Pipón

Breakfast + lunch

2011-07-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

I wish we'd had the time to linger at Peg's Glorified Ham N Eggs, a brunch hotspot a few blocks from the riverside promenade in Reno's otherwise tumbledown downtown, because my favorite thing about the restaurant are the giant, circular metal trays that play the part of plates. But even after a few minutes at the counter and a to-go order of Peg's Glorified Huevos Rancheros ($9), served with hash browns, a black bean and corn salsa, a cabbage slaw (vinegar, not mayo), fresh pinto beans and warm tortillas, Peg's earned a spot on my go-to, best-of brunch list. (After breakfast adventure? J.R. Johns and his dog Skippy climbing ropes at the casino and indoor carnival at the Circus Circus hotel.)

Peg's in good company. Sound Bites (Somerville, Mass.). Olga's Cup and Saucer (Providence), the Brickway (Providence) and Modern Diner (Pawtucket, RI). Threadgill's (Austin). Loveless Motel Cafe (Nashville). Mother's (New Orleans). Thornton River Grille (Sperryville, Va.). Breadmen's (Chapel Hill, North Carolina). O'Rourke's Diner (Middletown, Conn.).

You can say that again

2011-06-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

POLITICO's "Playbook" channels its inner-Frank Bruni, and I like it (June 25, 2011):

Good Saturday morning. TWEET DU JOUR: @MichaelPFalcone: Saint-Ex just banished us, citing a "no late joiner" rule. We thought they were joking @abcgregory

PLAYBOOK RANT: Saint-Ex: dead to us! This is even worse than the full-parties rule, which we find so irritating and counterproductive that we won’t stay at a place that tries to enforce it (bye, bye, Founding Farmers). There are too many other amazing places to eat. Usually we start with a passive-aggressive, “Oh, I’m so sorry: We’re in a hurry, and need to start ordering,” and that often works. At Lauriol Plaza, we go with the aggressive-aggressive, “OK, it’s a party of one,” and make them keep adding chairs, tables and set-ups. Even works on the patio.

Pipón was similarly unimpressed with this 14th Street mainstay (March 3, 2010):

It'd be way too generous to say that Saint-Ex (1847 14th Street NW) suffers, à la Obama, from unfairly high expectations. It is simply overpriced, overhyped and overrated. I'm not sure why it's so in demand, other then inertia and the long lines created by its frustrating policy of not accepting reservations. It's certainly not the "charming" ambiance. The basement is a shadowy bar; the main level, lacking a coat rack and adequate lighting, gets packed like a rush hour Metrobus. I tried the $36 prix fixe menu, sampling a special tortilla appetizer that showcased chopped, soggy chicken, and an overcooked steak. One of the fish entrees looked enticing, but our Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch app recommended "avoid." I'd say the same about Saint-Ex.

Animal Boy

2011-06-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Between "Super Size Me," "Food Inc." and "King Corn," and Matt the Electrician's ode to the homegrown ("My ancestors grew something/Real food is all I know/We’re gonna grow a little boy/Just like 100 years ago"), I feel a little guilty (like the gnawing, "McStomach" feeling "Super Size Me" groans about) whenever I Piponerate only about eating out.

So here are few pizzas, including a pie with brie and orange bell peppers, and other treats we've been whipping up lately, like roasted kale chips and curried fingerlings with melted havarti, and Dark 'n' Stormy cocktails and fried mashed potatoes (Somerville, Mass.-Sound Bites style), with great help from our Radix Farm farmshare; from another of Tanya's beloved South African BBQs; and from my friend Art Jirut, whose Iron Chef competition last Sunday inspired an eggplant loaf (served alongside vanilla bean ice cream and crushed walnuts); eggplant tempura; sauteed eggplant polenta with sausages; eggplant and yellow squash tacos (sprinkled with turmeric and slathered in fresh mint raita); pureed eggplant bruschetta; and stuffed chicken breasts with diced eggplant, couscous, sundried tomatoes and capers.

Strikes no gutters

2011-06-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

The wedding favors included a homemade cookbook with a recipe for the couple's favorite spinach, chiptole and lime dip. So for a pre-wedding, Mexican-style lunch on the lively, downtown pedestrian mall in Charlottesville, Va., I followed their recommendations. Sadly, Mono Loco was closed, and so was Cinema Taco. But the huevos rancheros at Bizou offered a soft landing, runny eggs on crunchy tacos crowned by punchy feta.

Closer to home, I've got a few more Darts & Laurels/Strikes & Gutters/"Fillet of Sole, De La Soul, Seoul (that place in Korea)" for you, only in honor of summer, only strikes today.

Strikes:

The portions at Carmine's (425 7th St. NW), in Chinatown, no match in quality to Pasta Mia (1790 Columbia Rd. NW), or Cafe Milano (3000 Whitehaven St. NW), at the Italian Embassy, but enough pasta to feed you for an entire weekend.

The girlie but refreshing "Sojutinis" at Mandu (18th/K NW), just $4 during happy hour.

The whole menu at Bar Pilar (1833 14th St. NW), where patrolling for an empty seat gives the meal a real hunter-gatherer vibe.

The fried chicken at Founding Farmers (1924 Pennsylvania Ave. NW), a "Man v. Food" kinda adventure, paired with the obligatory waffles, but also with viscous white gravy and syrup, mac ‘n cheese and Brussels sprouts.

The New Orleans sausages at Creme (1322 U St. NW), an inspired pick-me-up for poached eggs.

The fish taco appetizer at Perry's (1811 Columbia Rd. NW), with guacamole and cabbage, good enough to justify ordering Tex-Mex at that schizophrenic sushi joint.

The name of Ping Pong (900 7th St. NW) (I'm trying to be positive), the oddly popular dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.

Everything at Bodega (3116 M St. NW), in Georgetown, the best small plates I've had in DC, including the "Ensaladilla de Palmitos con Gambas" (hearts of palm, chilled shrimp, avocado and salsa rosa) and the "Dátiles con Tocino" (crispy fried dates wrapped in bacon). Bodega is tastier than the well-meaning Mezè (2437 18th Street NW) in Adams Morgan, with its strange fascination with mojitos, and even the exceptional Bar Pilar. It's so good, in fact, that you don't feel pick-pocketed afterward, the emotional hangover of a meal at most small plates spots around town, like Agora (1527 17th St. NW) in Dupont.

The kielbasa and cabbage and meat pierogis at the Polish Embassy open house.

The arepas at the Sabor'a food truck.

The goat curry with jollof rice at the Ghana Cafe (1336 14th St. NW), where the fufu is as gloppy, and the groundnut soup as greasy, as tradition demands.

Any appetizer, entree or dessert on offer at Tastebuds (49 W. Ferry St.) in New Hope, Penn., in Bucks County, worth the journey to the Delaware, where all bridges, and Bridge Roads, lead to New Hope.

Tusker

2011-04-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, at a pan-African happy hour, I felt subtly bullied into ordering the Tusker, a Kenyan beer I had never heard of but that apparently sells 700,000 hectoliters per year (whatever the heck a hectoliter is).

Then this morning, at brunch at Dupont's Stoney's Lounge (1433 P St. NW), the waiter (dressed in shorts, no less!) laughed hysterically when I asked for English Breakfast tea to wash down the undercooked, soggy, $9 chili cheeseburger that I had only ordered to recapture an once of masculinity.

Chinatown, overachieving

2011-03-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

In another installment in an occasional series of Pipón posts about the national Chinatown exceeding its high sodium, low quality expectations, I recommend the Mee Goreng noodles ($14), a "famous Malay–Indo style noodle dish" of stir–fried egg noodles, chicken, scallions and bean sprouts in a curry and peanut sauce, at Asian Spice (717 H. St. NW). Be prepared to fend off (or surrender to) a hard sell for the "Filipino Caramelized Fried Banana" ($6), fried fresh bananas coated in cinnamon and brown sugar and topped with honey and sesame seeds, but keep in mind that the marauding manager will generally be satisfied if you agree to a bowl of the creamy, crunchy, "tropical coconut" ice cream.

Nexus of the universe

2011-03-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

I realized that the Times's potato leek gratin and The Argula Files's tortilla española had virtually the same ingredients, and that revelation gave me a taste of the serendipitous thrill Kramer experiences when he ventures to Lower Manhattan. "Hey, I'm on First and First. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe!"

Above, roasted eggplant and red pepper with melted Gruyere and locally pickled vegetables from Delicias Market (3702 14th St. NW, by Spring Rd.) on a toasted baguette. Below, Kramer.

Fruiting body

2011-03-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

I blame smart phones. I had convinced myself to order "The Wellington" (deep roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions, garlic, black truffles, with mustard seed, blue cheese and "mojo sauce" on a fresh toasted buttery brioche bun) at bgr (1514 Connecticut Ave. NW) in Dupont, grumpy that Rogue States (1300 Connecticut Ave.) still had not reopened and so eager to pamper myself a bit with some fancy forest treats. (Originally, I was going to settle for the standard burger, and double it for $2.) Then the iPhone at the other side of the table had to announce that the uber-haute truffle is actually just "the fruiting body of an underground mushroom," and after that, the whole burger kinda tasted like mud.

¡Creepy crawlers!

2011-03-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

I thought I was courageous when I braved lunch lakeside at Honduras's Lago de Yojoa, a beautiful body of water where the fresh catch is said to be seasoned by heavy metals. (I was not brave enough for the pescado entero, however, so the fish you see below, beside the fried plantains, was picked clean by my driver and lunch companion.)

The real fearless eater? My buddy Nicole Firment, who crunched on some cucarachas (grasshoppers, actually) in Mexico in December. Photo (above) and video (below) by Julia Oliver.

Looking for bugs closer to home? I remember that La Laiterie, in Providence's Wayland Square, used to serve up some insects every Halloween.

For still creative but not creepy-crawly fare, I recommend the "lamb slider trio" ($18), with curry and coconut organic lamb, lime yogurt crème and rosemary and Parmesan fries, paired with any dessert, at Co Co. Sala (929 F St. NW) in DC's Chinatown, and the Cascade Cafe (6th/Constitution NW) in the National Gallery of Art (10 percent discount for federal employees, free view of the cascade waterfall for all comers). Avoid maoz (1817 M Street NW), in Dupont, where the grammatical errors in the mission statement hint at the carelessness in the food preparation. Amsterdam Falafelshop (2425 18th Street NW), in Adams Morgan, and even the Old City Cafe (1773 Columbia Rd. NW) and Shawarma King (1654 Columbia Rd. NW), are better options.

Couple of bookies

2011-02-26T18:17:00.000-08:00

The multitalentosa Julia Oliver is a virtuoso no doubt, but when it comes to swine, I figured she might be able to predict the direction of pork belly futures (Efficient Market Theory skeptic that she is), but not cook a pork loin to save her life. Fortunately, not only was I not punished for my underestimating, I finagled not one but two slices of Julia's lemon and ginger pork loin, basted in white wine and seasoned with chopped rosemary, ginger and lemon marmalade, as attractive carved on a serving platter as glistening in its roasting pan, harpooned by a footlong meat thermometer.

Ice fishing for pickled herring

2011-02-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

"You don't think there are guys in Nepal who are, like, 'What should I do? Should I carry packs of heavy shit for Westerners to the top of the base camp of Everest? Or should I stay down here in Kathmandu and chant all day and check out chicks and pretend to be holy?' Why is everything cooler when it happens in a foreign country?" - Tao Of Steve

I've realized lately how vulnerable I am to this commonplace traveler's affliction. Particularly when it comes to food. When I was traveling in Southern France and Spain last May, I started wolfing down baguettes filled with jamón ibérico as if the ingredients were not available at any decent market in DC.

