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Restaurants

If you’re buying…

by Jacob Grier on February 5, 2009

The restaurant business is down all across the country. “Extreme solicitousness tinged with outright desperation” is how Frank Bruni described the mood at many of New York City’s top restaurants right now. So how are things going in DC? Amanda McClements at Metrocurean decided to take an unscientific poll at OpenTable. Here’s what came of her attempts to snag prime time Saturday night reservations at some of her favorite restaurants two days in advance:

• Blue Duck Tavern: booked
• Central: booked
• CityZen: booked
• Marvin: booked
• Proof: booked
• Citronelle: booked
• The Source: booked
• Rasika: 6:15 p.m.
• Bourbon Steak: 6 or 9:15 p.m.
• Corduroy: 5:30 or 9 p.m.
• Sei: 6:30 or 9 p.m.
• Westend: 6 or 9 p.m.

It must be nice to have an economy built on spending other people’s money (politicians, government employees) or spending your own to get even more taken away from someone else (lobbyists).

My friend Radley Balko wrote about Washington’s worrying wealth boom for FOX earlier this year.

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Most missed in DC/NOVA

by Jacob Grier on December 4, 2008

This morning I’ll be hopping on a plane from Portland and flying to DC, returning for the first time since leaving in August. I miss the place more than I expected to. I miss my friends, though with all your Tweets it sometimes feels like I’ve never left. I miss the constant happy hours and the intellectual engagement. I miss biking; I’m surprised to be driving my car here in Portland more than I ever did in Virginia. And of course I miss the food. Here’s a list of some of the places I’m hoping to get back to. Not the best places necessarily, just the ones I subjectively miss the most.

EatBar — This place combines the feel of a true neighborhood bar with a real commitment to quality. The food is always excellent, the beer list is solid, and Gina Chersevani has made the cocktails superb as well. The smoke-friendly back room is one of my favorite spots in Virginia; when the winter made our outdoor Sunday cigars impossible, this was our refuge. I spent a year living around the corner in a crappy, run down apartment. EatBar was one of two places that made that worthwhile. The other was…

El Charrito — This unassuming Salvadoran and Mexican restaurant caters equally to construction workers and white collar professionals, serving up $2 cabrito tacos, great burritos, and fried plantains. It was a block from my house. My current apartment is much nicer than my old one, but all I’ve got here are Burgerville, Subway, and Red Robin.

Murky Coffee — Where everybody knows my name, where I first got into coffee, and where I first started not hating DC. If not for Murky, I would have left the city back in 2005. (Thanks, Nick!)

Grape and Bean — I loved working here. They got their on-premise beer and wine license after I left, so I’m looking forward to getting back and seeing how it all worked out.

Crisp and Juicy — Of the many rotisserie chicken places in Northern Virginia, this was by far my favorite. Super Pollo was convenient. Pollo Rico was good, but serving steak fries instead of yuca takes it down a notch. Crisp and Juicy was, very strangely, the site of my first date with me previous girlfriend. I dream of their chicken.

Kabob Bazaar — Mondays and Fridays, ghormeh sabzhi. That’s all you need to know.

Birreria Paradiso — This basement bar is where I had my eyes opened to beer and was the only reason I’d go to Georgetown at night. I had Belgian ales and barley wines for the first time here and regret that I rarely went back after leaving my job at nearby Baked and Wired.

Baked and Wired — Speaking of B&W, I do miss their chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting. How did I get by having these for breakfast for so many months? They never tasted better than the night I spent closing down Paradiso and sleeping on the floor of the coffee shop to be there for the opening barista shift.

Rustico — My other favorite beer place, and damn good food too.

Brasserie Beck — My other other favorite beer place. You’ve gotta respect a joint that’s pure Belgian and has a beer knight (Le Chevalarie du Fourquet des Brasseurs) running their list. The apple curry mussels are how mussels pray to be treated in the afterlife.

Eamonn’s — Come for the fish and chips, stay for the batter burger. Oh yeah, and there’s a speakeasy on top.

El Rinconcito and the Korean cart on 14th and L — Lobbyists have no taste. Cato’s office is close to K Street. Therefore, despite our proximity to Chinatown, there wasn’t much good ethnic food in the area. These two were notable exceptions.

Pho 75 — I can get good Vietnamese food here, but Pho 75 is still my favorite; it got me out of countless hangovers when I lived in Court House.

Nam-Viet — If I were smart, I would have scheduled this trip during soft-shell crab season.

Five Guys — Suck it, In-n-Out. NOVA’s cultish burger franchise puts you to shame.

