I’ll never forget the first time I tucked into a bowl of bright ramen from Toki Underground or the sweetened crust of Maketto’s Taiwanese fried chicken. Or the time I read a book in a line of hopefuls during a two-hour wait for Bad Saint. Or the plush bite of Ellē’s egg breakfast sandwich on a bun baked just before I rolled out of bed. I’ll now add ABC Pony’s white Bolognese fusilli to my list of memorable dishes, a joint effort from the minds of three chefs who’ve had a hand in all the others.

ABC Pony, an Italian-Asian all-day café and restaurant freshly open in Navy Yard, is the latest venture from Erik Bruner-Yang and entrepreneur partners Eric and Ian Hilton. To merge the two cuisines, he brought on chef Chris Yates (Blue Duck Tavern, Ellē, The Dabney), who was ready to focus on homemade noodles, and chef Paolo Dungca (Kaliwa, Bad Saint), who has a background in cooking Thai, Korean, and Filipino dishes. Their vision is a more casual cousin to their other concepts, a 99-seat neighborhood pasta shop located off the lobby of the Novel South Capitol apartment building.

For Bruner-Yang, who was born in Taiwan and grew up in the States, the concept continues to interrogate diners’ perceptions of American food and culture, with echoes of the East-West confluence he showcases at The Line hotel’s Brothers and Sisters and the noodle-driven bent of Toki Underground. He says ABC Pony, named after one of his children’s toys, is the “culinary expression” of a scene from the Spike Lee movie Do the Right Thing, where there’s a fight between a Korean grocery store owner and an Italian pizza shop owner.

“They’re both from immigrant cultures trying to just make it here, yelling at each other about being American,” says Bruner-Yang. “For this restaurant in particular, I really wanted to explore what old-school Americana cities have as their neighborhood restaurants. I’m second-generation Asian American and Chris is third-generation Italian American and Paolo is Filipino American, and this is what a noodle shop in this neighborhood means to us.”

ABC Pony is the first partnership between Yates and Dungca, who split the menu into warm and cold appetizers and homemade pastas. Dungca says the project appealed because of the chance to “cook freely,” to stretch the boundaries of Filipino, Thai, and Korean cooking. The chefs experimented all summer, consulting on Bruner-Yang’s &pizza creations in New York City (he was named executive chef earlier this year) and testing recipes at The Kennedy Center’s REACH festival, where they spent long days rolling dough by hand. While Bruner-Yang has mostly taken himself out of the kitchen, he served as a final editor on the menu as it took shape.

All 12 items available for lunch and dinner are under $20. Yates describes the menu as comfort food with a fine-dining spin: There’s the lumpia, a fried Filipino-style spring roll stuffed with burrata and meatballs and paired alongside spicy tomato sauce; and the stracciatella, a play on egg drop soup lifted from Yates’ mother’s kitchen. A cheesy bowl of Parmesan chicken stock and poached eggs gets served over celery root, sliced chilis, and jalapeno. The clams incorporate smokier Asian components, like Japanese dashi broth instead of white wine, garlic chives, and red Thai chilis.

In the noodle section, there’s sweet potato agnolotti in a funky taleggio cheese and the chefs’ seafood-based interpretation of puttanesca, tossed in an XO sauce, anchovies, olives, and capers. Bruner-Yang describes the fusilli as “a deconstructed pepperoni pizza,” a bowl of Bolognese topped with hunks of soppressata and bread crumbs for crunch.

At the bar in the evenings, six cocktails ($10 or less) incorporate Japanese whiskey and lemongrass-infused Roku gin or use Asian bases like miso syrup, soju, gochujang, and togarashi-sesame syrup. There’s even beets, infused in a Negroni garnished with blue cheese olives. There’s also a short list of beer and wine and a $60 bottle of Voyage 360 brut champagne.

Breakfast items are still in the works; for now, the café serves coffees, teas, and gluten-free pound cakes. As the restaurant grows, the chefs would like to tack on all-day weekend brunch and a homemade charcuterie program with Chinese sausages and cured meats for sandwiches.

Apart from its name, ABC Pony also weaves an air of nostalgia into the décor, hearkening back to Bruner-Yang’s childhood with 1980s and 1990s toys and memorabilia. Cartoon characters pop up on the wallpaper, and a shelf of VHS tapes, which Bruner-Yang gifted his wife for Mother’s Day, line the walls behind the counter: The Godfather, Zoolander, American Pie.

“Everything we do is fun and a little loose,” says Bruner-Yang. “I want it to be hodgepodge, somewhere between a fancy dive bar and a nice restaurant. I’m excited for people to try what is a different departure for us.”

ABC Pony is located at 2 Eye St. SE. Hours are Mondays-Thursdays 7 a.m.-10 p.m. (bar closes at 2 a.m.), Fridays-Saturdays 7 a.m.-11 p.m. (bar closes at 3 a.m.), and Sundays 7 a.m.-5 p.m.  

ABC Pony Menu by Anonymous ISZVAnsZ on Scribd