The D.C. Dish Hall of Fame leaderboard remains virtually unchanged after a week of voting, save for the flip-flop of the ninth and tenth place dishes. After a strong surge last week, Horace & Dickie’s  fried whiting moves up a notch into ninth place.

But I have to say, I think the list is still missing some great dishes. Plates like Frank Ruta’s roast chicken and Michel Richard’s lobster burger are nowhere to be seen, meaning they will not, at present, be part of the inaugural class of the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame. A shame that would be, to paraphase a certain elderly sage.

A comment we received this morning, I think, sums up the feelings of a number of voters, who seem to view this contest as an exercise in classism, not a genuine search for D.C.’s finest plates:

like most things in DC, the options show extreme class stratification. I’d love to know the percentage of DC residents who’ve enjoyed the CityZen Parker House Rolls or Komi’s spit roasted goat.

I understand that more people can afford to eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl over CityZen. But I don’t think you should hold that against a great side like Eric Ziebold’s Parker House rolls. It deserves a place among the city’s best as much as the chili half-smoke. Well, almost as much.

So, c’mon, let’s try to put our prole resentments aside and vote for the best, regardless of price.  You can vote here.

The leaderboard:

1. Half-smoke with chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl, 298 votes
2. Hamburger at Five Guys, 142
3. Peruvian chicken at El Pollo Rico, 115
4. Falafel at Amsterdam Falafelshop, 107
5. Margherita pizza at 2Amys, 100
6. Burger from Ray’s Hell Burger, 89
7. Salty oat cookie at Teaism, 85
8. Palak chaat at Rasika, 80
9. Fried whiting at Horace & Dickie’s, 76
10. Pho at Pho 75, 75

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The Sou’Wester pork jowl BLT sounded too mouthwatering to pass up, even if we were way past tomato season, but at $7 per sandwich, I had to ask our waiter how large the lunch-time portion was. He indicated that the sammie was small, perhaps the size of my hand, and that depending on my appetite, I might need a side or two to supplement it. I appreciated his frankness.

Turns out that size wasn’t a problem. Flavor was. Texture was. Presentation was. If you had sat that sandwich on a table, without informing me of its place of origin, I would have thought it came from Potbelly or Cosi or maybe even a government cafeteria, not a Mandarin Oriental restaurant under the watchful eye of Eric Ziebold. (Well, I guess the fatty, gelatinous jowl meat immediately places the sandwich under the trendy nose-to-tail banner, and therefore renders it gourmet, but trust me, the meat alone couldn’t save this sucker.)

The bread was hard and crackly despite no apparent turn on the griddle or in a pan (was this oven baked?). The ingredients, including a sad single round of tomato on one half of the sandwich, were thrown together between the hardened bread slices with little concern for balance or appearance. The sandwich’s flavor was mostly provided by the double wallop of fatty pork and fatty mayonnaise. It had all the subtlety of Marion Barry.

I had hoped the side dish of pickled vegetables would help cut the fat parade, so I popped a pink floret of cauliflower into my mouth. I almost spit it out. Wanting to check my palate, I asked my tablemate to sample the pickled veggie. She took a bite of the cauliflower and immediately made a face. We agreed on one thing: Ziebold and chef de cuisine Rachael Harriman need to jettison the caraway seeds in the pickling liquid. The anise overtones just don’t work.

Our entire lunch wasn’t a bust, however. My friend’s fried chicken ($13) boasted a crispy, well-seasoned coating, which was moist and flavorful despite its long dunk in the fryer oil. My friend kept poking her finger into the leg meat to show me the puddle of grease on it. It didn’t bother me as much as it did her.

The best part of the meal, by far, was the appetizer of crab fritters ($12), which was actually closer in spirit to Frank Ruta’s famous fry plate at Palena Cafe. The dish was loaded with delicate, browned nuggets of moist crab meat as well as toothsome rounds of lightly fried onion bulbs and sunny circles of lemon slices, all ready for dipping in the accompanying green goddess dressing.

Unfortunately, by the time I pretended to eat my pork jowl BLT, and its sad side of pickled veggies, the memory of that appetizer had faded far away. All I was left with was one unavoidable thought: This was not the kind of food I was hoping for after attending the Sou’Wester opening in September.

Voting is just a couple of weeks old for the inaugural class of the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame, but already a pattern has emerged: Fast foods are dominating the competition.

That’s hardly surprising, of course. On a daily basis, you know that people order about 500 more half smokes at Ben’s Chili Bowl than, say, order Frank Ruta’s roast chicken at Palena Cafe. But just because the odds are stacked against your favorite dish, that’s no excuse to sit back and let the fast foods run away with this.

Start pressing your friends to vote for your favorite dish. The voting doesn’t end until Dec. 11, when we will induct the top 5 into Washington City Paper’s inaugural D.C. Dish Hall of Fame.