Even less exotic travel can bring on a case of cooler-abroad-itis. I spent New Year's in northern Minnesota, and I would not say an unflattering word about the pickled herring my hosts generously dished out upon my arrival, let alone critique the delightful "stoup" ("soup" + "stew") of patiently simmered pheasant shotgunned by our host the previous fall; the tall stacks of Swedish pancakes at the Maplelag cross country skiing resort; or the "Lowden Zpecial" pizza at Zorbaz in downtown Detroit Lakes, slathered in peanut butter and crowned with pepperoni, jalapeños and cheese. ("Often Imitated, Never Duplicated.") Still, was Maplelag's creamy beef Strogonoff as heavenly as I remember it, or might I have been just a bit hungry from skiing the Sukkerbusk trail? Was the salsa at Juano's, in downtown Fargo, as sublime as it seemed at the time, or was I just overjoyed that the temperature was above freezing when we landed? Were the Knights of Columbus's French toast and breakfast sausages truly a religious experience, or was I just won over by the $3.50 price tag? (For the record, I stand by my awe over the deployment of cabbage in the minestrone at Capisce in Zephyr Cove, Nevada, a casual Italian joint I visited recently near Lake Tahoe that is run by a former Orioles prospect.)

This exercise in reconsideration has me second-guessing my excitement about a variety of recent out-of-town dining, in Boston and Austin (no relation). Specifically, my deep regret over every meal I've had at Baja Fresh in Dupont made me irrationally exuberant about a quick stop at the Anna's Taqueria in Coolidge Corner last October. Meanwhile, DC's underachieving Chinatown made me highly vulnerable to the charming waitress, brightly painted walls and bountiful amuse-bouche at Color, a Korean restaurant in Allston.

Similarly, I might have graded Austin on a curve (though I'm not the only one to be won over by its food scene). The chicken-fried sirloin, topped by creamy gravy, and fried okra at Threadgill's tasted a little less chewy and greasy thanks to the Sunday gospel brunch musical accompaniment and all the quirky memorabilia rescued from the historic Armadillo World Headquarters concert venue that once stood next door in the South Congress neighborhood. The migas and chorizo at Annies Cafe & Bar was a welcome break from an eggs Benedict brunch, but I'll admit I was predisposed to compliment the carne guisada at Guero's Taco Bar after a Texan friend, Grace, promised me that in Austin, "There are TONS of Mexican restaurants. In general they should all be like a 1000x better than anything on the east coast." The Peached Tortilla food truck serves its tacos with crunchy catfish (in a creamy, jalapeño slaw with bacon braised mustard greens) and vietnamese braised pork belly (pickled daikon and carrot salad, Sriracha mayo and cilantro) that puts to shame the local equivalent. But the best sidewalk bratwurst does not hold a candle to any decent choripán in the Southern Cone.

The lesson of all this rambling reconsideration? To show more love for local grub. Like the Heidenberger at the Mad Hatter (1321 Connecticut Ave. NW); the views of Woodley Park from the second floor window seats at Ipoh (2625 Connecticut Ave. NW); the small plates at Zaytinya (701 9th St. NW), good enough to ignore the tragic diversion of extra virgin olive oil into tall vases, and the Jamón Ibérico at Zatinya's sister restaurant, Jaleo (480 7th Street NW), cured ham from acorn-fed, black-footed, Spanish Ibérico pig; the patio at Hank's Oyster Bar (1624 Q St. NW), though I sat indoors on my only visit and somehow was hoodwinked into paying $23 for a lobster roll, more than even the Red Hook Lobster Pound gets away with charging; pretty much anything with raw fish at Raku (1900 Q St. NW); the entire menu at Indique (3518 Connecticut Ave. NW) and Sorriso (3512 Connecticut Ave. NW), which are good enough to convince me to move to Cleveland Park; brunch at Napoleon Bistro (1847 Columbia Rd. NW); dinner at Meskerem (2434 18th St. NW); and even though I was deprived of a partner for the whole fried fish at Bangkok 54 (2919 Columbia pike, Arlington, Va.), I can't hold that against the chef, who eased my pain with some crispy catfish curry and spicy roasted duck.

Swarmesan

2011-02-25T04:59:00.000-08:00

It just didn't seem possible that Pasta Mia (1790 Columbia Rd. NW) could live up to its lines-on-the-sidewalk hype, and after all that queuing with nary a greeting from a hostess (not to mention the cash-only policy, the home-style presentation and the owner snaking through the crowded dining area hawking an iPhone puzzle app), I was in no condition to be won over by an $18 plate of spaghetti. After all, the first time I saw that line by the Christian Science Reading Room, I wondered aloud (digitally), if there was "crack in the marinara." Amazingly, Pasta Mia is worth the wait. Absurdly large plates of homemade pasta swimming in perfectly seasoned sauces topped by a pile of Parmesan. I had the fusilli with sausage in a spicy (drug-free) marinara for dinner. And thanks to the universal doggy bag request atmosphere, I can't remember the last time I was this excited for a leftovers breakfast and lunch.

Veggie bomb

2011-02-19T12:57:00.000-08:00

Jane & Michael Stern inspired me to raise my game this morning, after I heard their Splendid Table account of a meal at Nick Tahou Hots in Rochester, NY, where they bravely dived into a "garbage plate," including Texas hot wieners, hamburgers, Italian sausage (or steak) served alongside baked beans and home-fried potatoes, cool macaroni salad, spicy chili sauce, mustard and chopped raw onions. I'm not nearly as hard-core, but I did up the ante on my Saturday morning "double burger," typically a MorningStar black bean patty topped by a MorningStar veggie sausage patty and doused in Sriracha, peanut satay sauce, and either Olde Cape Cod honey mustard or hummus. Today, inspired by the "garbage plate" (a distant cousin of the Uruguayan chivito?), I inaugurated the "veggie bomb," a MorningStar black bean patty crowned by a fried egg and drowned in Heinz vegetarian baked beans and mashed avocado.

By the way, I'm glad to see mainstream media love for Sriracha, but given its high profile these days, is it still truly the "underground king of condiment"? As I've said before, Sriracha is about as underground as Jarritos, whereas Marie Sharp's is the unsung hero of imported hot sauce.

Vacuum cleaner

2011-02-06T08:55:00.000-08:00

"Devotion" is arguably the greatest comedy short of all time, rivaled only by Will Ferrell's George W. Bush Crawford ranch send-up.

Public noodling

2011-01-31T20:29:00.000-08:00

You're supposed to accept as an article of faith that the 7th Street Chipotle has got the only decent grub in Chinatown. I thought so for a while, after sampling some forgettable tofu at the mediocre (but descriptively named) Kanlaya Thai Cuisine (740 6th St. NW), and spending a few late-nights slurping the hot and sour soup at New Big Wong (610 H St. NW). But thanks to that voyeuristic, siren song, display window exhibition kitchen at Chinatown Express (746 6th St. NW), I can now recommend skipping Fuddruckers the next time you're hungry after a Gallery Place double feature. The fresh, "made on the spot" noodles, fried or in irresistibly gulpable broth, sell for just $6.50.

Where's the beef?

2010-11-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but good sliders always put me in the mood for an adult-sized hamburger. This was especially true at Farmers & Fishers (3000 K St. NW), in the Georgetown waterfront, the other day, after munching on a pair of baby cheeseburgers assembled with ground-to-order, grass-fed beef, a thin blanket of Tillamook cheddar and a homemade butter bun, and served alongside homemade French fries. So you can imagine my dismay when my "Farmer’s Daughter" burger ($12) arrived (as provocatively named as Tryst) piled high with greens but with no burger in sight. The fact that this surreptitiously vegetarian entree was also missing its promised avocado, and that sliced Havarti was playing the role of the advertised brie, was just insult to injury. The lesson? Order carefully at Farmers & Fishers, or better yet, just stick to its sister restaurant, Founding Fathers (1924 Pennsylvania Ave. NW), because after sampling Farmers & Fishers and its neighbor, Tony and Joe's (3000 K St. NW), I've decided the best strategy for grabbing a meal while gazing at the Potomac River and Kennedy Center is to cook your own dinner and picnic on the promenade.

If you simply must go out to eat, try the double-cooked pork (see photo above) at the Great Wall Szechuan House (1527 14th St. NW), a casual and super cheap Chinese joint that has made it impossible for me to ever return to my trusted Oriental Cafe (1636 R Street NW), also in greater Dupont, where the plastic patio furniture had come to feel like home. If you simply must go out and Great Wall will simply not satisfy your Brewster's Millions spendthriftiness, then I recommend The Afghan Grill (2309 Calvert Street NW), in Adams Morgan, where the Badenjan Chalao ($16), eggplant sautéed with onion, garlic and tomato and served with rice and lamb, may leave you hungry, but also hungering for seconds.

Walter's style

2010-11-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

I thought I was all high brow/low browing around when I had lunch at the soup's-up-when-the-microwave-beeps Dos Gringos (3116 Mount Pleasant St. NW) in Mount Pleasant, followed by dinner at Poste (555 8th St. NW) downtown by Chinatown.

I topped that tonight, however, when I got hungry while blending a pistachio pesto (recipe from The Splendid Table), and ended up eating for dinner a Hebrew National hot dog, boiled and then sauteed, all hometown Walter's style.

Comfort food, fryalated

2010-11-17T15:15:00.000-08:00

From the start, I had a bad attitude about Teak Wood (1323 14th St NW), in Logan Circle. I mean, given the delightful wordplaying at Thai Tanic, just across the street (and in Columbia Heights), and Thaiphoon, in Dupont Circle, I just couldn't imagine that Teak Wood would be all that creative in its menu either. It isn't. But neither is turkey and Brussels sprouts at Thanksgiving dinner.

I learned that lesson the other day when I helped two Canadian friends whip up and serve up poutine (French fries swaddled by brown gravy and topped by cheese curds) and I was chided for calling the dish, a classic Canadian comfort food, a "Montreal delicacy." A year ago, Calvin Trillin, in The New Yorker, wrote about the poutine phenomenon, noting that the dish, invented five decades ago in rural Quebec, may be "gross," disconcertingly squeaky and the go-to snack for late-night bar-hoppers, but it's also irresistible and rightly becoming a "national dish," arguably a bigger cultural force than even canoeing or moose spotting, and potentially an even more iconic Canadian foodstuff than maple syrup and Tim Hortons. (It's already so popular in Quebec that shopkeepers sell bags of cheese curds beside the cash register, and there's a restaurant in Toronto, Smoke's Poutinerie, that concocts 20 varieties of the dish.)

All this is to say that Teak Wood seems to offer a lot of familiar Thai curries, and that's good enough for me.

Penance

2010-10-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

I didn't think S. Africa could make up for all that vuvuzela buzzing; after all, it's been months since the tournament, and I still get nightmares that I'm being chased through Dupont Circle by a cloud of locusts.

But after Sunday night's BBQ, I'm willing to call it even. Once again, my Greek South African-born friend Tanya set up a grill on her balcony and challenged the neighboring steakhouse for the best aromas in the NW. As if the Boerewors were not enough, Tanya also served up some pesto, fresh corn, fruity salad, and a vegetarian chili called chakalaka. (There was also a medley of desserts, but in my excitement to chew the fat with Tanya's Ivorian, Brazilian and Nigerian dinner guests, I may have accidentally refilled my plate one too many times before dessert was served.)

