So the City Paper may be part of a bankrupt chain and we may be guilty of a bankrupt form of alternative journalism, but we can still sell burgers, dammit!

The “Free Burger Day” coupon in this week’s issue has generated a long line of freeloaders today looking to cash in at Z-Burger, the Tenleytown joint that hopes to, one day, rival the Five Guys chain for sheer volume of restaurants. David Walker, City Paper’s advertising sales director, tried to stop by and order himself a free ground-beef sammie. The line was so long, he went to McDonald’s instead. (As far as pure beef flavor goes, I’d argue there’s not much drop off there.)

It’s not too late to take advantage of the offer. It goes til 10 p.m., when Z-Burger closes. But after you bums finish off your burger, you should thank Walker and account executive Andy Minarik, who are responsible for this freebie. When Z-Burger’s owner was fishing around for ideas on how to advertise his budding chain, the pair suggested Free Burger Day. He agreed. He may be regretting it now. I don’t know. I tried calling over there, but the dude on the line essentially hung up on me.

I’ve heard people don’t trust publicists. Weird thing, I know. But people don’t even seem to trust the people, either, given that they still invest a ton of time reading, absorbing, and responding to professional food critics (for which I’m eternally grateful, believe me) instead of trusting the opinions of all those bloggers out there or, God forbid, the Zagat guide.

Well, I’m a populist who happens to have an elitist job. I believe everyone has a handful of favorite restaurants that they visit with the kind of obsessive frequency that Eliot Spitzer visited the Mayflower Hotel. I want to know about them. I want a list of the three restaurants in the D.C. area for which you would risk your reputation. I want to know the three restaurants that you’d shill for without losing sleep at night. I want to know the three restaurants that, even if the owners were foul-mouthed assholes who don’t pay their vendors on time, you’d still carry their water. But I also want to know the reasons—in loving detail—why you’d serve as their pitchman (or woman).

Now, DO NOT GIVE ME YOUR LIST IN THE COMMENTS SECTION. Please don’t make me shout that again. Instead, e-mail them to me at tcarman@washingtoncitypaper.com. I will publish your Top 3 lists as they come in. Send me a picture, if you’d like. With any luck, we’ll compile a heady list of hidden gems or get a consensus on the best restaurants in the region.

Send me your picks now!

After all the kooky fad diets that have had Americans first swearing off meat, then consuming nothing but, it’s interesting to read that city governments are coming back around to good, old-fashioned calorie counting. At least if you’re a major restaurant chain.

Here are the nut grafs from the New York Times‘ piece this morning in the Dining & Wine section:

New Yorkers got a harsh dose of calorie reality this summer when restaurants with 15 or more outlets were forced to post the calorie content of food next to the price. The resulting sticker shock has brought parts of a great city to its knees, often to do push-ups.

The campaign has inspired lawmakers around the country to follow New York’s lead.

The story goes on to detail a number of chains that have had to scramble to either make their recipes healthier or to decrease portion sizes. I’m sorry, but I’m siding with the cities and consumers on this one, not the hospitality biz, which has preyed for years on Americans’ (willing) ignorance of calorie counts. A slap of cold, hard calorie facts is the solution to wake us from our dietary slumber. After all, the fine print to every fad diet always includes some language that confesses the program must be accompanied with regular exercise. It’s essentially an admission that you need to burn off some goddamn calories. This isn’t complicated.

D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson has introduced a bill (PDF) that would “require restaurants, which are part of a chain having 10 or more locations nationally, to provide nutritional information for standard menu items sold.” Loose Lips tells me the bill is going nowhere. I smell deep-pocket corporate money at work.

No, this isn’t a post about electoral college reform, or a diatribe about the inherent inequality of the winner-take-all system–although both complaints are sound.

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Okay, the millionaire multi-media toque doesn’t personally need help your help, but Courtney Balestier, associate editor at Everyday With Rachael Ray magazine, does. She called me to find out what D.C. bars (she’ll accept restaurant bars but really wants bar bars) still serve free snacks along with their beer, wine, and distilled spirits. I have to admit, I’m a little stumped. (How I pine for 19th century San Francisco —well, minus, you know, the violence, filth, and overfishing—where bars served oysters, gratis.)

I thought about the spicy cashews at Ray’s the Classics in Silver Spring, which seem to get spicier with every visit. But Balestier was looking for more than free nuts. Then based on a tip from Don Rockwell, I called Dean Gold, owner/chef at Dino, who says he serves free snacks at his tiny horseshoe bar in Cleveland Park from 5:30 to 7 p.m. daily, except Saturdays. The bites typically include house-made pickles, olives, lupini beans, and rustic Tuscan pate, which you can slather on crostini. Dino may not fit Balestier’s strict bar criteria, but I’ll tell you what: I know where I will be eating after work.

Now, your turn: Where the hell in this town, in this depressed economy, can you still get some free bar snacks? At least until all the unemployed journalists descend on the place.

Ever since Tom Sietsema docked Citronelle a star in this year’s Washington Post dining guide, I had been dying to know how Michel Richard responded to the demotion. I mean, Sietsema took no pity on the city’s most famous restaurant, a perennial four-star performer no more. The critic wrote:

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There are a number of these videos out there. But this may be the scariest. Wow.

Via Huffington Post.

I am obsessed with the election. There’s no getting around it. One editor has barred me from talking politics (i.e. “Palin”) in her cube. Instead, I’ve begun to cherish being able to “talk it out” with our Listings Expert/Angry Wonk Mike Riggs. At home, I’ve started watching reruns of Hardball, Countdown, and the beloved Rachel Maddow. The Washington Post columnist opened his column today with this:

“In a week and a half, it’ll be over. What will we do to fill the void in our lives?