Take a look at the current leaders:

1. Half-smoke with chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl, 191 votes
2. Hamburger at Five Guys, 92
3. Peruvian chicken at El Pollo Rico, 80
4. Falafel at Amsterdam Falafelshop, 64
5. Margherita pizza at 2Amys, 59
6. Burger from Ray’s Hell Burger, 59
7. Salty oat cookie at Teaism, 57
8. Pho at Pho 75, 55
9. Palak chaat at Rasika, 49
10. Smoked branzino carpaccio at Teatro Goldoni, 37

Don’t like the looks of the current leaderboard? Get voting!

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The Margherita at 2Amys: Does it make the cut?

Earlier this week, I was noshing on the roast chicken at Palena Cafe, reveling once again in Frank Ruta’s ability to add and coax flavors from this generous, succulent portion of breast, wing, and leg meat. That’s when the thought struck me: This is, hands-down, one of the area’s greatest dishes. It deserves a spot in some sort of local culinary hall of fame.

The roast chicken is an obvious one, but what other dishes would make the cut? I’ve been pondering this and have drafted a number of nominees. The list is, by no means, complete. It needs your suggestions.

Once we get a solid roster of nominees, we’ll put them to a public vote here on the Y&H blog. The top 10 vote getters will go into the City Paper’s inaugural D.C. Dish Hall of Fame. Winners will receive everlasting glory.

The working list of nominees:

• Lobster burger at Central
• Half smoke with chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl
• Fried whiting at Horace & Dickie’s
• Foie-gras lollipops at minibar
• Parker House rolls at CityZen
• Irish BLT at Restaurant Eve
• Shrimp and grits at Vidalia
• Lobster roll at Kinkead’s
• Green papaya salad at Four Sisters
• Margherita pizza at 2Amys
• Floating market noodle soup at Nava Thai
• Butter chicken at Heritage India
• Roasted bone marrow at Blue Duck Tavern
• Palak chaat at Rasika
• Roast chicken at El Pollo Rico
• Mac ‘n’ cheese at Oohhs & Aahhs
• Spare ribs at Mr. P’s
• Pho at Pho 75
• Paella at Jaleo
• Hamburger at Five Guys
• Lingonberry linzertorte at Hook
• Salty oat cookie at Teaism
• Lobster “begula” pasta at Citronelle
• Spit roasted goat at Komi

The way chef/owner Frank Ruta explains it, Palena must clear three separate hurdles before the highly regarded restaurant can expand into the adjacent Magruder’s, which closed down in May.

The first hurdle — an agreement to take over the former grocery — has already been cleared, Ruta says. But the final deal is contingent upon whether Ruta can overcome the other two obstacles: approval to expand his liquor license and some sort of thumbs-up from the District’s zoning commission to add more restaurant frontage space to a Cleveland Park neighborhood already over its limit.

The Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration has scheduled a public hearing for Nov. 30 on whether or not to expand Palena’s existing Class C restaurant license. Ruta was putting the notification placards in the window this afternoon. The Beard Award-winning chef doesn’t anticipate many problems in securing approval. After all, he jokes, Palena’s “not a gin joint, so we don’t have those type of things going on.”

The zoning commission, however, will present the biggest hurdle. At present, Ruta believes, Cleveland Park already exceeds its allotted restaurant/bar frontage space, which is limited to 25 percent of the neighborhood’s entire commercial store frontage. The closures of McDonald’s, Cold Stone, Starbucks, and Yenching Palace haven’t yet freed up more frontage space because nothing new (and non-food/bar) has replaced those shuttered businesses. Under current rules, those spaces continue to count against the frontage quota until a new (and non-food/bar) certificate of occupancy is granted.

The city told the Washington Post last month that it may alter its rules slightly and free up the frontage space as soon as new building permits are issued. But Ruta is also hoping there’s some truth in what the District’s former chief of zoning services told the Post last month:  “If, over time, the public and the zoning commission conclude that a less restrictive rule of 30 or 35 percent is more appropriate for a particular area, that standard can be adopted by simple amendment.”

If everything falls into place for Ruta, Palena will look nothing like its current incarnation. It will add 60 seats to the dining room as well as a summer garden with seating for another 36 diners. Ruta would also add more kitchen space.

“We’re optimistic,” Ruta tells Y&H about the possibilities for expansion. “But we’re always optimistic.”

Y&H is thrilled to report that Select 55 has been dethroned — by another beer, Guinness, which celebrated a birthday yesterday.

Let’s raise a glass to Select 55’s long run and to the new king of the Y&H blog.

This week’s most-read posts:

1. Raise a Toast to Guinness’ 250th Anniversary
2. Budweiser Launches Select 55, Light Beer Arms Race Gets Absurd
3. Joe Englert Offers a REAL Tribute to the Dean of D.C. Liquor Lawyers
4. Two Things Y&H Didn’t Expect to See at Sou’Wester’s Opening Party: Frank Ruta and Dancing
5. Stand in Judgment of Georgetown Chefs!
   