Through the cracks

2010-10-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

I'd love to say that there are millions of incredible films floating around that Hollywood never promoted enough to justify a nationwide release, or that audiences simply misunderstood. Sadly, most films you have never heard of, you have never heard of for a reason. Recently, however, I saw 2 that the mysterious filter erroneously discarded, Timer and The Fall.

Steak snobbery

2010-10-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

No disrespect to the steaks at the beloved bargain steakhouse Ray's: The Steaks, in Arlington (2300 Wilson Blvd.). But if they are going to get all preachy about their carving skills and the deliciousness of their corn-fed animals, and sanctimoniously swat away any "medium-well" or (gasp!) "well" orders, then why later drown all the meat in horseradish and sliced raw garlic and spicy diablo sauce and crumbled blue cheese and Cajun spice rubs? Anyone who has ever ordered a steak in Uruguay, Argentina or Brazil will have to wonder what condimint-happy Ray is trying to hide.

I hardly knew ya'

2010-10-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd stumbled into an historic scene when I strolled past the Chilean Embassy tonight and spotted a crowd staring at a giant TV screen broadcasting the rescue of the 33 trapped miners. But after all that drama had given me an appetite, a friend and I hit up Rogue States (1300 Connecticut Ave.) for dinner, only to discover that my Rogue States burger ($7 for 1/2-pounds of spiced beef with chipotle, cilantro and grilled red onions) may turn out to be the last to ever come off that beloved mesquite wood-fired grill. It seems Rogue States has lost its court battle Vs. a neighboring law firm that was unhappy litigating to the scent of roasted ground chuck. At least it went out in style, the grim-faced short-order cooks blasting Ludacris and serving up sweet potato fries until the end.

Pas de deux

2010-10-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

The sous-chef is Austrian, so I'll give him all the credit* for my favorite entree in 2010, making this the 2nd in an occasional series, as Pipón guest blogger Julia Oliver likes to say. I'm speaking, of course, of the "Duet of Duck" ($27) at Foti's, in downtown Culpeper, Va., by Shenandoah National Park, an inspired pairing of vinegar and juniper marinated crispy skinned Long Island duck breast, served smoothly rare and uninterrupted, alongside a complexly spiced duck and cabbage sausage, atop a caramelized onion, potato and bacon sautee, down there soaking up all that duck jus but somehow staying crunchy, set off by a bright blueberry gastrique and local green bean medley.

I lead with Foti's because visitors to Washington, Va., do not all make it to nearby Culpeper, whilst I can't imagine anyone would miss breakfast at the Foster Harris House, a 4-course extravaganza that today included out-of-the-oven currant and chocolate scones; fresh fruit in yogurt and homemade granola; pastrami smoked salmon with tzatziki; custard scrambled eggs, garnished with an Hawaiian volcanic sea salt; a pleasantly daintily fried zucchini fritter; and a short stack of miniature pancakes with shaved chocolate above and maple butter syrup below.

*Foti's chef and owner, Foteos “Frank” Maragos, a Johnson and Wales grad and the former executive sous chef at the Inn at Little Washington, Laura Bush's old haunt, probably deserves some credit, too.

Sweet Tomatos®

2010-10-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

Improvising from a recent Food Wanderings original (improvising = cutting out "expensive" ingredients like arugula and avocados), I roasted some late-season cherry tomatoes, eggplant and garlic, and served it in an open-faced sandwich with kalamatas, fresh mozzarella and Olde Cape Cod honey mustard. Delicious, though next time, I might just save up for the avocado, or at least a goat cheese log.

New Jack Hustler

2010-10-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

To clean up a sizable Pipón backlog, I say a few more Darts & Laurels (h/t to CJR) are in order.

Laurels:

The salmon tartare at Poste (555 8th St. NW), served in an ice cream cone, over crème fraiche, is so inventive and refreshing (and the Summer Selection of Farmstead Cheese, with thinly cut raisin-walnut toast is so lovingly assembled) that I have forgotten all about the whole mustard-ice-cream-in-the-gazpacho incident.

The remarkable beer list, scrumptious fries (with a highly recommendable chipotle mayo dip) and general just-hip-enough vibe at Granville Moore’s (1238 H St. NW) more than make up for the eye-popping price tag on the humble bison burger.

The traditional triumvirate in New Orleans: beignets at Cafe Du Monde (see photo), the red beans and rice at Mother's (see photo of hot sauces), and the Bananas Foster at Brennan's, a highly unoriginal, yet hard to resist culinary itinerary.

Darts:

The supremely lame, albeit understandable, no Wi-Fi on weekends policy at Tryst (2459 18th St. NW), from the same penny-pinching philosophy that leads Chef Geoff's (1301 Pennsylvania Ave. NW) to corral its happy hour crowd in a cramped quadrant by the bar.

The general laziness at Dos Gringos (3116 Mount Pleasant St. NW), a self-consciously quirky lunch spot that never offers Wi-Fi (social engineering), regularly runs out of ingredients (a supposed sign of freshness), and uses the microwave like it's going out of style.

Corn dog tourism

2010-10-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

A friend invited us over on Friday to meet a couple of CouchSurfing Argentines, speak some Spanish, and sample a remarkable batch of gnocchi, served in a cream sauce with a stripe of marinara. So to return the favor, we persuaded them to put off their trip to the Washington Monument and instead come to the Great Frederick Fair ("una mezcla de la Rural, el Italpark y los carritos de la costanera, pero con comida frita," as the Argentines put it) for some of this country's somewhat less delicate delicacies, including sausage and peppers, blooming onions and the inescapable corn dog. (No one tried the deep-fried Oreos, but it was nice to see them make an appearance.)

I felt guilty at first, diverting Andres and Floriana from the National Mall to the Frederick fairgrounds. But I felt much better when I saw the corn dog post (above) on these CouchSurfers' travel blog, Vuelta al Mundo:

"Los corndogs son espectaculares. Como puede ser que en Argentina no los tengamos? Es una salchicha en un palito mojada en una pasta de maiz y frito. Que puede haber mejor?"

kg, on a roll

2010-09-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

At top, Chinese sesame dumplings filled with cabbage. Below, souffle with smoked Gouda.

Planting cilantro at Monticello

2010-09-11T15:08:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson may have favored the French, adding a dome, 13 skylights and a wine dumbwaiter to his Monticello mansion. But on my visit to Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, I came away most impressed by the Ukrainians, after running into a couple of Ukrainian scientists at a lakeside BBQ and inspecting the ridiculous bounty of mushrooms they had gathered in the nearby woods. And I'll say this, if Jefferson had ever visited the Taste of China (where the kitchen, until recently, was manned by the "mysteriously peripatetic" Peter Chang, profiled in March by Calvin Trillin, who chronicled Chang's career serving up inspiring Chinese eats in uninspiring strip malls in Virginia, Tennessee and Atlanta), he might well have trained his personal chef to cook Szechuan crispy eggplant and cilantro rolls instead of French delicacies. (From the The New Yorker piece, it sounds like Chang's restaurant draws crowds as large as those that used to gather in Jefferson's lobby, decorated with keepsakes from the Lewis and Clark expedition and, unexpectedly, looking a bit like a room in Neruda's house in Valparaíso.)

Other Charlottesville tips: An obligatory stop at Foods of All Nations (check out the Eastern European dips), and an optional visit to the Blue Moon Diner, known for its artisanal bacon.

Soft opening for a soft taco

2010-09-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'd call it a "dry run," but it was drenched in Sriracha. TaKorean, DC's newest food truck, started selling its Korean fusion tacos ("Korean BBQ with a twist of Mexican style") in Adam's Morgan last night, around 18th St. NW and Columbia, and when I spotted them again tonight, I happily handed over $2.50 for a sample. (I don't know if I should be flattered that they chose my neighborhood for their "soft opening"; it makes me feel both special and small-time.) The Bulgogi steak taco (marbled cuts of beef marinated in a sweet and spicy soy-based sauce) was fresh and delicious, garnished with lively cilantro and sliced radishes.

It might be a good idea that these decidedly not Latino or Korean chefs are still hiding from food bloggers. The "kimchi" that comes standard on their beef, chicken and tofu tacos (all 1 for $2.50, 3 for $7) is distressingly unfermented, and any marinade that may have met the beef is completely subsumed by Sriracha. The entire concept, meanwhile, is unapologetically ripped off from-that-coast-that-brought-you-alfalfa-and-avocado-and-sushi-and-Snoop Dog, and has been long ago hyped on the Food Network and in The New York Times.

Still, the tacos are pretty great, and since the owner seems like a good, charitable guy, it will be bittersweet when this truck is ready for prime time, finding glory downtown and leaving us country, uptown folk behind.

Throw it back

2010-08-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

$35 is a bargain for a three-course meal at a restaurant where the lobster risotto alone normally sells for $29. Still, even if Hook (3241 M St. NW, in Georgetown) had paid me to eat there, I might still have been disappointed by its Restaurant Week performance. Yes, the Yellow Fin Tuna was served nice and rare, but Hook forgot to season the black beans, lazily relying on the bacon lardons and mismatched mango butter. Yes, a spring pea risotto is a cozy bed for Pacific Cod, but only if it's even a little creamy and the promised chili oil is detectable without a mass spectrometer.

Hook did a bit better with its appetizers and desserts, the Taylor Bay Scallop Pan Roast with roast corn succatash, chorizo and quicos was generously portioned, though the chorizo was hard to locate; ditto for the Grilled Calamari mushroom cappuccino, scallion and crispy poached egg, though the calamari tasted more burnt than grilled. No complaints whatsoever about the campily named but mesmerizingly sweet "Just Peachy" (cardamom panna cotta, peach preserves and pistachio cookie) and the "That's S'more Like It" (chocolate cinnamon cake, toasted marshmellow ice cream and bittersweet chocolate sauce). But none of that made up for Hook's impolite and inattentive host and waitress; the unfortunately positioned streetlight brightening the second floor like it was a crime scene; and the absence of information on the menu about Hook's admirable commitment to sustainable fish, leaving customers to wonder if the chef's fish selections are simply an attempt to sell cheaper, more abundant species to raise Hook's profit margin.

Newspaper nostalgia

2010-08-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

It seems that my reporting last year on the impacts of the financial crisis in long suffering Rhode Island has helped The Providence Journal win 1st place in the Continuing Coverage category of the New England Associated Press News Executives Association's 2010 newspaper contest.

The other winners in the category were my former colleagues Paul Edward Parker, Cynthia Needham and Andy Smith, the Projo reports.

Zagat, tag it, sell it to the butcher in the store

2010-08-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

More props for Arlington, Va.-based Five Guys, with a Zagat survey crowning the country's fastest-growing restaurant chain as home of the best fast food burger. I guess that's exciting, but I imagine sitting just a few slots above McDonald's and Burger King on any list would be a bit deflating for a company that takes pride in its fresh ground beef and just-say-no-to-freezers pledge.

Lefty's leftovers

2010-08-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

I was inspired by a friend in Tenleytown, who whooped me in my 1st colonial attempt at Settlers of Catan but made up for it by serving up 3 exceptional pizzas, including one topped by potatoes so thinly sliced you could have piled them on top of my resource cards and still seen that all I had were a pile of bricks. So I adapted a couple of Epicurious recipes, including a sliced and roasted cauliflower appetizer that I doused with the recommended olive oil-lemon-garlic dressing but substituted Parmesan for the Kalamata topping; and a corn and tomato scramble that involved sauteed fresh corn kernels and scallions cooled and tossed with tomatoes marinated in olive oil and cider vinegar (and accompanied by chopped endive, in my version).