China Express — Just a typical American takeout Chinese restaurant, but they were good at it in a city where people often weren’t and the owners were always incredibly friendly.

Open City — They put up with my first experimentation behind the bar, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

PS7 — I didn’t go as often after Tiffany left the bar, but their happy hour is one of the best around. Few do cocktails and food as well as they do.

There’s no way I’m getting to all these places this weekend, plus there’s a few newcomers I’m eager to visit: Peregrine Espresso, Source, Commonwealth, and Gibson come to mind. What else am I missing?

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Speakeasy shutdown

by Jacob Grier on October 7, 2008

“If you are a member of the press/blogger/other media type person you are not permitted to write about our location or our operation in any way shape or form.” That was the first rule people who scored a reservation at DC speakeasy Hummingbird to Mars were required to abide by. Washington Post spirits writer Jason Wilson, whose job is to help Washingtonians drink better, publicized it anyway. Now the project is shutting down and DC drinkers have one fewer place to go for an outstanding cocktail. Bravo, Mr. Wilson.

(Serious ethics question: Is this not akin to reporting something a source explicitly asked to be off the record?)

The Best Bites Blog has the story here. Check out the video for an intriguing cocktail technique: using sous vide to infuse a liquor with spices, the airtight seal preventing any damage to the alcohol. That’s something I’d like to try.

Update: Jason Wilson clarifies in the comments that the real reason the speakeasy is shutting down has to do with the organizers’ busy schedules, not his column. So I apologize to him for getting that wrong (and for assuming the Washingtonian blog knew what it was talking about). He also says:

No, it’s actually nothing like a source asking for a conversation to be off the record. The rules clearly stated that if I chose the break those rules, I might be “unwelcome” in the future. The same as if I chose to show up 45 minutes for a restaurant reservation, my table might be given away. Hummingbird to Mars is free to make me “unwelcome” at future events.

I’m not sure I buy that just attaching consequences to breaking an informal NDA makes it acceptable to do so. Unethical? Perhaps not. A dick move? Absent the permission or tacit approval of the bar, certainly.

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A boaring dinner menu

by Jacob Grier on September 16, 2008

If I were still in Virginia I’d be all over this. Amanda reports on an upcoming dinner in Alexandria:

Jackson 20 will host its first bourbon and boar dinner — an event the restaurant hopes to make a monthly feature — at the chef’s table this Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 6:30 p.m. The six-course meal will be paired with bourbon cocktails, like the pictured Boartini, made from bacon-infused Blanton’s, Chambord, bitters and fresh raspberries. The cost is $75, not including taxes and gratuity.

Chef Jeff Armstrong’s menu for the evening includes various boar cuts like barbecued shoulder on carrot and cayenne slaw, cider-braised belly with roasted peaches, blackberry and sherry syrup, and grilled loin with sweet potato mash, juniper and onion relish.

I got to Jackson 20 for lunch once before leaving town. It has good food, a well-stocked bar, and is right around the corner from Grape and Bean and the newly opened Lavender Moon Cupcakery. If you’re one of those DC people who never heads into Virginia, you’re missing out.

Previously:
From my guest blogging stint at The Agitator, how to baconify your bourbon.

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DC bar openings

by Jacob Grier on August 20, 2008

Lots of DC area bar openings I’m missing out on. First, my friends at Grape and Bean in Alexandria opened their tasting bar this month, offering small, plates, coffee, and wine and beer by the glass or bottle. They’re taking a break till Labor Day to do some research [i.e. drinking] in California’s wine country and to attend the Slow Food Festival, but they’ll reopen then with expanded hours.

Inside the city is Commonwealth, a British-style gastropub I’d really like to visit. They offer “butcher boards of charcuterie (don’t miss the ultra-flavorful Surrey County ham), house-made head cheese, stuffed pigs trotters, deviled sweetbreads, pork belly, and Scotch eggs wrapped in sausage—the chef’s favorite.” Also a selection of English ales and a rotating cask ale.

And speaking of beer, Frank Morales and Greg Engert of Rustico are opening the first DC location for the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, and it’s going to have tons of it. Birch and Barley and its upstairs bar ChurchKey will offer more than 500 bottles, 50 drafts, and 5 cask ales. And unlike a certain other DC beer bar, I’m betting these guys will do a good job keeping their menu in stock. Amanda’s got the rest of the details at Metrocurean.

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Save Flash for the kitchen

by Jacob Grier on July 22, 2008

There’s a new restaurant opening up in DC. It sounds intriguing and like something I might want to write about, so I clicked over to the website to find out more. And that’s where I stopped. It’s no Jared Allen’s Sports Grill,* but… damn. All Flash, annoying music, terrible sound effects, and confusing navigation. So screw it.

