Pho: One of the great dishes that D.C. has to offer

Y&H is really getting to like Terrence Henry, who serves up regular commentary for the Atlantic Food Channel. I think I'd say that even if Henry didn't call me a "great food writer," which is a stretch but which I nonetheless enjoyed seeing in "print" as if it were an objective, verifiable fact. (I've already forced Wemple to read the piece, but he said nothing, refusing to take the bait.)

So what I like about Henry is this: He's passionate. He's honest. He's knowledgeable. He's a homer without embarrassment. He's the kind of eater every city needs.

After my quasi-take down of Henry's declaration that D.C. is a great food city, he came back strong with a longer essay better stating his case. I hate to disappoint anyone, but I don't feel like ramping up this argument with another rebuttal.

First of all, it's a fool's errand because the answer is subjective. Second of all, I have no interest in bashing the D.C. dining scene by constantly comparing it to those in other cities — and finding it lacking.

The fact is, I'm pretty happy with the offerings in my current home. Can the District do better? Yep, of course. There are still vast stretches of this city where I can't find a great place to eat. You don't even have to point a finger at Ward 8, which doesn't yet have a white-tablecloth restaurant to call its own. Chevy Chase and Adams Morgan are content to slide by with mostly mediocre offerings as well.

Frankly, it's part of my job to help nurture a restaurant scene here by rewarding its best players—and chiding those who want to skate by on grim plates of second-rate food.

The bigger question in this discussion, I think, is this: Can anyone who lives in the District be objective enough to determine if it's a great food city or not? Frankly, I think that's a job better suited for qualified outsiders after spending a couple/three weeks here sampling our restaurants and take-outs and street carts.

Those of us who have lived and worked and eaten here for years are somewhat myopic when it comes to the "big picture," and that includes the major food critics who have something of a vested interest in calling their coverage area a "great food city." I think it's easier for critics to judge restaurants one at a time than it is for us to make sweeping statements about our cities as whole; our judgments on the latter are bound to lean toward overstatement since overstatement will make us and our readers and sources feel more important.

No, I will continue to focus more on my day-to-day job, content that I live in a city that satisfies almost all of my cravings. I think I will leave the grand designations to others, like New Yorkers who revel in such pronouncements.

Until, that is, somebody asks me what I think about D.C.'s food scene.

As you can imagine, the news of Spike Mendelsohn's eviction took center stage this week on the Y&H blog. No other item drew even a quarter of the readers. But now, there's good news on the Spike front: The chef and his erstwhile roomie have started to pay back their landlord, with the promise of a full accounting soon. While we wait for that, check out the most-read posts of the week:

1. Spike Mendelsohn Evicted from His Capitol Hill Rental House
2. H Street Country Club Swings Open Tomorrow
3. D.C.'s Unofficial Beer Week (Thank You, Savor)
4. Atlantic Food Declares D.C. a Great Food City
5. Spike's New Pizzeria Is Coming to Cap Hill. But First: Souvlaki!
   

Someone named Terrence Henry, a journalist who took an early "retirement" to eat his way through Buenos Aires, has just named the District as one of the great food cities in an essay published today on the Atlantic Food Channel. Henry does qualify his list by saying it's "personal," which probably explains why New York City and Paris aren't on it.

Henry has developed some criteria on what constitutes a great food city, and this is it:

For me, a great food city is a place that caters to all manner of the food-obsessed: vibrant street food, affordable ethnic and traditional dining, and highly-acclaimed (and more importantly, highly-respected by their peers) destination restaurants. It should have a connection to its seasons and soil (or sea, as the case may be). It should be a place that can alternately surprise and comfort, at any budget level.

Henry goes on to declare his personal list of great food cities, which, aside from D.C., include San Francisco and the Bay Area, Madrid, and Barcelona. I should note that he does have a caveat on his D.C. choice: It requires "a fair amount of effort" to seek out its pleasures.

So who is Terrence Henry and why should we care what he thinks?

I don't really know. According to the bio on his blog, Henry's a D.C. native, which may explain his favoritism. He's also been a regular contributor to a local food board, and his own blog is loaded with smart commentary on food and drink, with a heavy emphasis on Argentine fare, naturally. He clearly seems like a dedicated food man to me; he has as much right to publish his opinions as anyone.