Opinion surveys, voter registration totals and cable television ratings indicate that Americans have been engrossed by the marathon presidential campaign. That’s no surprise, given the first-in-history nature of the candidacies, the host of crucial problems we face and the sense that the outcome may determine the course — and the prospects — of our nation for many years to come.

But there’s a fine line between being engrossed and being obsessed, and many of us have crossed it.”

(via)

We are in the post-final debate lull, folks. The candidates appear to have scaled back their nasty language, and as a result, there’s not tons of news out there right now, other than an endorsement by a widely respected former Bush administration official.

So the Washington Post, for one, is looking ahead, to the challenges that face the next WH occupant. Read at your own risk.

The New York Times, meanwhile, answers the Clash’s call that you gotta give the people something good to read on a Sunday. The story is by Mark Leibovich and it’s all about the dudes in meathead garb and gear who show up to cheer on GOP veep nominee Sarah Palin. Here’s a little taste:

“Katie Couric and Tina Fey are going to do their thing, but it doesn’t bother me at all,� said Rob McLain, an insurance agent from Avon, Ind., who attended a packed Palin rally at an amphitheatre in Indiana on Friday night. Mr. McLain wore a “Proud to be voting for a hot chick� button and was joined by his wife, Shannan (“Read my lipstick� button on lapel), and his 6-week-old son, Jaxon (“Nobama� button on beanie).

“The criticism is part of the process,� Mr. McLain said, adding of Ms. Palin, “Who can’t trust a mother?�

*Stevens: Who asks for a bill when he’s getting a gift?

*Promotions: Now this is one badass hotel sales director.

I’ve had it with the hate speech and the McCain/Palin campaign’s cynical us vs. them, pro-American areas vs. anti-American areas rhetoric. I’m all for a campaign of ideas. But they have unleashed a scary–yes, scary–force.

What’s so wrong with Washington? More than half a million citizens live and work here. A lot of us work in the government Palin claims to despise. That means we take a job with lower pay–compared to say a job with Big Oil–because we like the idea of public service. We don’t take six months off to race snow machines. If Palin hates Washington so much why does she want to work here?

Death threats are now part of our 24-hour news cycle. Along side death threats are the endless viral videos from McCain/Palin rallies where America’s finest line up and spew hate into the nearest shaky handheld camera. The videos are chilling.

Via TPM:

And now tonight, Sarah Palin will laugh at herself on SNL. She will look like a good sport on a network whose reporters she refuses to engage. The press will still gush over her being a good sport. In the morning, she will go back to squawking about Bill Ayers, spreading lies (yes, lies), and spreading hate.

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The blogger now has stickers for your car:

*photo by Prince of Petworth.

Some poor kid in Kentucky wrote a story about zombies taking over a high school. Then his grandparents found the manuscript, realized the boy was probably planning to blow up his school and turned him in to police. Now he’s sitting in jail facing felony charges.

NYU economist goes off on Nick Denton. Nouriel Roubini may have predicted the recent economic crash, but his rant, though spirited, makes little sense. He calls Denton an anti-semite with a “Nazi mind and and a McCarthist Bigot.”

Hee hee. Joe the Plumbre.

Dog poo supports McCain.

Prince William County busy pumping up a mini bubble with a home-buying spree. Real estate’s still booming in Brrooklyn, too.

The Prince of Petworth finds a new business, a cooking school called CulinAerie. Spelling is no longer cool.

UDecide2008.com, a site dedicated to informing blog-illiterate swing voters, claims “ONE IN 14 AMERICANS IS STILL UNDECIDED.” There’s a kind of excitement to being “undecided.” It makes voters feel valuable; casting a ballot will be the ultimate expression of democratic decision-making, since this cohort of voters ostensibly won’t vote blindly down party lines. The media describes this group of unsettled citizens as election deciders. But how many voters are genuinely undecided, and how many are just coy assholes? Ezra Klein’s Op-ed in the Los Angeles Times argues that the idea of an undecided voter is largely a farce:

“It’s a bit odd that we give the Undecided Voter such a privileged place in American elections. Because from a civic standpoint, few creatures are as contemptible. … Many of those who claim to be undecided are not. Some don’t want to admit their preference.”

The media seems to think the opposite is true.

Science did a study a few months ago that examined the psychology of a undecided voter. They found that:

“People who think they are undecided about an issue often have made up their mind at an unconscious level … ” “It’s not that people are lying to the pollsters,” social psychologist Bertram Gawronskitells said. “It’s that they may not consciously recognize the automatic associations that influence their decisions.”

I think saying you’re “undecided” sounds somehow more sophisticated and thoughtful, but, most of the time, it’s not true. So stop pretending like you don’t know who you’re voting for, “undecided” voters. Because, whether you admit it or not, you know exactly who you’re voting for.

On Ask MetaFilter, a lament:

“Ben’s chili is the food of the gods. Sadly, I no longer live anywhere near Ben’s, and so I want to try to make it myself. Although I’ll probably be adding beans, to make it more meal-like (since I most likely won’t be pouring it on hot dogs and french fries). And I want to make it in a crockpot.

“I know the recipe is ‘top-secret,’ but I bet I’m not the first person to ever attempt it at home.”

Does anyone out there know the secret? If so, hop on over to AskMeFi and hope somebody out. I think the recipe actually calls for pouring it on hot dogs and french fries, though. Let’s be reasonable.