I’m not going to name the place, because it’s just the latest example in a long line of bad restaurant websites and I don’t want to reward them with a link. But more generally, what is it about restaurants and bars that makes them so prone to unnavigable, unlinkable, incredibly annoying Flash designs? Do owners just not use the internet?

Flash websites may look good, but that’s all they do. And that lack of usefulness cuts down on a restaurant’s web presence. The page can take a long time to load. If a reviewer wants to write about his meal at a place, he can’t copy the text or even link to the menu. Search engines can’t pick up key phrases people may be looking for. Potential customers can’t even cut and paste the address into a map search to find out where it is. The only person who benefits is the designer, who collects a nice check and hands off a complicated but worthless relic that no one will ever visit more than once.

If I ever open a restaurant, I can’t promise you yet that it will have wonderful food, reasonable prices, or appealing decor. But I will promise you this: it will offer permanent links, text that you can copy and paste, and no annoying music.

For the comments, what restaurant sites do you hate? Who has a site that works? I nominate Rustico as an example of good design: lots of text, working links, and frequent updates, all while giving a good feel for the place’s look and tone. Throw in an RSS feed and event archives and they’re golden.

*The website’s broken now, sadly, which might actually be an improvement. It was a thing to behold.

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Nando’s Peri-Peri

by Jacob Grier on July 10, 2008

DC’s first location of the South African, Portuguese-themed chicken restaurant is now open in the city’s increasingly non-Chinese Chinatown (right next to Hooters and Mehak Indian restaurant). The specialty is spicy roasted chicken cooked with sauce seasoned with peri-peri, an African chili pepper. The sauce isn’t that hot, but it has good flavor and bottles on the table let customers add as much medium, hot, or extra hot as they please. The chicken is tender, juicy, and served on the bone with plenty of tasty skin. They also serve liver dishes, which sound intriguing but weren’t what I was going to choose on my first visit (despite Tyler Cowen’s general advice). The sides aren’t exciting — the fries were standard, the “spicy rice” very mild.

What I’d really like to see in this part of DC is a good Peruvian rotisserie chicken place, but Nando’s is a welcome addition to a neighborhood that has so many characterless restaurants. And call me insensitive, but this ad idea made me laugh:

Nando’s is known in South Africa for its humorous but often controversial adverts. One such television advert from 2000, involved a blind woman being led into a pole intentionally and knocked unconscious by her guide dog, which then proceeded to eat the chicken that the woman had just purchased. This caused an uproar within the blind community and caused the South African Advertising Standards Authority to call for the withdrawal of the advert.

Nando’s is at 819 7th St. NW.

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No guns, no smoking, no ping-pong

by Jacob Grier on May 8, 2008

How’s a guy supposed to have fun in this city? Last year I posted a video shot by Frank Winstead, obsessively nit-picky Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, of an allegedly dangerous outdoor ping-pong table at Comet Pizza in northwest DC. Winstead was widely mocked at the time, but this being DC, he eventually got his way. Marc Fisher reports that the scourge of outdoor ping-pong has now been forcibly eliminated.

I finally paid a visit to Comet earlier this winter. It’s a charming place and serves up a very tasty pie. It’s sad that there are people like Winstead using the levers of the state to harass a business that adds so much life to the neighborhood.

[Via DCist.]

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L20 goes cupping

by Jacob Grier on April 21, 2008

L20 is an inventive, soon-to-open restaurant in Chicago, and the chef has been documenting the opening process on a weblog. It’s fascinating stuff, with photos that are sure to make you hungry. In the newest post, the staff shows that they’re paying attention to the coffee, too:

Our coffee undertaking began over six months ago. Our desire was to achieve the highest level of quality and consistency that we could, in order to provide the best cup of coffee to our guests. We started first with the beans.

After several cuppings of coffees from various roasters across the country, representing beans from across the globe, we finally made a decision—Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. Their coffees were consistently better than all of the rest. It was very clear that their commitment to coffee mirrored our commitment to our guests’ experience.The passion and service displayed by their team assured us that we had made the right decision.

We will focus on direct trade coffees and source micro-lots whenever they are available to us. We will change the selections as new crops become available on the market.

I’ve written before about “restaurant coffee” and how chefs that pay attention to every little detail settle for really poor coffee, so it’s great to see another high-end place taking coffee seriously. They also adapted the coffee cupping process for vanilla beans, which sounds like an interesting experiment.

[Thanks to David for the link.]

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