My First Food Blog: A DC Downer

I love food. I have a self-described discerning – some would say snobby – opinion of the foods I put in my mouth. So it seems only right that I rant on the subject as it presents itself in Washington, DC.

Tom Seitsma, food columnist for the Washington Post, has an unenviable job. You may ask, how can a food critic have an unenviable job? He gets to eat the best foods for free at any restaurant in the city, which is obviously better than having to pay for it. Certainly the position itself is not the bad part - it’s the fact that he has to do it in DC. For someone with as discriminating of taste buds as himself, it must be extraordinarily frustrating to be in one of the most disappointing food cities I have ever been to – let alone lived in.

I should be forthcoming in saying that a recent trip to Chicago spawned this blog. The trip wasn’t the genesis of this opinion – I have had my doubts since the first day I moved here – but Chicago certainly crystallized my opinion. Chicago is an amazing food city, which made me realize how uninspiring an eating experience DC really is.

I think at the core of this opinion is the fact that DC doesn’t do ONE thing the best. There is always another city can do better than DC does it. This greatly hurts the average value of DC food as a whole. There is not one genre of food that everyone in DC can do better than other cities – a category that can carry a city to the upper echelon of food cities. I have heard the argument that DC has more diversity in choice than anyone else in the United States. Even if this is true (which I don’t think it is), a diverse array of crappy food doesn’t help the cause. It only makes it worse. One could also make the argument that DC has exceptional Mediterranean region inspired fusion cuisine. The sheer number of restaurants that can qualify as “Mediterranean-esque” would give credence to this argument. The problem with that is that so many things qualify as Mediterranean that the term has become meaningless. Is it Italian? Spanish? North African? A specific Middle Eastern country? Or even the Middle East as a whole? It doesn’t seem that DC has a culture of producing numbers of high quality restaurants in any of these categories. How could it be possible, then, that DC could organically create a genre based on all of these without having each individually? It can’t…and it hasn’t. The term Mediterranean has become so convoluted with associations to sub-standard eateries and foods spanning more than a dozen countries that the term is useless.

Take two restaurants for example. Tabaq Bistro on U Street serves up “Mediterranean tapas.” Some of the dishes are decent, although severely overpriced, but the average tapas plate is unedible. Or take Rosemary Thyme Bistro on 18^th street for another example. Their dinner menu ranges from lamb shish to seafood ravioli to chicken alfredo (which is neither Italian nor Mediterranean). I prefer to eat their omelets for brunch. The amalgamated Mediterranean genre that encompasses these two restaurants is an exercise in the 80/20 principle – a guarantee of mediocrity (80/20 can be interpreted many ways, but for purposes here, it means that 20% of the menu yields 80% of the profits).

Or take, for example, the ubiquitous market-cafes that riddle the mid-town to downtown zone. What is a market cafe? There is no specific definition, it is more of a know-it-when-you-see-it kind of thing. But they do have two common traits to help you identify them. It will have a buffet where you pay for food by weight. And they have a griddle where you order burders and sandwiches. Any other city, or college campus, might call it a cafeteria. DC has gone out of its way to change the name, but not the concept, in order to glorify it for the pant-suited lunch crowd.

Breadline on Pennsylvania Ave. aside (ok, Marvelous Market too), none of them are worth their weight in the subsequent excrement they produce. Yes, they can make a burger, or turkey sandwich. But the point is that not a one of them goes out of their way to produce something exceptional. A dish that would make one return there for the food, not for the convenience of it being right outside the office. Again, Breadline is an exception to this, but the exception that proves the rule.

In comparison, I went to a place in Chicago called Milk and Honey Cafe. It is a small, unassuming cafe on Division between Buck Town and Wicker Park. The menu features less than 20 items - about 6 sandwiches, a few salads, maybe 8 breakfast items, and a variety of fresh baked goods - and they all looked amazing. The baked juevos rancheros and the walnut and banana pancakes stole the show. By focusing on a few dishes - by removing the market and focusing on the cafe aspect - they make all of them exceptionally well. Spreading resources too thin on an overabundance of variety pretty much guarantees that all of them will be mediocre. Not a market-cafe, but Dickey's on Eye Street takes this approach with their sandwiches, and it works well.

I refuse to eat sushi or Mexican food here, so I won't even pursue those lines of reasoning. Lets just say I don't trust either here. It needs to be pointed out, though, that Central American food posing as Mexican food does not count as Mexican food. Even though I have had some pretty good pollo saltado in DC, it is only Mexican by some overstretched and irrelevant definition.

I will also admit that most of my experience is in the actual district, not in the surrounding provinces. But since I don't plan on going to Silver Spring or Fairfax, I don't really care.

I will give credit where I believe credit is due. In any city as large as DC, there are bound to be some gems. The city's two Belgian restuarants - Belga Cafe and Brasserie Beck - are both phenomenal. Casa Oaxaca does an admirable job of serving traditional Oaxacan and Southern Mexican cuisine. The various sandwiches, snacks, cheeses, and breakfasts inside Eastern Market are of varying quality, but I do love the deli case at the end of the row with pulled meat sandwiches, homemade tortillas, salsas, and empanadas. Casa Blanca on 15th and K Street serves excellent traditional Salvadorean dishes (although they completely miss on their attempts at "Mexican" food). El Khartoum, La Fourchette, and Mandu get honorable mentions.

These spots do help me at least survive. But the point here is the average restaurant, not the few and far between. Its about what I can expect from walking into any given eatery, and about what restauranteers believe they can get away with when they sacrifice quality for variety and quantity.

Before this article turns too whiny, it will wrap it up. My intent is not to complain, but to spark a debate. I truly hope there are people out there that disagree and can prove me wrong with some great suggestions. You can start with telling me where I can find a Thai restaurant that serves pad thai for less than $10. I had never paid more than $10 before I moved here, now about $12 seems to be the norm. Seriously, what the fuck...