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Restaurants offer ‘Taste of Wheaton’

Annual event offers diverse flavors for $1 per sample

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette Thu Aung (left), owner of and chef at the Peacock Burmese restaurant, puts the finishing touches on a crispy bean sprout with shrimp appetizer. The 11th annual Taste of Wheaton is for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday along Reedie Drive and Grandview Avenue in downtown Wheaton.

But this weekend, Aung will join two-dozen restaurateurs, bakers and baristas for the 11th-annual Taste of Wheaton. And the timing for Sunday’s $1-per-sample food festival couldn’t be better for Aung, who opened his first restaurant, Peacock Burmese, on a bustling Georgia Avenue just five weeks ago.

‘‘I am very excited to introduce Burmese food,” said Aung, a native of that nation’s commercial capital, Rangoon. ‘‘That’s why I choose this place,” Wheaton, ‘‘because there are two or three Vietnamese [restaurants], two or three Chinese, but no Burmese. So I want to be part of the food dynasty in Wheaton.”

The collection of small, family-owned ethnic restaurants and delis is important to the redevelopment of Wheaton, according to county officials, the food is one of the primary reasons why people visit and move to the area.

‘‘We finally have some new residential in our downtown,” said Natalie Cantor, director of the Mid-County Regional Services Center, ‘‘... and when I talk to the newer residents, they tell me — and remember that these are people, given the costs of these homes, who could go anywhere in Montgomery County — and they say the reason they chose Wheaton [was] because of its diversity and [also] because of these restaurants.”

And with so much restaurant competition, a signature event like Taste of Wheaton can be important for new eateries like Aung’s, as well as the area’s older establishments.

‘‘Taste of Wheaton is the kind of event that brings a lot of people, not only from Wheaton, but from elsewhere,” said Victor Lantang, the chef and owner of Sabang Indonesian Restaurant, located at 2504 Ennalls Ave. for the last 17 years. ‘‘For us, as a restaurant, it’s a good opportunity to give new people a taste of our food.”

That’s not to say that participating in Taste of Wheaton brings immediate benefits for the restaurants that will cook and serve samples from tents lining Reedie Drive and Grandview Avenue in downtown Wheaton.

‘‘For $1 a sample, you don’t make much money,” said Lantang, who has participated in the event for the past 10 years. ‘‘But it’s a good promotion, and a way to let people know there are so many ethnic restaurants in Wheaton and that we exist. This is a unique place.”

The triangle of streets that forms the heart of Wheaton’s central business district are the center of a hub of restaurants, grocery stores, specialty shops and service providers that serve the area’s ethnically diverse community. But it’s the food that has put Wheaton on the map, with stores that feature the tastes of Central and South America, Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East and Old Europe.

The area also has a few franchises, chains, and regional favorites like Ledo Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts, Pollo Campero, Checkers and Starbucks. But the one thing that has been missing — at least in Aung’s eyes — was a Burmese restaurant.

Burma’s cuisine developed from the two nations that straddle its borders, Aung said. ‘‘It mostly has a little curry. Burma is between India and China, and some of the food looks Indian, but it is milder food. And it also is like Chinese food, but with a different taste.”

Visitors to the Peacock Burmese tent at the festival will have a chance to sample three dishes, including deep-fried fritters made from a blend of yellow split peas, ginger, garlic and cilantro. Aung also will serve his version of samosas, which are stuffed with potatoes, onions and green peas and then fried to a golden-brown crisp.

And for something a little lighter, $1 will buy a small bowl of kyar-zan-hin-gar, a chicken-broth soup with glass noodles, mushrooms, bean curd skin, lilies, shrimp, garlic and pepper.

‘‘The seasonings are mild,” he said. ‘‘This is very authentic Burmese.”

If previous years are any indication, the Taste of Wheaton should help Aung attract new customers to his kitchen at 11220 Georgia Ave. Sabang Indonesian Restaurant’s Lantang said he conducts customer surveys for several months following the festival each year and finds that his restaurant’s participation does indeed bring in new customers who turn into repeat customers.

People who stop by Sabang’s tent will get a small sampling of Indonesia’s food, which is rooted in various traditions from among the country’s more than 7,000 inhabited islands.

‘‘The food is like a cross between Thai and Chinese,” Lantang said, ‘‘because Indonesia is of so many different islands and each island represents its own cuisine, like Java, which is known for sweet foods, or my island, Sulawesi, where the food is spicy.”

Lantang will serve several dishes at the festival, which will run 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., including marinated spicy beef and rice noodles with chicken stir-fry. He’ll also sell skewered chicken satay and a filet of fish in a yellow sauce, plus chicken wings in kalio sauce (‘‘It’s made with 20 different spices,” he grinned. ‘‘It’s rich with spices.”).

The last 17 years in Wheaton have seen their ups and downs, Lantang said, but as redevelopment brings new residents to the area — and as the county continues the tradition of Taste of Wheaton — things are improving.

‘‘Wheaton has always been like that, as a place to eat. But in the last few years, it’s like Wheaton’s name is disappearing, but now I feel it’s coming back with the new housing and all,” he said. ‘‘I don’t expect a big thing overnight, but I know the county government is doing a lot of make Wheaton better. That’s why I’m hanging in here.”