Exotica Adjacent: Great Wall Asian Market

ON SATURDAY MORNINGS, vendors set up shop outside Great Wall supermarket in Falls Church. They serve sweet-smelling Chinese breakfast treats including flaky breads topped with sesame seeds; rice rolls stuffed with dried pork; savory sesame balls filled with green onions; and deep-fried doughnut breads — almost like giant churros without the cinnamon sugar.

Inside Great Wall, there's even more action.

Sunny Chang, a 24-year-old accountant living in Arlington, has become a Great Wall regular. (Full disclosure — we've known Sunny for 10 years.) A first-generation Taiwanese-American, she discovered the Asian market on a shopping trip with her mother.

"My mom goes every weekend," she said. "It's super, super cheap. She says it's better than Lotte, Super H-Mart and Kam Sam." Sunny's mother, Nancy Chang, who lives in Fairfax, says Great Wall specializes in traditional Chinese produce, poultry and live seafood.

The back wall of the store is lined with tanks containing live fish. But there are a few unexpected sights. There are tubs filled with live frogs, live turtles — big, live turtles — live crabs and live lobsters, all of which are featured in Chinese cuisine. Turtle, Nancy says, is served at weddings because it symbolizes longevity. Frog is a more typical entree, usually prepared by sauteeing or deep-frying.

Other seafood includes jellyfish, starfish, sea cucumbers and geoduck, a type of clam. Many of these foods, the Changs explain, found their place Chinese cuisine because, historically, poor villagers had to eat whatever was around. Since then, Chinese chefs have transformed these dishes into delicacies. It's a story true of almost every culture.
In the poultry section, black chickens stand out. In addition to having a strong gamy flavor, Sunny Chang says, black-skinned chickens have medicinal value. High in antioxidants, they benefit the stomach, lungs and blood.

Traditional packaged foods also fill the grocery aisles. Sunny mentions that 1,000-year-old eggs — duck eggs preserved in alcohol, mud and rice — are "a very acquired taste," she says. "We usually eat it chopped up with cognee."

Now, shoppers can find boxes upon boxes of mooncakes for the upcoming Chinese Autumn Moon Festival, which celebrates "the lady in the moon." Mooncakes — pastries filled with lotus paste — are eaten during the festival.

So many of Great Wall's offerings have cultural significance. But there's an even better reason to try the food. "It's just good!" Nancy Chang says with a laugh.

» Great Wall Asian Market, 2982 Gallows Road, Falls Church; 703-208-3388.

Written by Express contributor Suemedha Sood
Photo by Suemedha Sood