Blog Roll - Bertha and Brazilian Girls

Its been a while, so I am going to write what is known in the blogosphere as the blog roll. Technically, the Blog Roll is one's list of blogs that they read through, usually filtered to one place through an RSS feed. Instead of directing many blogs to one place, this is many topics, mostly updates, in one blog.

Some time around 4th of July weekend, I happened to be watching the weather channel on TV, and in hindsight, I remember hearing something about the 2nd tropical storm of the season. It appears as though Bertha was gesticulating somewhere over the West Coast of Africa, contemplating at what speed she would travel to the East Coast of the United States and just how much shit she should fuck up. Little did I know, or could I have predicted at the time, but the bitch decided to just chill over the Atlantic Ocean for a week and brew some fine long period ground swell. And because of that righteous woman, who I think I may name my first born after, I would have my first ever East Coast surf sessions. It is no small task to go surfing from DC. Waking up at 4:30, 3 hours in the car, multiple meeting spots for six people to cram into a pick up truck, stops at WaWa market for gas and coffee, borrowing someone's girlfriend's sister's husband's 7'6" fun board (and rash guard), an voi la - you are at the beach. But to say the least, it was worth every second of effort and by any standards that I have ever set, that was one hell of a fine day of surfing. Head high or plus, glassy, not much of a crowd to speak of, sun. It was pretty ideal. Really as good a day as I have ever had at the Cali beach breaks (the point breaks are another story).

That very same Saturday night I went to see Brazilian Girls at the 9:30 club. In hindsight, I am extremely glad that the tickets were free, because I would have been pissed! I should have known that because it was a late night show starting at midnight, I should have been much more drunk. But I was so damned tired from surfing and being awake all day, I just couldn't pull. The show from the start was uninspiring. The lead singer is talented - the whole band is talented in some respects - but she can't carry the show. She is backed by a steady rhythm section, but the only melody is a key board. Not much substance or depth. It sounded a bit like someone singing "Girl From Iponema" on karaoke with some house beats mixed in here and there. And I think the lighting tech was more intoxicated than the musicians or the crowd. He/She kept shining the flood lights on the inebriated crowd, causing on multiple occassions some drunken revelers to believe that the show was over and it was time to vomit on the bar. But no...the show continued. And just when the whole situation couldn't get much more annoying, enter audience girl taking her top off and dancing on stage. Only to be followed by about 50 more of Washington's socialite power-crowd dancing on stage topless. During the last two songs I couldn't even see the band. But not because the 3 band members were blocked by the Dance Dance Revolution practice session, but because I couldn't take my eyes off the 200 pounder swinging her bare utters in a demonstration of what could only be described as self confidence and swagger. Truly hypnotizing. I have been searching the web for a picture, but no luck.

No Calls Please

Job hunting sucks. It is especially dauting at the moment when it seems like every company in the world is in a holding pattern, waiting for the tides to change; winds to change direction; economic funk to blow over...Take it from my friend Orion who has been looking for a job since January.

After months of fruitless efforts, I sympathize with the May 08 graduates. Here I thought I would have a leg up on the competition, graduating in December, but I find myself in the rat race with the rest of you all.

Network, network, network…you won’t find your job on Monster.com. Well I have to say, I have exhausted all of my networking connections, made some new acquaintances, ye they see to have expired as well. No luck there.

I searched through a list of over 3,000 non-profits in DC Metro area of which I found about a dozen with posting openings I felt to be qualified for. This is of course, after going through my short list of ‘dream’ organizations I want to work for. Yet as you may have guessed, no of them have offered me a job let alone want to interview me. What do I do next when they all explicitly state: “no phone calls, we will contact qualified candidates for interviews”…so much for the idea of follow ups and persistence.

The problem is I can’t find anyone one to pay me part time while I wait for the big offer. I am listed with 3 temp agencies, and I have received 4, one day assignments in 2 months. I am overqualified to work in retail or my other dream job, at a beer distributor; and the banks don’t want me to be a teller either because a Masters in International Relations doesn’t prove I can add or it’s because I don’t speak Spanish.

I think once I get a job, I am going to go around to a bunch of the places that would rather employ high school that won’t show up for work and ask for my resume back.

-Orion Wenczel


Some research published in Businessweek says that not only are this years grads screwed this year, but if we take lesser jobs now, we will have lesser jobs and make less money for the rest of our lives.

I'm thinking its time to travel.

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...