Many of the vendors at Union Market cook their wares off-site, at food incubators like Mess Hall or Union Kitchen, but not Jocelyn Law-Yone. The co-founder and cook of Toli Moli, Law-Yone arrives at the market at 5 a.m. every morning to begin preparing Burmese food for the day, where she enters what she calls “a zone of my own.”

Now, in addition to offering falooda, a popular dessert that could challenge alchemists over whether it’s a solid or a liquid, Toli Moli is serving up savory options—two noodle salads that Law-Yone says she “raised my kids with,” along with a new loaded iced tea.

One of those kids, Simone Jacobson, is sitting next to her as she says this, but she’s not a kid anymore. Jacobson and Law-Yone began Toli Moli together, and seem to revel in one another’s company.

The morning I visit Law-Yone and Jacobson at Union Market, I’m not alone. Bad Saint and Room 11 co-owner Nick Pimentel swings by, and Law-Yone prepares him the new noodle offerings. The three of them chat about ingredients and compare falooda to Philippine dessert halo-halo.

“What do you think?” Law-Yone asks Pimentel as he munches. “Delicious,” he says.

The two noodle salads are both vegetarian, mainly because Law-Yone doesn’t want to deal with cooking meat in her small stall. One of them has ground tofu alongside thin noodles, and the other has a spicy chili nestled amidst eggplant and udon. The noodle salads are refreshing and light, and come in large and small sizes, which Jacobson says is designed so people can munch on them while wandering around Union Market.

Despite the new savory offerings, Toli Moli still keeps its desserts front and center. Their take on falooda is “inspired by the Burmese version and every stamp in our passport,” Jacobson says.

Because Law-Yone makes the syrups and jellies for it, the falooda tastes different than what she grew up with in Burma. Even the customers who come from what Jacobson terms “the falooda diaspora” are trying something new.

“The product is a fun product, so let’s make it fun,” says Law-Yone, gesturing towards the stall’s bright colors.

Eating falooda is a unique sensation because the dessert practically explodes with texture. It’s part milkshake, filled with jellies that Law-Yone makes from scratch and basil seeds, which pop in your mouth like chia seeds, but with a softer finish. As the only Burmese restaurant in town, they can run into issues trying to source their rare ingredients.

“We almost had a basil seed crisis when we first opened,” says Jacobson, describing an instant where their delivery had seeds from Thailand rather than India, which created an unexpected film upon preparation. “This is the kind of thing that happens when starting a new business—chaos and catastrophe—and you have to keep a cool head.”

Jacobson and Law-Yone recall the near-disaster with levity. “And a sense of humor,” Law-Yone adds. “Laughing is how we deal with chaos and catastrophe.”

Jacobson says that some entrepreneurial venture was always on the table for the two of them. “We have this joke—’get rich slow,’ and we’ve always had ideas,” she says. When the business first started with a series of pop-ups last winter and spring, followed by a stall in Union Market two months ago, the two were so busy they hardly got to see one another.

“I felt like I was missing my mom,” says Jacobson, who recently quit her job as a restaurant general manager to devote herself full-time to Toli Moli. “Now we’re in a phase where we can spend more time together. It’s really scary and exciting to do this full-time—we’re both all in.”

Toli Moli, which means “a little bit of this and that” in Burmese and rhymes with “Holy Moly!”, just extended their stay at Union Market from a pop-up to a lease with no official end. They’re about to be offered on Uber Eats and hope to break into catering, and they’ve got a goal of opening a brick-and-mortar location, which Jacobson says would probably be located in Virginia to serve the area’s immigrant population.

Law-Yone and Jacobson are two members of Toli Moli’s tripod, as they call it. The third business partner is Eric Wang, who first met Jacobson on OK Cupid. “It was not a love match, but it was an amazing, amazing business match,” she says. In addition to the three of them, Toli Moli employs nine other “Falooda Wallahs,” a word used in Burma, among other countries, to mean worker.

They still marvel that they can have the dessert whenever they want, filling a void that existed previously. “Remember when falooda was a dream?” Jacobson asks Law-Yone.

Toli Moli is located at Union Market, 1309 5th ST NE. Hours are 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

Toli Moli Menu by Rachel Kurzius on Scribd