Today's breakfast, a leftover Lefty's Barbecue burger from last night's building BBQ sacrilegiously mingling with MorningStar veggie sausage patties and the Mexican tortilla scramble known as migas.

Bossa no thanks

2010-08-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe my expectations were too high, since I thought picanha was so good it'd be tasty even run over by a bullet train. But it turns out, the best thing The Grill From Ipanema (1858 Columbia Rd. NW, in Adams Morgan) has on the menu is its clever name. The caipirinhas ($7.50) are poured too short, the picanha ($21) is cooked too long, the onions in the linguiça a palito ($10), mixed in with the spicy sliced sausage, are basically raw, the black beans are practically unseasoned and the farofa, ground yuca roasted with garlic and butter, looks like a flavor-packed S. Asian spice, but tastes like pencil shavings.

Can Opener

2010-08-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

For a minute, I truly contemplated okra tacos. But I flinched, in a moment of lame vegetable aisle wimpiness, and so sweet corn became the taco night headliner. "Sweet corn is an emotional food when you eat it picked fresh from the field, just full of feelings, you just sit and you weep" (A Prairie Home Companion). Perhaps at Lake Wobegon. Here in DC, the most I can say is it sure is cheap and crunchy.

Speaking of corn, I was excited to see Open City (2331 Calvert St. NW), the overrated Woodley Park cousin of Adams Morgan's underrated 24-hour Diner (2453 18th St. NW) and Tryst (next door to The Diner) trying to work some magic with creamed corn. You see, creamed corn was a childhood staple in our house, served with Heinz vegetarian baked beans and grated Parmesan. Open City's version? A concocted coconut creamed corn side sold for $3.50 a bowl. I'd hate to hate on the yellowy, gooey, crunchy gruel, since I'm a pretty nostalgic fellow, but I'm going to stick with the Gedan corn-and-beans recipe.

There are a few things that I can recommend. The beer flight at Meridian Pint (3400 11th St. NW, opposite RedRocks); the family style lunch specials at the shadowy Magic Gourd (528 23rd St NW, in Foggy Bottom); everything at Pho 14 (1436 Park Rd. NW, in Columbia Heights), the biggest food bargain in DC, and that's including the deeply discounted Morningstar products at the nearby Target; the happy hour cocktails at Bar Dupont (1500 New Hampshire Av. NW), but only out on the patio; the phoenix roll (shrimp tempura, spicy tuna and avocado) ($12), a nice mix of mushy mashed tuna and crunchy fried shrimp, at Perry's (1811 Columbia Rd. NW, in Adam's Morgan), but only up on the roof; the Texas Burger ($11), slathered with smoky chipotle BBQ sauce and topped by pickles, fried onion straws and coleslaw, but with the upper bun brilliantly held aloft by a toothpick, keeping it blissfully unsoggy, served alongside gimmicky but tasty Tater Tots, at Tonic (2036 G St. NW, in Foggy Bottom); and finally, arguably the best meal in South Dupont Circle (other than the once-a-year free burgers and hot dogs and pizza served up in the Circle by the DC police), the barbacoa burrito at Tomatillo Taqueria, the Mexican takeout lunch stand at The Big Hunt (1347 Connecticut Ave. NW), served best with the spicy tomatillo sauce, fresh pico de gallo and guacamole (it's an extra $1 for the avocado) and sauteed onions, but it's cash only and closed from August 9-13.

Have fruit, will freeze

2010-07-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

I'm typing quickly. For now, Pleasant Pops is generating buzz and brain freeze in equal measure, but it is still inches below the foodie radar, hyped by the DCist and Prince of Petworth but unsung by the good ol' mainstream media. Apparently, however, The Washington Post, Washingtonian and others have started sniffing around the Pleasant Pops bike cart, parked on Saturdays at the Mount Pleasant Farmers’ Market. So just so Pipón can say it is in the frozen desserts vanguard, here are a few shots of the Pleasant Pops action this morning at the farmers’ market, where the good people from Pleasant Pops, founded in March 2009 by a friend's brother, Roger, offered up a handful of their 60 original flavors ($2.50 a pop, literally) including strawberries-and-cream and watermelon-and-cucumber, and hunted-and-gathered for ingredients for next week, including fresh basil, blackberries and peaches. (I had the strawberry pop, and it was delicious, even if I had to eat it in 30 seconds before it melted.)

UPDATE: MSM has found Pleasant Pops indeed, http://n.pr/cwtJiU, http://bit.ly/akSIUN.

Bogart that bubble

2010-07-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

The $3 Summer Sam "long necks" live up to the "best happy hour in DC!" come-on, but corralling the happy hour crowd in a cramped quadrant by the bar, even while most of Chef Geoff's (1301 Pennsylvania Ave. NW) sits empty, is the type of self-defeating cheapskating I'm more accustomed to seeing at hotels that still charge for Wi-Fi and cities that don't give free transfers between subways and buses.

In other news, I saw a great anti-smoking ad last night before The Duchess, who apparently hit the bottle pretty hard and liked to gamble, but was not a smoker.

Caliente, not picante?

2010-07-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

No disrespect to the mega restaurant Lauriol Plaza (1835 18th Street NW), where the chefs manage not only to feed hundreds of people nightly, on three floors and a packed patio, but also to come up with appealing specials, like the hulking leg of lamb I ordered last night. But seriously, doesn't it seem upside down to serve the homemade salsa hot in temperature and mild in spiciness, and not the other way around?

Grind, Flatten

2010-07-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

The AP says DC, "fertile ground for ground chuck," is capital of the country's "better burger" trend, where burger joints are grinding up "higher-grade beef" and topping them off with "fresher or more creative toppings." The evidence includes the success of Va.-based Five Guys, which the AP says is the country's fastest-growing restaurant chain. Pipón has not totally missed this development, commenting on the bison burgers at The Reef in Adams Morgan, the "Uncle D's Chili 'N Cheddar" burger at the Good Stuff Eatery in Capitol Hill, the "Campfire Buffalo Burger" at the The National Museum of the American Indian and the 8 oz. burger at Luna Grill & Diner in Dupont. Plus, I've been thinking long and hard about posting something short and soft about the grass-fed beef at brgr in New York City (287 Seventh Avenue, NYC) and its Thousand Island/Horseradish Sauce/Herb Mayo topping options.

Still, are hamburgers (however sustainably raised) topped with funky ketchup stand-ins (however tart the roquefort) really the most creative U.S. chefs can get?

Under my skin

2010-07-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

It was no cod sperm or squirming, "freshly dismembered octopus," nothing that would impress New York City's "Gastronauts." But I'd say dinner last night at "El Pollo Rico" (932 N. Kenmore St., Arlington) was equal parts developing world deliriousness and first world deliciousness. This is not the haute Peruvian eats you've been hearing about lately on Pipón. "El Pollo Rico" (I love its inexplicable, but very Latin American, use of quotes) is about as simple an operation as the sidewalk fried chicken stand I fell in love with in Ghana a few years ago: there's just rows of chickens rotating on several charcoal rotisserie ovens and an assembly line at the long counter, including a man armed with a meat clever ready to quarter or halve your chicken, another ladling out the two sides (fries and coleslaw) and a third handing over the two sauces (a yellowy mayo and a pureed green chili sauce that go great together). You can order white or dark meat, and both come superbly spiced (beneath the skin). There is a stream of grease in the parking lot, a drab facade and a line out the door. As someone put it on Yelp, "El Pool Rico" has "all of the elements of a great hole in the wall. It's dirt cheap, it's got kind of awful atmosphere, and it's cash only!"

Unrelated, but perhaps of interest: I was eying the osso buco (braised veal shanks) at Cesco Trattoria (4871 Cordell Ave., Bethesda) the other day and I wondered (aloud, unfortunately) why the dish included gremolata. I was curious only because I was convinced gremolata was some kind of Italian ice cream. Woops. It's actually a "garnish made of minced parsley, lemon peel and garlic," an Italian chimichurri, and it is a traditional ingredient in osso buco.

The Surgeon

2010-07-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

Graduate student austerity means no smoked salmon, an inhumane bit of belt-tightening for a New Yorker. Thankfully, my folks were in town recently, and so we're suddenly swimming in Nova, and I've been doing up lox-onions-and-eggs scrambles for breakfast whenever I have no bus to catch in the morning.

Alpaca on a plate

2010-07-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

Intrepid Pipón correspondent Julia Oliver, self-portrait virtuoso, summited Machu Picchu the other day, hunting alpaca with a bow and arrow for lunch. I exaggerate. But after "eating my way through Lima," Oliver did survive a train derailment aboard Perurail to get to Cuzco, where she climbed to some Inca ruins and worked up an appetite for bacon-wrapped alpaca loin, topped with chimichurri and accompanied by mashed sweet potatoes.

Photos, including the passion fruit close-up below, by ~~Julie~~ Julia Oliver. More images of Peru's delicias culinarias here.

UPDATE: Megalomanical Me somehow missed the "copy" Ms. Oliver submitted with her great Peruvian photography. Here it is: "Alpaca are ubiquitous in the highlands of central Peru. They are employed not only as producers of soft, warm sweater material, but also as tourist gimmicks -- bait for a propina -- and gardeners to the Incan gods. This alpaca loin wrapped in bacon and drizzled with a salty chimichurri sauce is set off nicely by the sweet potato puree. Prepared by the Tree House, a charming and rustic restaurant high on a hill below Machu Picchu, this rendition was sampled with a glass of Peruvian red wine -- not the sweet stuff, but a dry Tabernero malbec. It was the perfect end to a mist-shrouded hike overlooking Peru's maravilla del mundo."

Red faced, not from the marinara

2010-07-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

As if my unsophisticated palate, low food budget and amateur cooking skills did not make me insecure enough about publishing Pipón, I heard a great Marketplace segment the other day about the "food paparazzi" and the restaurateurs who, er, do not exactly love them. (Apparently, we food bloggers are famous for publishing photos that are "under-exposed, or taken mid-meal, bite marks and all" and for critiquing food "without really knowing what they're talking about.") And yet, here I go again, with a few Darts & Laurels (h/t to CJR) for some Washington restaurants.

Laurels

The toppings at The Pita Pit (616 23rd St. NW), in Foggy Bottom, including feta, avocado and tzatziki sauce.
Pretty much everything at the Thornton River Grille, in Sperryville, Va., in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just off the Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive, one of the best thought-I'd-come-to-a-greasy-spoon surprises I've ever encountered, where the eggs benedict is served on a homemade baguette, the vegetable omelet special (there it is above) involves, count 'em, five eggs and all dishes get a pick-me-up of fresh fruit and the option of a few drops of the local pepper sauce, Chileman's.
The name (I didn't actually try the food, since the beer alone is bankrupting) of The Star and The Shamrock (1341 H St. NE), an Irish-Jewish pub.
The sauteed beef and onions at El Rincon Espanol (1826 Columbia Rd. NW) in Adams Snorgan (any chance that will catch on?), so tender you (almost, sometimes, when the door is mercifully closed) forget about the booming nightclub upstairs.

