Water & Wall Dim Sum Lunch

Restaurant Week in DC has come and gone. I have mixed feelings about the promotion, meant to stimulate the economy during typical slow periods in the restaurant industry, but resulting in possibly dumbed-down versions of many establishments’ menus. Regardless, I always seem to participate in some way or another.
This year, I tried to stick to lunches, as they tend to be the better deal (though I did end up eating a restaurant week dinner by accident). My first reservation was at Water & Wall in Arlington, a Tim Ma restaurant near both Tom’s and my office that we’ve been meaning to check out for ages.
The restaurant is very unassuming from the outside, located in a former Pines of Florence location (where I once sat at the bar and drank a very mediocre glass of wine) but is bright and airy on the inside. We received quick and attentive service from the start, from a server who looked just like Rory Gilmore (not Alexis Bledel, but Rory specifically – there’s a difference) which only made me more excited to dig into the food.
The restaurant week menu at Water & Wall is a bit different from what you’ll usually see. You get the option of a soup or salad to start and a dessert to finish, all standard, but for the main portion of the meal you choose three dim sum options. We thought it was a pretty cool idea and were excited because we got to try almost everything on the menu this way.
We ordered both the salad and the soup, and both were solid dishes. The butternut squash soup with oyster mushroom, sage and sage oil was smooth and earthy with bites of the crispy mushrooms and kale.
The winter jewel salad was a classic, fresh and tangy, although nothing to write home about.
Our first dim sum choice, the crème fraiche wings with gojujang and oyster sauce, may have been the most interesting item on the menu.
Tom really liked these. They were very crispy and full of flavor. Unfortunately, I’m not an oyster sauce fan or even a big wing eater so I just had a bite and left the rest to him.
More up my alley were the mac and cheese with aged Vermont cheddar and pork slider with ssamjang.
The mac and cheese was one of my favorite dishes. I loved how simple it was. Fancy mac and cheese doesn’t do it for me. I just want noodles and gooey cheese, and this delivered. The slider on the other hand was a disappointment. It was served cold (I guess on purpose?) and lacked much flavor.
Another standout dish was the pumpkin curry with eggplant, apple and pita. The pumpkin and eggplant were perfectly tender and the dish had just the right amount of spice. I also loved that it was served sandwich style, perfect for lunch.
The kimchi and belly was a middle-of-the-pack option, mostly unremarkable but prepared well.
Unpictured was a delicious but not terribly photogenic bowl of crispy Brussels sprouts with truffle aioli, two tiny scoops of vanilla gelato and two chocolate chip cookies that we took home for another time.
Overall, it was a hit or miss meal that showed a lot of promise. I don’t feel that you can ever really judge a restaurant based on their restaurant week performance, so I’ll be back another time. I will say, the value was high here – we got tons of food!
Water & Wall’s menu changes often but the lunch always features dim sum options (three for $15).