A website devoted to eating in DC
Someone asked me this weekend whether any recent restaurant meals have been disappointing. I mostly demurred because I’m still in pandemic mode when we all agreed not to say anything critical about restaurants just trying to survive. But things feel different now. Restaurants are bustling. Reservations at hotspots like Albi and Daru are impossible to come by. And people (like ...READ MORE »
Pizza discussions are not a safe space. They’re fraught with strong feelings and trip wires. No one cares if you put pineapple on your hamburger. Go nuts, you weirdo. But pineapple on pizza? That’s torn whole families asunder — and as everyone knows, asunder is the worst way a family can be torn. So I approach this topic with some trepidation. ...READ MORE »
Hanumanh, 1604 7th St NW (Shaw); Rating 9.3; $$ (moderate) There are singular works of art that cement the reputation of the artist who created them. DaVinci didn’t need to pick up a brush again after the Mona Lisa. Shakespeare could have hung it up after Hamlet. And Chef Seng Luangrath could have clapped her hands in the air like ...READ MORE »
Queen’s English, 3410 11th Street NW, Washington DC (Columbia Heights); Rick’s Rating 9.2; $$$ (Expensive) “The Queen’s English” — the grammatically correct and coherent expression of the English language — traditionally becomes “The King’s English” when the sovereign is a king. Let’s hope nothing like that happens at Queen’s English in Columbia Heights. For one, I prefer to minimize any ...READ MORE »
I was smitten with Venezuelan-born Chef Enrique Limardo’s cooking the first time I ate at his first DC outpost, Seven Reasons, back in 2019. His food was gutsy and flavorful, not precious and muted. He wove together Latin, Asian, and other global flavors into something uniquely his own. Plus he knew how to execute a dish, which isn’t faint praise ...READ MORE »
You may have seen that Tom Sietsema, the longtime Washington Post food critic, recently decided to permanently end the awarding of stars. His column explaining his decision made a powerful case, just not the one he was trying to make. He didn’t convince me that he did the right thing by dropping ratings from his reviews; he convinced me ...READ MORE »
I’m back. I didn’t know I was taking a blogging sabbatical but that’s how it worked out. Things just kept coming up — volunteering in Poland with World Central Kitchen, my son’s wedding, new episodes of Guy’s Grocery Games — that made it impossible for me to find time to write. Oh, and then I got Covid and lost my ...READ MORE »
It’s tempting to skip the typical end-of-year hoo-hah and just be grateful for the restaurants that managed to keep their doors open in 2021. But I decided to plow ahead with my own recap. We’re all craving a semblance of normalcy — and a hefty dose of distraction — as we slog into Covid’s terrible twos. More than ever, I ...READ MORE »
This is the week I got my groove back. Thamee and Taqueria Xochi reminded me how much I love searching for that perfect bite and the absolute thrill of sometimes finding it. Suddenly I was Anthony Bourdain again, intrepidly connecting with people and cultures through food, as opposed to what it’s felt like these past eighteen months: Andy Dufresne down ...READ MORE »
The New York Times is trying to kill me. I don’t know what I did, but obviously it was something that hurt them a lot. Because their new list of the 50 top US restaurants hit me like a Tyson Fury right hook. Despite a lifetime obsession with finding the best places to eat, it turns out I’ve been ...READ MORE »