The "Sloppiest Joe" ($13) at Ted's Bulletin (505 8th St. SE) (see it above), part of the cloying home-style trend but way more exciting than an overpriced grilled cheese, so much so that it makes up for the poor service at this new restaurant and its odd decision to write "Breakfast Anytime" in large letters on the menu, followed by a small print advisory, "coming soon, we'll keep you posted." On the other hand, the $3 homemade strawberry pop tarts (see one below) are already on offer, as are a great $4 side of blue cheese Brussels sprouts (see one above) and TVs playing classics such as The Wizard of Oz and Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Finally, Laurels for the sliders at Bar Dupont (1500 New Hampshire Av. NW); the Five Guys at Nationals Park, where they do inflate the price a bit but still honor their all toppings free pledge (including the grilled onions, grilled mushrooms and jalapeno peppers); and the $12 "Tacos de Borrego" (slow roasted lamb with garlic and Oaxacan peppers) at Casa Oaxaca (2106 18th St. NW) in Adams Snorgan, where the menu inspires so much confidence, in its refreshingly small size and multicolored mole offerings, that I might actually one day, given enough mezcal, try the "Cazuela de Chapulines," the Oaxacan cheese fondu and grasshoppers appetizer.

Darts

The burgers (see one above) at Nellie's (900 U St. NW) are no joke, with free caramelized onions and only a $1 charge for blue cheese. Still, given the $10 price tag, you'd think they could afford to serve their mimosas in something other than a plastic cup.
The large chili con carne ($5.40) at Ben's Chili Bowl (1213 U St. NW) is good, no doubt, but it does not quite live up to the hype, or the description "large" for that matter. (Why does criticizing Ben's feel like blaspheme and a culinary conventional wisdom echo chamber at the same time?)

Mercat de la Boqueria

2010-07-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

The Boqueria, in Barcelona, is not exactly obscure, so there is plenty of information out there to help you navigate its stalls, sniffing out the raw fish spreads, fried rabas, nuts and candy piles and Technicolor fruit salads, while marveling at how the market failure of imperfect information lets identical packages of freshly chopped watermelon sell for radically different prices.

So I'll leave it at this: If you're stopping by Bar Pinotxo, do it early, before the market-supplied, deep-but-traditional menu is whittled down to just tripe and teeny-weeny rabbit ribs. (If you do show up late, however, still stop by Bar Pinotxo; the rabbit is pretty tasty, especially if washed down with Catalan cava.)

L'Escala

2010-07-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

Our friends Scott and Isabel gave us the keys to their family apartment on the beach in the small fishing village of L'Escala, and yet, even after night after night of hotel living, it was still tempting to eat all our meals at Cal Galan, where the walls are covered with photos of fishermen auctioning off anchovies, the appetizer ronyons (kidneys) platter must have left the entire coop organ-less, the steak is served with fried eggs and the sangria pitcher sells for just €8.50, or at Emporda in neighboring Empuries, where the paella Valenciana offers a nice siesta from seafood without sacrificing a big ol' pot of stewed rice.

Still, we're not total layabouts. We hit up Peixos Masafon, picked up squid and a few wild-caught, Mediterranean bruixa, kg did some serious beheading and sauteing and we served it all up with some lentils.

Patatas bravas

2010-07-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

Patatas bravas sauce, at the low end, is a mayo miasma. (We found this tapas platter at Arts, by the riverside on Girona's Rambla Llibertat, and also at Txapela, an otherwise über creative tapas restaurant opened late into the night on the über fashionable Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona.) But a good jarred variety can be pretty heavenly on potatoes, a baguette rustica or just a spoon. We had no memorable meals in Figueres, but we did pass a restaurant called the "Dalícatessen," and an open-air market with barrels of olives and piles of dried fish.

24 hours in Santa Pau

2010-07-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

The food scene is not exactly erupting in rural Santa Pau, a small Catalan village in a national park dotted by dormant volcanoes. But you will not go hungry (as long as the resupply route to Olot is open).

Breakfast: Can Menció, opened in the historic Plaça Major in 1940 beside the only hostal in town, serves up fresh bread, bags of raw Fesols de Santa Pau (the ubiquitous locally grown white beans) and a wine selection about as long as the village census roll. (Rooms just €45; breakfast downstairs cheap, but not included.)

Lunch: Fresh La Fageda yogurt, from the cooperative inside the volcanic reserve. (I'd say more, but we did not stop for a visit to the plant, and the Web site is all in Catalan.)

Dinner: Can Rafelic, where the locally raised, roasted meat is remarkable, even though the only real dinnertime competition comes from the frozen pizza and prosciutto-and-tomato sandwiches at the local pub.

Barcelona

2010-06-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, Catalans have a real thing for paella, that rumor is true. (The plate above is from Can Kalav, a bar-restaurante-pizzeria along the paseo del mar in Tossa de Mar, along the Costa Brava, a few hours north of Barcelona.) But there is also a surprising amount of pizza bolognesa, just in case you need a breather from all that rice and seafood madness.

Southern France

2010-06-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

Above, our favorite Tapas joint, in Perpignan, France, where they serve up chorizo and clams, potato-encrusted shrimp, Iberian ham on crostini, fried calamari and patatas bravas well into the night. Below, "assiette du terroir" (a pâté terrine) and a traditional duck and sausage cassoulet at Brasserie Pantagruel in Carcassonne, France.

NBW

2010-06-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

I gave Cashion's Eat Place (1819 Columbia Road NW) a hard time recently for its awkward name (it sounds like it was "poorly translated from Japanese," I wrote). So it's only fair I mention two other marketing missteps I've also encountered around town: New Big Wong (610 H St. NW) in Chinatown, where the 5 a.m. closing time (on weekends) and the tasty $1.75 hot and sour soup do not begin to make up for the sexual innuendo; and Moby Dick's House of Kabob (1300 Connecticut Ave. NW) in Dupont Circle, which has 14 other locations that all carry the same inexplicable non sequitur.

Condiments, at the Bethesda Row Cinema

2010-06-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I do not get out much, so I thought this was a unique offering. Turns out, these seasonings are all the rage these days at American cinemas. But at least they're free in Bethesda, whereas at the nickel-and-diming Regal Gallery Place in Chinatown, a sprinkle of "nacho chedder" will set you back $1.50.

$9

2010-06-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

I would have thought the Mainers behind Allagash White would have mandated that it never be sold for more than, say, $5 a bottle. Apparently, Perry's (1811 Columbia Rd. NW), in Adam's Morgan, did not get the memo. I mean, there are great views from the patio and tasteful (though energy inefficient) lighting. But seriously, Manhattan beer prices just a few doors down from the Blockbuster?

Waterworld

2010-06-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

My fried, Naureen, ordered us the garlic naan ($3.50), raita ($3), the baingan bharta ($10) (grilled fresh eggplant sautéed with ginger, garlic, onion and tomatoes), and the kurkuri bhindi ($11) (fresh, crisp okra sautéed with onions, tomato, green pepper, dry mango powder and fresh herbs), all served with basmatic saffron rice. "I'll have the same," I joked. 30 minutes later, our waiter arrived and began serving two platters of everything we'd ordered.

So that was my bad. But you can't blame me that the eggplant tasted like apple sauce, the result of some kind of wild cardamon explosion in the kitchen. So I guess, Indian Ocean (4221 Connecticut Ave. NW, in Van Ness), we're even.

Lists

2010-06-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

So far, Pipón has not posted nearly enough "Best Of" lists, that inescapable (but oddly still appealing) gimmick of American publishing. But I'm ready to say this (paraphrasing a friend who recently recommended a Barcelona restaurant by remarking that their txipirones, Basque squid with chick peas and a pomegranate glaze, was "the best thing I ate in 2005"), I had my favorite dish of 2010 the other day, the ragu of wild mushrooms with rosemary, Tuscan liver sauce and polenta ($9.50) at Cashion's Eat Place (1819 Columbia Road NW) in Adams Morgan. The rich, meaty mushrooms were so fresh and earthy I felt like I was grazing in New England woodlands, while the three types of liver (yes, three types of liver, rabbit, duck and quail, if I recall correctly) offered a juicy and unique protein medley and the bed of polenta made sure I did not miss an ounce of the sauce.

In general, I should note, the restaurant is a bit uneven given the prices, offering on the one hand inexplicably inattentive waitering (at least on my single visit), an inedibly bitter chilled watercress and potato soup and an ungrammatical name that sounds like it was poorly translated from Japanese, while also serving up, in addition to the aforementioned lively livers, remarkable Greek spreads including a smooth hummus, a roe paste and an eccentrically spiced yogurt dip.

Fare Share

2010-06-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

My buddy Jeff Novich, a serial entrepreneur and Bobby Flay body double, has been getting some good press (in amNewYork and The Wall Street Journal) for his newest business, an iPhone app that offers economizing New Yorkers a digital ride board for taxi trips. Here's an ad for the app, featuring Jeff's foxy wife, Maddy, going gaga over the technology.

Halibut: "Ni lo pienses"

2010-05-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Normally, it is not my policy to hype dinner parties I'm not invited to, particularly when, as a consolation prize, I'm offered leftover cold fish as a late-night, study break pick-me-up. But because this sounds so very tasty (and not just because I'd eat a dirty batting glove if it were simmered in coconut milk), I give you Lauren Miller's "luscious halibut."

"Luscious, while also sustainable, this free range halibut combines the richness of organic coconut milk with the spiciness of jalapeños, making it the perfect meal for two environmental lovers," Ms. Miller tells Pipón. (It's not clear to me if they should be lovers of the environment, each other or both.) Ms. Miller's recipe involves marinating halibut in lemon juice and olive oil and then baking it for 10 minutes before it is "bathed" in a sauce of onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and spices (including fennel seeds, tumeric, cumin, coriander and cayenne pepper) and then returned to the oven for an additional 20 minutes. Serve with orzo and asparagus, and pair it with Food Inc. or An Inconvenient Truth. (To be fair, the film recommendations are mine, not b-school-bound Ms. Miller's, but the orzo et al. are all hers.)

Photo by Julia Oliver.

Toledo

2010-05-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

As I explore the DC food scene, there are a few mysteries I cannot yet unravel:

Why do so many Chinese fast food joints serve subs?
Why do so many Mexican restaurants, including the highly regarded but surprisingly high-priced Mixtec (1792 Columbia Rd. NW), serve waffles?
Why do so many people wait for so long to eat at Pasta Mia (1790 Columbia Rd. NW)? (My best guess: crack in the marinara.)

While I dig into these eccentricities, here are a few things I have figured out over the past few days:

El Tamarindo (1785 Florida Ave. NW) is now abierto las 24 on weekends, joining The Diner (2453 18th St. NW) as an Adams Morgan source of decent late-night eats.
On Wednesdays, the grimy but hip Toledo Lounge (2435 18th St. NW) serves up mediocre but cheap grilled cheese sandwiches ($3.50) and $2 draft beer. (It appears likely that the cheese in the grilled cheese, Toledo's top seller, comes to the bar pre-sliced and individually plastic wrapped, if you know what I mean. But the bread is nicely buttered and browned, and the onion rings are fat and delicious.)

Emergency Exits

2010-05-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

"Please take a minute to locate this planet's emergency exits. As you can see, there aren't any."

En brodo

2010-05-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

I owe Pipón capsule reviews of a handful of restaurants we've visited lately, including El Rincón Español (1826 Columbia Rd. NW), a great tapas joint in Adams Morgan; Mama Ayesha's (1967 Calvert St. NW), a popular Middle Eastern restaurant in Woodley Park; and Thaiphoon (2011 S St. NW), a mediocre local Thai chain that competes with Thaitanic (locations in Columbia Heights and Logan Circle) for the most clever Thai pun. (kg has promised some penitent guest blogging after ditching me for great meals at The Diner (2453 18th St. NW), run 24 hours a day by the good people at Tryst, and Volt (228 N. Market St., Frederick, Md), that most talked about of Frederick attractions.)

In the meantime, we've done a bit of cooking. Above, my new 30 Minute Meal, cheese tortellini, sauteed mushrooms and onions and baby spinach served in vegetable broth (en brodo) instead of red sauce.

