Image: It may be the unofficial end of summer, but the crops keep coming in.
Stay cool out there, and perhaps enjoy a few minutes of catching up on D.C. dining news and related info while relaxing in the air conditioning. We added a spot this week to our dining guide and we lost another great one to the tumult. So, please read on.
Updates to D.C. Recommended Restaurant List
Added:
Atxondo – A nice little Spanish spot on the south side of 16th Street Heights. From the former chef at Estadio.
Closing:
La Jambe – The Shaw location will be closing in a few weeks. A big loss. The Union Market location remains open.
D.C. Dining News
Industry:
Barred in DC flags a story and starts an interesting exchange about the closing of a spot on the otherwise bustling Upshur.
Chipotle got busted for overworking teenagers.
The Post editorial page asks, “What happened to the food trucks?”
Disparity:
The Giant in SE is scaling back on products offered to blunt theft. The piece tends to focus on recent upswings in shoplifting/organized theft and violence in the area, but it must be said that for more than a decade stores have told shoppers that they will force them to self-check out products and are willing to eat the losses. If you disrespect the customer, you risk the customer disrespecting you.
D.C. Central Kitchen’s work in feeding kids year-round is highlighted. “In late July, as the temperature and humidity rose to dangerous levels, and wildfire smoke lingered in the atmosphere, I got off the M6 Metrobus outside the Atlantic Gardens in Washington, D.C.’s Highlands neighborhood. There, a food truck was offering summer meals to students who might not otherwise have enough to eat. The truck, emblazoned with photos of fresh fruits and vegetables, is a project of DC Central Kitchen (DCCK), the longstanding anti-hunger and job-training nonprofit. DCCK operates two mobile meal trucks, an outgrowth of the organization’s Healthy School Foods program, which began in 2010 and has evolved over time: Today, DCCK is the food service provider for 19 D.C.-area schools.”
Food Sources: A Maryland crabber becomes a TikTokker.
Odds & Ends:
Axios does an ice cream contest. Dolcezza wins.
Drink
Wine:
Kudos to the Post Food section for its story on wine in Sicily and the threat of climate change and fires.
Always happy to put in a plug for Santa Barbara wine country.
Best wine of the Middle Ages. “It was generally recommended that the sweeter wines should be drunk only in small quantities and for special occasions, such as wedding feasts. If one drank too much of that kind of wine, it could lead to an overheating of the body, which could damage you physically as well as morally.” (via Alder Yarrow).
D.C. native earns a Master of Wine with a thesis on wine in the songs of Dylan and the Dead. (also via Yarrow).
Culture: Pour one out for Jimmy Buffet.
Other News
Business:
We have noted that some sectors of the economy do not work under a standard corporate model. The demise of Anchor Steam under Sapporo is the most recent big example. A small down in Illinois watched the grocery stores disappear and decided to purchase the last one under a non-profit structure. “The store, which reopened on Aug. 1 after eight months of renovations, is being operated by Cornerstone Community Wellness as its parent organization. Any profits go right back into the business, with the goal of sustaining the store for years to come.” Something for D.C. to keep in mind as it has to reconsider downtown and continues to struggle with keeping large corporations.
Matt Yglesias flagged this interesting stat about how people in the U.S. are spending more on restaurants and less on home cooking. Which may explain why corporations may think the growth rates can be sustained.
A similar trend appears to be happening for the rise in private chefs for rich folks.
Food Sources: Civil Eats makes the case that agriculture practices fueled the fire on Maui.
Media:
A gentle critique of the Vittles approach. Something we picked up in the New Yorker profile that there is something neo-colonial in the approach. “Pinballing around London, Vittles guide in hand, in search of undiscovered culinary gems is about as bourgeois as it gets. But somehow the loyal proponents of Vittles (if not Nunn himself) have adopted a patina of class activism: no better way to demonstrate the right kind of thinking than trading Covent Garden for Tottenham Hale. Of course foodie-ism suffers a dearth of legitimate diversity; for too long it has been the preserve of the elite. A course correction is welcome. But at the end of the day going to Enfield for breakfast just because you can is about as middle class as it gets.”
BA has a new editor, Jamila Robinson, who comes from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Industry:
“Several Southern Nevada restaurants, including Bouchon Las Vegas by celebrity chef Thomas Keller, are being accused of sexual harassment in four lawsuits filed this week by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”
The Post Travel section spent a huge amount of time to analyze Yelp reviews of pizza spots. Yelp? Seriously? It is part of a larger package the includes a Carman piece on the rise of good pizza with nods to local legends Ruth Gresser and Peter Pastan. And a reader list of best spots in D.C. that was both a consensus decision and divisive.
Odds & Ends:
A minor dust-up at the Texas State Fair food competition where the Deep Fried Pho and Phorrito looked very similar. “When the Big Tex Choice Awards finalists were announced, Cris and John’s owners said they were taken aback by the similarities between the Deep Fried Pho dish and their Phorrito, and claimed it wasn’t a coincidence that State Fair of Texas organizers wanted the dish and found another vendor to make it. They emphasized in the last few slides of the post that they did not want to “spread any hate” toward the concessionaires selling Deep Fried Pho and that they wanted to uplift other minority-owned businesses.”
The Post worked its way through the Minnesota State Fair food offerings. Feels like Rick Eats DC deserved a shoutout on this one.
The story that made the British headline writer’s day.
We continue to think highly of Charlize Theron. “My face is changing, and I love that my face is changing and aging,” she told the magazine, but “people think I had a facelift. They’re like, ‘What did she do to her face?’ I’m like, ‘B—-, I’m just aging! It doesn’t mean I got bad plastic surgery. This is just what happens.’” With the added bonus that they had to do an interior quote of her quoting herself. No, there is no food connection, except for our standing offer.
Ben Gibbard’s next band: Death Cap for Foodie.
###
That’s it! A little short this week. It is looking like a hot week, so if you are thinking of skipping cooking, remember that our D.C. dining guide has 300+ recommended restaurants sortable by cuisine or neighborhood in either LIST or MAP format.
Please give us a follow, if you don’t already. We are on FB, Insta, and Twitter. Click on the icons at the top or bottom of this page to stay up to date.
Be Kind. Be Patient. Tip Big. Stay Cool.