It debuted about two weeks before the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. No sooner had the Block opened than they closed when the city went into lockdown. The dining room has never been the same again. Pokeworks hasn’t reopened, and Slurpin Ramen and Mama Mei’s, the sandwich concept, limped off for months before shutting it down amid a post-apocalyptic downtown landscape in its void.
For virtually a year, the Block had just two vendors operating inside its lonely whitewashed walls: Paolo Dungca and Tom Cunanan’s freewheeling fast-casual Filipino-American spot Pogiboy, which chefs have launched in January 2021, and Rose Ave Bakery, the candy and sandwich counter of bakers Rosie Nguyen and Paula Wang, who have made a name for themselves in the months since quarantine with a range of exceptional snacks that declare allegiance to the Asia and America and points in between.
The Block was more of a food court than a food hall, as Mei wondered if the workers would ever return to their offices in force. The owner’s predicament was a pure trap: a food hall that needed more vendors, who would probably never want to join a food hall with fewer customers.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then crisis is its drill sergeant. Mei and Dungca came up with a clever solution to expand options inside the block without asking outside vendors to take on the risks of an uncertain future: they teamed up to create the pasta-centric Piccoletto as well as Taqueria Don Ciro, a pair of submarines. -marks executed by the team behind Pogiboy. It was a win-win: more choice for consumers, less financial exposure.
The bonus is that sub-brands give a pair of cooks the chance to flex muscles that might otherwise be underused. Piccoletto is a chance for Dungca, 31, to make pasta, a passion he developed nearly a decade ago while working for the estimable Kevin Meehan, who then developed menus for his supper clubs underground in Los Angeles. Taqueria Don Ciro, on the other hand, is a chance for Ciro Barrios, 42, a Mexican who has a long working relationship with Dungca, to take his recipes and cook them at the restaurant.
Both concepts’ menus are truncated affairs, and Piccoletto’s got even shorter over the summer as Dungca and his team tried to find an answer to the pandemic question that haunts every restaurant manager: how do more with less? I mourn the loss of pandan winter melon green tea, my favorite at Piccoletto before the drink was removed in the recent menu overhaul. But if his disappearance was the price to pay for the survival of the pasta shop, I can accept death with something approaching grace.
Like Pogiboy, where Dungca and Cunanan create dishes that seamlessly synthesize their diverse influences, Piccoletto allows Dungca to inject elements of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino cuisine into Italian pasta traditions, less to chase trends than to honor his own leadership journey. Thus, you will find a Chicken Parm in which the cutlet is breaded with panko and flour seasoned with, among other things, tamarind powder. The chicken katsu is then smothered in a spicy pork stew and served with a thick tangle of homemade tagliatelle. You may not finish this beast, but you will.
Dungca replaces guanciale (let’s not argue the guanciale versus pancetta argument, shall we?) in traditional carbonara with tocino, the salty Filipino red pork that adds a sweet touch to the chef’s silky-smooth take on udon. But Dungca’s best fusion pastes are the ones he nicked from a New York restaurant specializing in peanut butter noodles: his version starts with Jif, a spread he dilutes with mirin, rice wine, sesame oil and pasta water. The sauce almost shimmers over the tagliatelle, delivering not only the expected nuttiness and sweetness, but also the tickle of Korean chili flakes at the back of your throat.
If you’re worried about what to order at Piccoletto, I suggest you safely skip the spicy pork tagliatelle, a pasta that doesn’t live up to its bill, as well as the pappardelle with pesto, a bowl of soft pasta. overcooked. noodles that leaves your palate coated in oil. I’m always torn with the calamari fritti, a mixture of deep-fried calamari dusted with five-spice powder and served with a shio koji nori ranch dip. After one bite, I find the seasoning too aggressive for the gentle sea breeze of the calamari; after a second and third bite, I find that I can’t help but pop these puppies.
With the surplus of terrific taquerias in the area, you’d think the last thing we need is another taco shop. You’ll quickly be fooled by this idea once you bite into Barrios’ oxtail barbacoa, a lush mass of meat braised in a beef broth infused with onions, chilies, bay leaf and other aromatics. Oxtail can and should be slipped into any of Don Ciro’s preparations, whether it’s tacos, quesadillas or burrito.
Barrios has developed a spice blend that he mixes with ground pork for homemade chorizo, a crumbly sausage vibrant enough to withstand even the cheesiest quesadillas (and with four different cheeses in Don Ciro’s quesadillas, those these are some of the corniest of them all). The burritos here aren’t the Mission style that dominated the market, but the California style popular in So-Cal. These burrito logs are usually stuffed with fries, but Barrios and Dungca opted for roasted potatoes with skin on, which adds weight and a kind of starchy creaminess to the bite. Pack this burrito with carne asada and you’re good to go.
No matter what you order at The Block, you’ll eventually be faced with a temptation that borders on the Bible: As you wait for your food, mingling with other customers in the margins between tables, you must decide whether to pass the time in line. waiting at the Boulangerie on avenue Rose. Perhaps you will leave with a coconut pandan donut, a kouign-amann passion or a cardamom peach bun? Personally, I give in to temptation every time.
But this temptation will soon disappear. Rose Ave will be moving to Woodley Park in the coming months, abandoning its counter inside the Block. The move may be good for my size, but it will mean one more empty space for Arturo Mei to fill inside his food hall.
Piccoletto and Taqueria Don Ciro
1110 Vermont Ave. NW, inside Block food hall, 202-681-7516, theblockfoodhall.com.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. from Wednesday to Saturday for both operations.
Nearest metro: McPherson Square, a short walk from the food hall.
Prices: $2 to $16.50 for all items at Taqueria Don Ciro; $2 to $12.50 for all items at Piccoletto.