To get people to drink some wine with us up on the roof, our Argentine friend Lara mashed up some gnocchi and kg whipped up some crème brûlée. Below, proof that Lara has not become too American to make make gnocchi, at least on the 29th, and kg's newest pizza eccentricity, toppings underneath.

Tidal wave

2010-04-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Neither of these videos is likely to "ganhar a internet," as my Portuguese professor likes to say, but I still feel gratified public servicing it up here on Pipón. The first is a bit of Earth Day love c/o my ecologist spouse, kg. The second tackles another equally interesting, albeit comparably dispiriting, subject, the national debt. Admit it, you thought I was only interested in my fantasy baseball squad.

'Elites'

2010-04-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

SAIS, however pompous the acronym, is not a household name outside foreign policy circles. The last time I saw it cross paths with the zeitgeist was in Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, as Moore vilifies former Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson, now a "distinguished visiting scholar" at SAIS, and the b-roll shows the Nitze building.

Last night, according to my friend Jeremy Wang-Iverson, brought some redemption. In an SNL skit mocking Sarah Palin, Tina Fey describes a new show, on the Sarah Palin Network, called "Elites" that "takes CSPAN footage of a bunch of smarty pants professors talking about who-knows-what and redubs it with the teacher's voice from Charlie Brown." Here, the b-roll, at minute 14:00, is once again good ol' SAIS.

Sushi Phi Epsilon

2010-04-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

Not one of the sushi chefs behind the bar was actually Japanese. More bizarrely (stranger even than the recent addition of "Asian Cuisine," including pork fried rice and drunken noodles), on the menu, opposite a snooty discourse on when it is appropriate to drink sake cold (only super high quality bottles, apparently) is "Tono's Bomb," a $7 "traditional sake bomb" with Gekkeikan sake and your choice of Japanese beer. (I haven't had a sake bomb since a strange dinner at Kaya, in Cambridge, in the late 1990s.) But I'll say this: the sushi at Tono Sushi (2605 Connecticut Ave. NW) is good enough to make you forget about a menu that meanders into pan-Asian fraternity territory. For the non-adventurous, there's the super low-priced "roll combo," $10 for a cucumber roll, California roll and tuna roll. For everyone else, I recommend the spicy, crunchy salmon roll. We also sampled the Oshinko ($4), an artfully presented platter of assorted Japanese pickles, and dreamed a little dream about one day ordering the Kimchee tuna roll and the tuna wrapped Dragon roll, stuffed with sweet potato tempura.

Mennonites

2010-03-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

Previously, any mention of the Mennonites (or the Amish, for that matter) conjured up memories of my late 1990s trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania ("The Sweetest Place on Earth"), where the organizers arranged a side trip to Amish Country to give respite from binging on Hersey's Kisses. From now on, I'll have at least one more image: the antique Mennonite (and Amish) crib quilts at the organic Restaurant Nora (2132 Florida Avenue NW).

On the off chance that the quilts (and the funky, futuristic infinity wine cellar in the back of the 19th century former grocery) are not enough to sell you on its mostly $30-plus entrees, here's a quick sampling of the refreshingly (though not self-consciously, ostentatiously or even overly adventurously) creative dishes that we sampled on a recent evening: Butternut squash soup with crunchy pepitas, toasted pumpkin seed oil and creme fraiche ($12, though ladled out gratis between courses during our visit); Spanish octopus a la plancha, with olive oil crusted potatoes, chorizo, gremolata (a garnish of minced parsley, lemon peel and garlic), watercress and a Romesco sauce that made me achingly nostalgic for the beloved Romesco wrap (egg, spinach, mushrooms and provolone cheese and a homemade hazelnut roasted red pepper spread) at The Edge (199 Wayland Avenue,
Providence, R.I.), my old haunt in Providence's Wayland Square ($15); feta cheese and beet salad with oranges, grapefruit, beet tuile ("a thin, crisp cookie," or chip, in this case) and pomegranate vinaigrette ($13); pan-roasted Maine scallops and cauliflower risotto with leeks, turnips, peas, kohlrabi (a member of the turnip family sometimes called cabbage turnip) and a brown butter emulsion ($32); and, nicely paired with the art, an Amish rabbit duo loin and confit, with a ramekin of mustard spatzel, braised red cabbage, Brussel sprouts, chanterelles, turnips and cherry stout jus ($35).

Speaking of Providence, here's a slightly cheaper option than Nora (excluding airfare): Mi Guatemala Restaurant (1049 Atwells Avenue, Providence, R.I.). It was not our first choice last night, but the disappoint of finding Chilangos and Mexico closed (and lacking the energy to drive across town to El Rancho Grande) quickly faded thanks to the incredibly homemade tortilla chips, salsas (sweet and chipotle) and black bean sampler and complimentary beefy sopita.

Home of the Sweet Potato Pie

2010-03-13T18:56:00.000-08:00

I suppose I should have been ready for the question, "hot or cold?" Henry's Soul Cafe (1704 U St. NW) is the "Home of the Sweet Potato Pie," and apparently the hot or cold dilemma is an age old debate, and your answer depends in part on whether you're in an à la mode kind of mode, er, mood. Anyway, the place is the type of greasy spoon Jane and Michael Stern would (rightly) go on about. I just sampled the pie today (hot, and delicious), but I predict I'll be back soon. The $5 weekday lunch special, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., comes with cornbread and two sides, such as fried okra or candied yams. Henry's opened in 1968. How have I not been there until today?

In My Shoes

2010-03-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

I know the admittedly very creative mathematical ballet short has been the real crowd-pleaser among the widely hyped video essays submitted by this year's applicants to my alma mater, Tufts University, but allow me to cast a rogue vote for "In My Shoes." I say "rogue" not only because "Math Dances" has attracted 97,058 YouTube views while my nominee has logged just 25,541, but because I heard a Splendid Table segment this morning about hunting buffalo in the Alaskan wilderness and now I simply can't get Going Rogue Sarah Palin out of my mind.

[Listen here to an All Things Considered report on the Tufts video phenomenon, and if you're really into amateur, multimedia madness, here is one of the short travel videos I put together in Uruguay in late 2008.]

That new sound you're looking for?

2010-03-07T17:23:00.000-08:00

My in-laws were in town tonight, those great patrons of Pipón.* (Since I moved to D.C. last July, they have sponsored trips to Ulah, Founding Fathers, Busboys and Poets, Grapeseed and countless Frederick joints.) Today's treat? Marvin (2007 14th St. NW).

Like nearby Eatonville, named for Zora Neale Hurston, Marvin is an homage to a great American artist, Marvin Gaye, who I'm told lived in the neighborhood. The menu, however, is not simply southern. Instead, it's also a reflection of Gaye's "two years in self-imposed exile in the small Belgian town of Ostend." Try the "Chicken Liver and Foie Gras Royale," served with sweet onion marmalade and toasted baguettes, and the lamb with fingerlings and salty broccoli rabe.

*They do not actually read my blog, but without them, Pipón would only feature my home cooking and reviews of the SAIS cafeteria.

My 'secret'

2010-03-07T11:35:00.000-08:00

There's a funny shout-out to Pipón on a blog written by Scott Kingsley, a former photographer at The Providence Journal, where I used to do financial reporting. Scott apparently noticed that I'd posted one of his videos, the "Stimulus Package" rap, on Pipón. "Former business writer Ben blogs about food?" he wrote. "Who knew? Everyone has a secret."

Eye Bar cure

2010-03-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

Keryn's Eye Bar (1716 I St.) hangover cure, frozen Tater Tots, a fried egg on an English muffin and Marie Sharp's.

The Reef madness (Tell Your Children)

2010-03-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

I was starving and freezing up there on the third floor and still dazed from the handful of Sam Adams that had helped me get through the male beauty pageant known as "Mr. SAIS," where surprisingly toned, Speedoed and Spandexed classmates gyrated on stage and made clever economics jokes ("If you got a problem set, yo I'll solve it/check out the graph while my TA revolves it"). Still, even sober, toasty and un-PTSDed, I would have appreciated the food at The Reef (2446 18th St. NW).

Adams Morgan on a weekend night is more fraternity party than foodie paradise. And The Reef, with its fish tanks, bouncers and low lighting, looks deceptively like a bar/nightclub. Still, it lives up to its boast that its chef, who favors locally purveyed, seasonal vegetables, free-range poultry and meats and fair-catch seafood, "keeps it real." I tried the bison burger ($12), six ounces of New Frontier buffalo from Virginia topped by caramelized onions ($0.25) and blue cheese ($1), and the special fries, seasoned with lavender and sea salt. Delicious.

Saints Preserve Us

2010-03-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

Above, Saturday night's couscous with roasted sweet potato and carrots, and butternut squash pasta with gorgonzola. Below, Toll House cookies, the quickest path between hunger and sweet-toothed bliss.

If any of that sounds at all appetizing, try it out on the night you had planned to go to Saint-Ex.

It'd be way too generous to say that Saint-Ex (1847 14th Street NW) suffers, à la Obama, from unfairly high expectations. It is simply overpriced, overhyped and overrated. I'm not sure why it's so in demand, other then inertia and the long lines created by its frustrating policy of not accepting reservations. It's certainly not the "charming" ambiance. The basement is a shadowy bar; the main level, lacking a coat rack and adequate lighting, gets packed like a rush hour Metrobus. I tried the $36 prix fixe menu, sampling a special tortilla appetizer that showcased chopped, soggy chicken, and an overcooked steak. One of the fish entrees looked enticing, but our Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch app recommended "avoid." I'd say the same about Saint-Ex.

'The Case for Goliath'

2010-02-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Michael Mandelbaum

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Vancouverage 2010

A classmate yesterday passed along a video of my SAIS professor, Michael Mandelbaum, appearing on The Daily Show to discuss his book, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the Twenty-First Century. The interview is a few years old, and America's influence has arguably decreased since its publication, in large measure due to this country's economic headaches (as Prof. Mandelbaum predicted in the interview, noting that "the great challenge to the American role as the world's government comes not from China, but from Medicare"). Still, Prof. Mandelbaum's argument remains relevant, though controversial*: Despite all the anti-Americanism across the globe, "America is the benign Goliath," a "global good guy" that the world secretly appreciates.

*John Stewart, for one, sounded somewhat skeptical. "You're suggesting," he asked Prof. Mandelbaum, "that the burning of a flag in many countries -- a compliment?"

Chilbekistan

2010-02-27T15:46:00.000-08:00

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 1740 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., by Suzanne Lynch.

The rat race

2010-02-27T14:25:00.000-08:00

Spotted this Butcher's Bill on the refrigerator last night at a party. Comforting that the electrified traps have logged so many kills? Or scary that even after Ernie and Mickey had fallen, Pork Chop and Confucius refused to retreat?

Apple Pie

2010-02-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

I swiped a quote from a classmate's Facebook page ("If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe") and e-mailed it to the biggest Carl Sagan fan I knew. He replied with a link to this YouTube video, in an exchange I considered fantastically modern, albeit amazingly commonplace.

Hamburg, Dupont

2010-02-23T20:11:00.000-08:00

It is opening in Detroit next year, so I guess that's pretty interesting. Otherwise, Vapiano (1800 M Street NW) is just a mediocre, gimmicky German chain. It clearly believes it's an interesting idea, "defining the future of fast casual," an "innovative European" and "revolutionary concept" born in Hamburg in 2002 and since exported to 16 countries, where diners get to experience an "urban-European atmosphere." Sounds exciting, right? All I saw tonight at the Dupont Circle location were a couple of basil plants on the tables and made-to-order fresh pasta and pizza that you have to order cafeteria-style from a line of short-order cooks. Sure, the pesto pasta was tasty. But for $10, I would not have complained if Vapiano had hired a waiter or two to bring over a glass of water.

