Where's the beef?

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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®

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

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

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

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

Planting cilantro at Monticello

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

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

$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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.