How’s this for an Asian melting pot? This simple Falls Church roast-meat specialist has a row of Cantonese roast ducks hanging from their necks at the counter, in classic fashion, along with one of the area’s most extensive menus of authentic regional Chinese dishes. The thing is, the names of the dishes aren’t in Cantonese, but rather in Vietnamese. That’s because it’s in the Eden Center, northern Virginia’s Vietnamese mecca—on the older, otherwise less exciting side of the mall, Saigon East—and most of the customers, the cuisine notwithstanding, are Vietnamese, too.

It seems that the Vietnamese know their Chinese food, because this kitchen is firing on all cylinders, beginning with those showstopping Cantonese roast meats: not just vit quay (duck), which has the sort of ideally crispy skin that can only come from extensive, tedious air-drying, but also heo quay (roast suckling pig), xa xiu (roast pork), and ga xi dau (soy-sauce chicken).

Even in a neighborhood that’s generally a playground for adventurous eaters, this menu will make them feel like kids in a candy store: da heo huyet vit (pig’s skin and duck’s blood); noi chan vit rut xuong & hai xam nam dong co (a duck’s feet, sea cucumber, and mushroom casserole); ech xao bat hop (somewhat dry stir-fried frog with lily bulb); luoi vit xao bong he (a crackling good platter of duck tongue stir-fried with green chives); or goi sua thit ga (a cold platter of fresh, resilient shredded jellyfish and chicken). In general, avoid the stir-fry dishes, which veer too far toward boring Chinese-American. The Chinese people don’t order these, and neither do the Vietnamese. As usual, people in these immigrant communities understand how to navigate the culinary melting pot better than the downtowners do.