'The days kind of blend'

2010-02-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

My wife's cousin, Kate Levitt, the drummer for the Balitmore band Teeth Mountain, puts in a brilliant performance on Judge Judy, where she alleges that a house guest killed her cat by hurling a TV set across her living room. The story, according to the Balitmore City Paper, is made up, an attempt to "parody art-hipster culture via a case about a dead cat for a daytime television audience that could probably give a shit less about art-hipster culture." (The paper's evidence that cousin Kate's cat, if it ever existed, is still meowing around? "come the fuck on, just watch it.")

Braai rules

2010-02-21T20:27:00.000-08:00

I am beginning to take this personally. First, my Greek South African-born friend Tanya (in photo below, at left) invited me over for a "peasant stew," telling me that the lamb and orzo medley, however delicious it may taste, is a strictly plebeian platter. Then last night, just as I arrived back at Tanya's, I was instructed not to remove my coat but rather to proceed directly to the balcony to help Tanya's brother, George, keep an eye on the Boerewors, South African sausage served on rolls and favored by drunk clubgoers after last call.

As if that was not enough of an indignity, Tanya also served chakalaka, a vegetarian chili that, she explained, is a staple for impoverished Johannesburg gold miners.

Tanya is just lucky that all this low-class cuisine is so highly tasty, otherwise I'd have to start boycotting these dinners, lest I end up complimenting an entree only to have Tanya explain, "This is what we feed our cattle."

Sides included Iwisa-brand, mielie-meal pap (the word actually means "gruel," and I'm not making this up); a South African beef jerky known as biltong; potato salad; dried mango; and for dessert, milk tart.

I could tell you more about cooking up Boerewors (hint: for Tanya, the process starts by getting The South African Food Shop to FedEx enormous coils of raw meat), but according to this hilarious instructional video that George passed along, it seems like you have to earn entrance into the Boerewors fraternity in a process that resembles a cross between Freemasonry initiation and an episode of Top Chef.

Projecting Perpetuum Jazzile

2010-02-21T19:02:00.000-08:00

Since it appears Pipón is in a random-non-food-related-videos kind of mood, here are two that might interest you: (above) Toto's Africa by Perpetuum Jazzile, courtesy of Kari Jaksa; (below) a 2009 TED talk, courtesy of George Konidaris, about the prospects of developing a "sixth sense" to give "easy access to meta information" by using a wearable "Web cam."

See the Light

2010-02-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

I had hoped to find a clip of the closing credits of State of Play, a powerful elegy to newspapers soundtracked by Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Long As I Can See The Light." Sadly, all I could find was a random scene. Happily, it features Jason Bateman from Arrested Development and it's pretty genius.

Boom and bust cycle

2010-02-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

This came my nerdy way from a SAIS classmate. NPR's Planet Money featured this video, an hilarious and super instructive rap exploring the conflicting theories of economists John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek,on its Planet Money blog. The video is from EconStories.tv at George Mason University.

Lyrics:

We’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spirits

[Keynes Sings:]

John Maynard Keynes, wrote the book on modern macro
The man you need when the economy’s off track, [whoa]
Depression, recession now your question’s in session
Have a seat and I’ll school you in one simple lesson

BOOM, 1929 the big crash
We didn’t bounce back—economy’s in the trash
Persistent unemployment, the result of sticky wages
Waiting for recovery? Seriously? That’s outrageous!

I had a real plan any fool can understand
The advice, real simple—boost aggregate demand!
C, I, G, all together gets to Y
Make sure the total’s growing, watch the economy fly

You see it’s all about spending, hear the register cha-ching
Circular flow, the dough is everything
So if that flow is getting low, doesn’t matter the reason
We need more government spending, now it’s stimulus season

So forget about saving, get it straight out of your head
Like I said, in the long run—we’re all dead
Savings is destruction, that’s the paradox of thrift
Don’t keep money in your pocket, or that growth will never lift…

because…

Business is driven by the animal spirits
The bull and the bear, and there’s reason to fear its
Effects on capital investment, income and growth
That’s why the state should fill the gap with stimulus both…

The monetary and the fiscal, they’re equally correct
Public works, digging ditches, war has the same effect
Even a broken window helps the glass man have some wealth
The multiplier driving higher the economy’s health

And if the Central Bank’s interest rate policy tanks
A liquidity trap, that new money’s stuck in the banks!
Deficits could be the cure, you been looking for
Let the spending soar, now that you know the score

My General Theory’s made quite an impression
[a revolution] I transformed the econ profession
You know me, modesty, still I’m taking a bow
Say it loud, say it proud, we’re all Keynesians now

We’ve been goin’ back n forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Keynes] I made my case, Freddie H
Listen up , Can you hear it?

Hayek sings:

I’ll begin in broad strokes, just like my friend Keynes
His theory conceals the mechanics of change,
That simple equation, too much aggregation
Ignores human action and motivation

And yet it continues as a justification
For bailouts and payoffs by pols with machinations
You provide them with cover to sell us a free lunch
Then all that we’re left with is debt, and a bunch

If you’re living high on that cheap credit hog
Don’t look for cure from the hair of the dog
Real savings come first if you want to invest
The market coordinates time with interest

Your focus on spending is pushing on thread
In the long run, my friend, it’s your theory that’s dead
So sorry there, buddy, if that sounds like invective
Prepare to get schooled in my Austrian perspective

The place you should study isn’t the bust
It’s the boom that should make you feel leery, that’s the thrust
Of my theory, the capital structure is key.
Malinvestments wreck the economy

The boom gets started with an expansion of credit
The Fed sets rates low, are you starting to get it?
That new money is confused for real loanable funds
But it’s just inflation that’s driving the ones

Who invest in new projects like housing construction
The boom plants the seeds for its future destruction
The savings aren’t real, consumption’s up too
And the grasping for resources reveals there’s too few

So the boom turns to bust as the interest rates rise
With the costs of production, price signals were lies
The boom was a binge that’s a matter of fact
Now its devalued capital that makes up the slack.

Whether it’s the late twenties or two thousand and five
Booming bad investments, seems like they’d thrive
You must save to invest, don’t use the printing press
Or a bust will surely follow, an economy depressed

Your so-called “stimulus” will make things even worse
It’s just more of the same, more incentives perversed
And that credit crunch ain’t a liquidity trap
Just a broke banking system, I’m done, that’s a wrap.

We’ve been goin’ back n forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No it’s the animal spirits

Mail back, Move forward

2010-02-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

If you have been wondering why President Obama thinks you should participate in the 2010 U.S. Census (hint: it's not just because, technically, it's legally required), wonder no longer.

Dupont's edible esoterica

2010-02-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

I'm proud to say ("proud" might be overstating it) that I've now lunched at Dupont Circle's two worst-kept secrets: The Well Dressed Burrito (1220 19th St. NW) and the Brookings Institution cafeteria (1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW). Both are vaguely hidden, a la the nightclubs featured in Swingers. The Well Dressed Burrito serves up its large, marinated beef burritos ($6.50), using actual pulled meat instead of cheap ground beef, in an alleyway; the Brookings Institution cafeteria is, you guessed it, inside the Brookings Institution.

Neither, however, is truly obscure. The Brookings lunch experience, for example, has been deconstructed on Yelp, where one reviewer judged its food to be "just like its politics," that is, "middle of the road." As for The Well Dressed Burrito, here's a Pipón tip: the staff must be used to regulars since they neglected to remind me that the burrito "platter" is just $1 extra and includes homemade enchilada sauce, beans, Southwestern rice and some greens; when I visited, I was so busy dissuading my friend Lauren Miller from ordering a salad that I missed the listing on the menu.

If you want to eat somewhere truly "off the beaten path," try my sister-in-law Marni's garden-level apartment, where I tried the turkey meatballs and Israeli couscous and roasted broccoli the other day.

Burrito photography by Lauren Miller.

Iceland, Greenland

2010-02-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

Be forewarned, the restaurant "Mix" in Frederick, Md. (207 West Patrick Street), is not some hipster bistro that specializes in a creative fusion cuisine (say, Spanish-Ghanaian), or a locavore salad bar that in wintertime sells only hydroponic tomatoes and root vegetables. It's actually spelled "Mick's," and as they'd say in Rhode Island, it's where Jennifer's used to be.

Turns out, however, that even though it may sound like an Irish pub, Mick's has a fairly ambitious chef. Last Saturday night, the specials included arancini (fried rice balls coated with breadcrumbs) that Mick's had stuffed with risotto and bison meat; and a Piedmontese strip steak served atop a white bean puree and alongside Hen of the Woods mushrooms in a Tunisian brik.

Mick, meanwhile, is not the only one cooking these days. I recently found a pile of graffiti eggplants at Harris Teeter and tossed them (peeled and diced, of course) into the wok on Sunday night with scallions and string beans. Last night, I attempted a pasta recipe involving freshly roasted beets and goat cheese. It was as delicious as the stir fry, but I'll say this: No point buying tri-colored pasta when everything ends up bright purple at the end.

Two bonuses (pardon the Wall Street lingo, but I saw Hank Paulson speak today): Listen here to an interesting Marketplace segment on the food scene in Cleveland that may make you less skeptical about the good eats in downtown Frederick; click here for a slide show on DCist of (non-food related but no less entertaining) photos from Washington's Valentine's Day "Cupid's Undie Run."

Mardi Gras, on U Street

2010-02-11T20:06:00.000-08:00

I missed the Mardi Gras Tweet, so I had no idea I was in for 2-for-1 Hurricanes and special Cajun apps, including discounted gumbo accompanied by a crayfish fritter and fried oyster and a look-what-we-can-puree soup previously known as a side of sweet potato & andouille sausage hash. There were also complimentary beads at the U St. Corridor's year-old Eatonville (2121 14th St. NW) served alongside the $2 fresh corn bread, and the waitresses who were singing the praises of the marinated pan fried pork chop ($18, over wilted spinach, fingerling potatoes and green tomato chutney) and crispy chicken breast ($14, over garlic mashed potatoes, braised collard greens and mushroom gravy) were all masquerade masked and Bourbon Street bedecked.

'Charge 'em for the lice, extra for the mice'

2010-02-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

Is this the recipe for the inescapable, greasy and scrumptious choripán found at every intersection and outdoor market in Montevideo?

"Food beyond compare, food beyond belief, mix in the mincer and pretend it's beef. Kidney of horse, liver of a cat, filing up the sausages with this and that." - Les Misérables

Please pass the Colonel Mustard

2010-02-08T07:56:00.000-08:00

I'm hardly a Super Bowl traditionalist. (I only learned who was playing on Friday on line at the Safeway on Columbia Road when I asked the woman in front of me whether she considered a jar of cocktail onions a key part of her pre-storm food supplies.) Still, I was surprised to hear that my friend Rob Margetta, of Congressional Quarterly fame, was planning to make tacos for his Super Bowl party, provided he could hire a "dog sled team" to transport him from Alexandria. From a native of Fall River, Mass., I would've expected fried chicken, cold cuts and sour cream and onion dip.

The menu sounded similarly atypical at Julia Schiff's Super Bowl gathering in Adam's Morgan, highlighted by homemade pork and beansprout Thai egg rolls, made by Art Jirut, whose love for Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, means she just-says-no to beef.

