks (think Hello Kitty and the other Sanrio characters), some Korean cosmetics, and K-Pop merchandise. The prices here are a bit high, but a lot of what is sold here is imported from Asia. We were interested mainly in the stationary selection, and they do have quite a good selection of pens, mechanical pencils, and markers/highlighters. They also sell adorable erasers, pencil cases, and notebooks for a pretty reasonable price.
This shop was alright, it was mainly exciting because you can't find a lot of the products sold here in other stores in the area, but but you definitely end up paying for the . We did end up buying a few colored pens and a cute notebook small enough to carry around with you. Gus also ended up buying a calendar that was on sale for around $5, so if you look hard enough, you can find some good quality stuff for reasonable prices.
Thanks for reading this article, and if you ever find yourself by Washington DC, make a pitstop at this Koreatown and explore some Korean cu
Comments