He also has the honor of getting criticized.

Using Henry's own formula, D.C. doesn't measure up, at least not in the street food category. Yes, there have been some vibrant new additions to the scene, but the best street food still resides in the 'burbs, particularly in Ballston and Montgomery County, and even those require some serious determination to seek out. But I also think a great food city has one other feature that Henry didn't mention: Tourists come to town just to eat.

I have no data to back up my opinion, but I don't think D.C. has approached that watermark yet. We unquestionably have first-class restaurants and first-class chefs; people actively seek them out once they arrive here. But I suspect that the vast, vast majority of tourists come to D.C. for reasons other than food.

I, however, would fly to San Fran, Chicago, New York, Seattle, and a number of other American cities just to eat.

Maybe I'm wrong here. Chime in, folks.

Photo by the National Guard

Trevor Corson, the self-proclaimed sushi concierge who gave me a lesson in nikiri sauce last summer, is all over The Atlantic these days, arguing that American chefs, not Japanese, will be the ones to provide us with an authentic sushi experience like you can find back in Japan.

Corson's examples may be few — too few, perhaps, to argue a trend — but he tells a persuasive story about Nick Macioge, the chef at Fin Sushi in Lenox in western Massachusetts, and how he's bucking a trend:

Instead of teaching us about the full range of sushi fish and shellfish, as well as the varied tastes and textures of the cuisine, most sushi chefs in the U.S. have neglected the Japanese style of eating and force-fed us simplistic menus that feature the least environmentally friendly-and least healthful-items: at the high end, bluefin tuna; at the low end, fatty belly cuts from lesser tuna; along with fatty industrial salmon, and factory-farmed shrimp and eel saturated in sugar. Until the latter half of the 20th century, none of these was considered suitable fare by connoisseurs of traditional sushi; none adheres to the Japanese practice of highlighting local, seasonal ingredients.

So imagine my delight when I walked into a sushi bar one evening and found not only a welcoming neighborhood atmosphere, but a chef who explained that he doesn't serve bluefin tuna, because he doesn't want it to go extinct. And imagine my surprise that this restaurant was in western Massachusetts, and that the chef was a rambunctious American whose ancestors had come not from Asia but from Europe.

I know I had a similar mind-bending experience a couple of years ago at Sushi-Ko in Glover Park, where I ordered the omakase and put myself in the hands of....well, not head chef Koji Terano, but one of his underlings. My omakase guide treated me to one of the best experiences I've ever had at a sushi bar. He was friendly. He was funny. He prepared me, once I gave him carte blanche, a number of fantastic plates that ventured far beyond the standard nigiri pieces.

He served me meltingly tender fried eel in balsamic reduction topped with seaweed, cucumber, and radish; flounder carpaccio dressed with truffled vinaigrette and sprinkled with micro greens and tiny curls of fried carrots; and, best of all, a Japanese take on seviche with salmon, red onions, and mizuna tarted up with a yuzu-based dressing.

My sushi chef that night was from Latin America, Venezuela if I remember correctly.

• Prince of Petworth sort of, kind of reports that Radius at the Ohio is on hold, which adds another chapter to the troubled history of the H Street NE location.
• Fritz Hahn over at Going Out Gurus says that Adam Bernbach, the mixologist behind our 2008 Best Cocktail Menu at Bar Pilar, will be leaving the 14th Street NW operation. But not before a final blow out on May 19.
• Frozen Tropics breaks the news that Derek Brown — this year's Best Bartender and The Atlantic food channel's resident distilled muse — has created a line of cocktails for Sova Espresso & Wine Bar. [Also of note in the item, Dan Searing is looking to open his own wine bar, Room 11, in Columbia Heights.]
• Speaking of the Atlantic,  the online food channel has mixed feelings about CityZen. Corby adores it. The chemistry dude: Not so much.
• Capital Spice caught Food Day fever and blogged their own "average" eating experiences. (They also stole my Facebook profile!)
• DCist was the first to announce that organic grocer Ellwood Thompson's is putting its D.C. project on hold. The company still has a lease with DCUSA but can't afford to build the store in Columbia Heights.