In a nod to more standard Super Bowl fare, however, Art also whipped up (in addition to a pistachio cake) a pot of turkey chili with scallions, kidney beans and Fritos. The hostess, meanwhile, balled some peanut butter and dipped it delicately in chocolate, and also sprinkled Americana throughout her sitting room, including a hard cover copy of David McCullough's 1776, published volumes of her father's photographs of Cincinnati and even a DVD of the 1985 movie Clue, an American classic even if Wadsworth does have a British accent.

UPDATE: My old roommate, Brian Chelcun, reminded me that the peanut butter treats are called "buckeyes," an Ohio specialty apparently designed to resemble the nut of an Ohio Buckeye tree.

Housebound

2010-02-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

My old roommate, Brian Chelcun (below on The Washington Post Web site), in an interview with NPR News, muses on the sudden, pre-"Snowmageddon" run on toilet paper at Washington markets.

Bollywood

2010-02-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

A friend, Lauren Miller, organized a "Bollywood party" tonight, undeterred by the snowfall. "They are forecasting over a foot of snow this Saturday night," she wrote on Thursday. "We are forecasting a great night full of Bollywood music, Indian appetizers and hot dancing!"

Slurping away Snowmageddon

2010-02-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

Given the 25.5 inches of snow in Washington, President Obama's warnings of "Snowmageddon," Amtrak's "widespread cancellations," the shutdown of all runways at BWI, Dulles and Reagan National, the promise from The Washington Post that its "list of what's open" would include "mostly grocery and CVS stores," and the Post's Going Out Guide's warning that "cancellations are piling up like snow," I was pleasantly surprised to see how many restaurants on 18th St. in Adam's Morgan and along U Street were open today.

As you can tell, after failing to secure a table at L'Enfant (2000 18th St NW), we ended up at DC Noodles (1410 U St. NW), where the $12 noodles in soy soup (I ordered mine with beef and wide noodles) helped defrost all but my damp and frigid toes.

Prime minister's questioning

2010-02-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

Brown sugar

2010-02-05T18:49:00.000-08:00

Carrot and sweet potato soup.

Steak Quotidien

2010-02-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

It's rumored that Neil K. Shenai haunts Dupont's Le Pain Quotidien ("PQ" to its "friends"), at 2001 P St. NW, and Bistrot du Coin ("BDC" to Shenai), at 1738 Connecticut Ave. NW, simply to show off how well he pronounces their names. Guest-blogging at Pipón here, he makes the case that the food is the bigger factor.

Bistrot du Coin's signature dish, the "steak maison" ($16.50), is the perfect entree for a D.C. diner looking for a reasonably priced and succulent steak. BDC's butterfly-cut filets (above) are accompanied by a creamy béarnaise sauce. The béarnaise's interaction with the crusted peppercorn and rosemary make the steak maison juicy, flavorful and complex in taste and texture. The steak is served with French fries or a side of mesclun salad for the health conscious.

Photo by Neil K. Shenai.

Stumping the Irish

2010-02-03T18:26:00.000-08:00

"There's a potato dish I haven't heard of?" So asked my Irish diplomat friend, Iseult, when she heard Keryn was whipping up twice-baked potatoes. For my part, I had at least heard of them, I had just never tasted them before last night. (Refried beans, on the other hand, are an old friend. As they say, "My compliments to the chef. Again.) Keryn baked, twice, two varieties, one with roasted broccoli, the other roasted red pepper.

Tonight's dinner: Keryn's salad nicoise, with green beans and kalamata olives.

In other Pipóneratable news, here's three juicy culinary tidbits from a wedding invitation that just came in the mail from my friend, Harvard Magazine writer Elizabeth Gudrais, who is getting married in Minnesota and the Azores in June:

The "campfire" steak gets a cognac demiglace (a rich brown sauce that begins with a basic espagnole sauce and is combined with beef stock and madeira or sherry and slowly cooked until reduced to a thick glaze)
The almond-encrusted walleye gets a cream veloute (one of the five "mother sauces," velouté is a stock-based white sauce)
The post-wedding "picnic lunch" in the Azores involves burying food in the soil of a volcanic geyser, canoeing and then, when you return a few hours later, "it's cooked!"

Curried Ballston

2010-01-31T20:22:00.000-08:00

Here's what I think my friend Anoop cooked up tonight in his Ballston high-rise: curried broccoli and potatoes with black mustard seeds and spiced basmati rice. We scooped it up by hand, the greatest of utensils.

Absolute zero

2010-01-31T06:50:00.000-08:00

In some ways, I was relieved to hear that El Bulli is closing, at least temporarily. It meant that I no longer had to stay up all night hatching plans to score a table at this Barcelona "culinary laboratory," not to mention figure out a way to pay for the trip and the €250 price of a meal. I only know one person who has managed to sample chef Ferran Adrià's "molecular gastronomy"; she keeps a photo album of the meal that she passes around at dinner parties. (El Bulli is open just six months a year, and it gets 1 million reservation requests for about 7,000 slots.)

But I do hope it reopens in two years, as promised. Though I'd be frightened to taste some of its creations, I'm endlessly fascinated to read about the "ravioli made from squid and freeze-dried foie gras," "Parmesan ice cream sandwiches" and "blood orange foam with tomato sorbet" tapas.

Don't Panic

2010-01-25T19:08:00.000-08:00

Chipotle may just be the most lovable of big, corporate restaurant chains. First, there's its above-average burritos and salsas, including roasted chili-corn. Then there's the super interactive Web site. Next comes its unexpectedly substantial attempts at sustainability, including buying meat from farms that favor "old-fashioned animal husbandry" over mega-industrial efficiency. That means, for example, that Chipotle's pork comes from pasture-raised, antibiotics-free pigs fattened up on purely vegetarian feed. In fact, Chipotle even helps promote Food Inc., a disturbing documentary about U.S. agribusinesses that does not exactly leave you with a big appetite. My new favorite Chipotle quirk: the sign on its closed Chinatown shop reads, "Don't Panic. We are closed for remodel construction. Order will restored to the universe in a few weeks." Apparently, "Don't Panic" (all caps but without an exclamation point) is a corporate slogan. During a big snow storm, one Chipotle shop that locked up early put up a "Don't Panic" banner that urged disappointed customers to "wander around the block or just loiter here on the sidewalk."

Couscous, carrots

2010-01-20T20:44:00.000-08:00

In a tagine, couscous with chickpeas and sauteed sliced carrots, onions and garlic, adapted from Pam Anderson's Perfect Recipes for Having People Over. I added ground cumin; next time, I'm going to sneak in some chopped pistachios.

Madiba

2010-01-20T07:07:00.000-08:00

In November, a South African friend invited me over for what I imagined would be a traditional South African meal. (After all, she has a limited edition Nelson Mandela oil painting on her wall and a closet full of Springboks rugby jerseys.) I ended up happily feasting on scrumptious Greek salad and Greek orzo stew and ungraciously grumbling that I had missed out on authentic South Africa eats.

I made up for that on Tuesday in Brooklyn, stopping by Mandiba (195 Dekalb Avenue, Fort Greene) with my brother and mother for a South African lunch. An unexpected highlight of the Indian-accented menu: the vegetable curry, breyani style, is served alongside mango chutney, banana coconut and milk, cucumber mint and yogurt, and a salsa of onions, tomato and parsley soaked in white wine vinegar. (And I thought the funky mayos at Good Stuff Eatery stood out.) We also sampled the "Bushman Vegetable Platter," with grilled, fresh greens from the Fort Greene Farmer's Market including roasted corn on the cob, and the chakalaka, a "spicy mix of baked beans, carrots, tomato and onion."

My other food adventures in NYC: dinner at Sushi Sen-Nin (30 East 33rd Street) in Murray Hill on "Manhattan Island," as these sea-loving Japanese restaurateurs put it, where I bored my friend Craig with trivia gleaned from The Sushi Economy; and drinks at The Breslin (29th Street and Broadway), at the Ace Hotel, where I could only afford to order the spiced almonds ($4) after my $11 (plus tip) Maker's Mark, but still managed to mooch a bite of other interesting apps including the "Scotch egg" ($6), an interesting meaty and eggy hushpuppy, and the "Beef & Stilton Pie."

I also picked up this kooky recipe from "The Silk Road - Ancient Pathway to the Modern World" exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History: melt butter in a hot frying pan, add 2 cups of mashed pitted dates, crushed graham crackers, cardamom, ground fennel seeds and ground coriander, cook for about 10 minutes then spread on a baking tray, press (your favorite) nuts onto the surface, let cool and then cut into squares and serve as a 1,000 AD snack.

(Pretty) Good Stuff

2010-01-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

For a small, practically fast-food (no waiters, bus-your-own-table) burger joint, there's a generous helping of self-importance at the Good Stuff Eatery (303 Pennsylvania Ave. SE). Spike Mendelsohn, the chef, Culinary Institute of America grad and former contestant on Top Chef Chicago who opened the two-floor operation in 2008 insists that Good Stuff is no mere restaurant; no, the popular Capitol Hill spot is more of "a rallying cry," "a whoop," "a holler," "a hail." I admire the enthusiasm. I truly do. And I have no trouble with the small menu, or the prices, about $7 for a specialty burger, $4 for the specialty fries seasoned generously with fresh thyme, rosemary and pepper. (At $5.25, the homemade, "bring on the brain-freeze" milkshakes are a bit steep.) Moreover, who wouldn't be intrigued by the mayo bar, offering mango, chipotle, Old Bay and Sriracha varieties?

Still, for all the ego on display, I was not floored on Saturday night by the creativity of the burger creations, which lean heavily on bacon and cheddar cheese. My "Uncle D's Chili 'N Cheddar" burger, for example, was tasty for sure, but it was a few ounces short of satisfying and the cheddar sauce, sour cream and forgettable bun dulled any of the advertised spiciness of the chili. Over all, it all felt a bit constrained, a transparent attempt to make the business easy to replicate.

It did, however, easily out-compete the dull, dry "Campfire Buffalo Burger" I sampled yesterday at The National Museum of the American Indian (Fourth Street and Independence Ave. SW), seriously worse for wear in the late afternoon at the Native Foods Cafe but still priced around $10. (Next time, I'll go for the grilled venison, South American fish stew or perhaps the Indian Taco, with buffalo chili on fry bread with pickled chilies.)

Belgium to the left of me, Belgium to the right

2010-01-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

In Adams Morgan, there's L'Enfant Café & Bar (2000 18th St NW) and its expensive Belgian beers on one side of 18th and there's Locolat Café (1781 Florida Avenue NW) and its expensive Belgian chocolates on the other side. Here it's clear, I suppose, why a chicken would cross the road. It's also clear that now and again, you'll want a break from Belgium. If that day comes, there's no need to leave the intersection (or settle for a giant slice of pizza). Instead, try El Tamarindo (1785 Florida Ave. NW), a Salvadoran/Mexican joint with funky, original art (for sale), a long list of margaritas, refreshingly fresh salsa and tortilla chips and tasty, though generally uninspired, specialties such as "Carne a la Parrilla" ($12), grilled tenderloin topped with ranchera sauce and served with rice and refried beans. Compared to other Latin food joints I've sampled around Washington, I'd say it's far superior to La Frontera Cantina (1633 17th St. NW) in Dupont, but less authentic than Taqueria Distrito Federal (3463 14th St. NW) in Columbia Heights and El Paraiso (1916 14th St. NW) by U Street.

I was less impressed by a recent dinner at Medaterra (2614 Connecticut Ave. NW) in Woodley Park, where I met up with a few cousins the other day for a Happy Hour appetizer feast. We sampled sausage and eggplant, hummus and falafel. Not very memorable.