Mango Mango!

Having just returned to DC from NYC, with some extreme indulgences into Chinese mango chicken at Our Place, we decided to wrap up mango month with our first trip to
 Mango Mango Dessert in the amazing Eden Center. This mango ice cream sundae, with its base of mango chunks, full scoops of mango ice cream topped with mango drizzle and sweet whipped cream was beyond the fruity beyond — almost too pretty to plunge a spoon into. Nestled on the outskirts of the Eden Center, Mango Mango is a sleek dessertery that offers everything from waffles and fruit to peanut paste soup (next up on the try-it list).

The beauty of Mango Mango is this — on a steamy spring afternoon, you can pop inside (not busy in the afternoon) and indulge in not only this creamy, dreamy fruit tower but also their not-too-cold A/C. One of the best parts of Asian cuisines, to me, is the incorporation of savory and sweet — fruit with chicken and garlic, fruit pastes that incorporate red peppers for pork — and the overall prevalence of the mango. In American cooking, the mango still seems exotic yet for Asian cuisines the mango is just about everywhere — Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese. Growing up on the West Coast, Asian restaurants were always part of our culinary vocabulary and now that we’re in the near South, it is wonderful to find these comfort foods in just about every neighborhood.

I’ve long been drawn to mangoes for their health boosting ability — their color alone is a mood booster and this dynamic yellow fruit often appears on super food lists. There are entire blogs devoted to mango love. A trusted source, the BBC, details the nutritional benefits of this delectable fruit from its vitamin content to its beneficial properties for the gut.

Health value aside — the mango is beautiful in color, texture and versatility — and readily available in summer in the U.S. But in those dark winter months…a bag of frozen from Trader Joe’s does just fine for a lovely even crisp, crunchy oatmeal top and butter to carmelize the mangoes for a tinge of chewiness. Love cobbler but don’t have any peaches? Mango cobbler is an apt substitute and just a tinge different, that here in the near South, would sure to be a $15 dessert at a newer restaurant. Warm or cold, a scosh of whipped cream on top completes the beauty of a mango dessert.