Ruta emerged from Palena’s kitchen, pictured with Maddy Beckwith

So how unique was last night’s opening reception for Sou’Wester? So unique that Frank Ruta showed up. In all the years Y&H has been covering the dining scene in D.C., I’ve never seen the semi-reclusive Palena chef and owner at an industry event. I barely recognized him out of his whites.

“This is only the second time I’ve been to one of these,” Ruta told Y&H.

“Only the second ever?” I asked Ruta, knowing his years on the scene.

“No, this is the second time this year,” he responded.

Ruta’s presence wasn’t the only unusual thing about this dual-themed party, which celebrated both the fifth anniversary of CityZen and the launch of Sou’Wester, the latest project from Eric Ziebold, chef of the City Paper’s reigning Best Restaurant. There was a tattooed DJ spinning rap and funk tunes in the CityZen dining room, one of the most formal spaces in town, where food stations had been set up to pass out samples of Sou’Wester’s menu. That’s right, people were dancing in the CityZen dining room (including Y&H, but it’s best not to think about that). The cognitive dissonance was palpable.

Avert your eyes, restaurant industry folks are getting down

Not that Y&H enjoys playing the role of Reliable Source, but the list of restaurant players was pretty impressive. Aside from Ruta, other attendees included Vidalia chef R.J. Cooper, Cork chef Ron Tanaka, Rasika chef Vikram Sunderam, Clyde’s Group chef John Guattery, baker and G Street Food’s  Mark Furstenberg, Inox sommelier John Wabeck, The Source’s GM Adam Crocini, Bourbon Steak GM Mark Politzer, FreshFarm Market’s Maddy Beckwith, Bistro Bis and Vidalia owner Jeffrey Buben, Bourbon Steak chef David Varley,  and Cork owners Diane Gross and Khalid Pitts.

The media/blogger types were out in force, too. Aside from Y&H, other attendees included Nycci Nellis, David Hagedorn, Jennifer Barger, Monica Bhide, Erin Hartigan, Michael Birchenall, Melissa McCart, Don Rockwell, and Carol Blymire.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know I’m still having trouble adjusting to the new name for the Southern-inspired restaurant in the former Cafe MoZu space. If you’ll recall, the operation was originally dubbed South by Southwest, which Y&H ridiculed and which Ziebold defended. Because of a legal threat by certain festival organizers in Austin, the Mandarin Oriental switched to the current Sou’Wester, which rolls off the tongue like…rock candy stuck in the back of your throat.

I have much higher hopes for the restaurant itself, which is under the direction of CityZen sous chef Rachael Harriman, who will serve as chef de cuisine at Sou’Wester. Her menu will include blackened bluefish, chicken and dumplings, rabbit sausage with cheese grits, and a unique take on pork and beans.

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s

The influx of celebrity chefs to D.C. can excite local diners, but it can deflate local chefs, who see these carpetbaggers stealing their customers, their line cooks, maybe even their thunder. Back in 2007, before Eric Ripert or Michael Mina or even Alain Ducasse opened doors here, chef R.J. Cooper at Vidalia was one of the reigning badasses in the kitchen, fresh off his Mid-Atlantic Beard Award, which he split with Frank Ruta at Palena. But if Cooper and/or Vidalia have suffered since these culinary hawks have swooped into town, you wouldn’t know it from eating at this downtown institution. Cooper, in fact, seems to be cooking with a renewed passion since the competition increased. My most recent meal at Vidalia included a number of dishes that blew me away, notably a pigtail croquette with strawberry-rhubarb mostarda and an artistic plate of mix-and-match bites, from raw cubes of hamachi to squares of lime gelee to tiny diced pieces of watermelon to little slivers of jalapeño. Cooper even plated something I had never seen before—a deep-fried blowfish from the lower Chesapeake, commonly known as the “sugar toad.” It tasted a thousand times better than the name would suggest.

 Vidalia, 1990 M St. NW, (202) 659-1990

Ruta: A main reason Murshed likes Cleveland Park

Komi manager and server Basheer Murshed, a long-time D.C. resident, bravely offered his top five foodie neighborhoods to the Urban Turf real estate Web site. There are no real surprises on Murshed’s list, but perhaps a few omissions that say something about the fine-dining leanings of our city.

Murshed likes the offerings found in Bethesda, Arlington, Cleveland Park/Cathedral Heights, U Street, and, of course, Penn Quarter. You can’t argue too much with any of those ‘hoods, all of which have eateries worth backing and promoting. But what about the neighborhoods or areas that don’t cater to fine dining but still have some of the best eats around?

Where’s the love for Wheaton or Seven Corners or even Rockville with its stretch of amazing Chinese restaurants?

What say you? What are your top five neighborhoods for eating?

Writes Boikess:

In 1980, MacDonald opened Vincenzo, an Italian off Dupont Circle, and “single-handedly reinvented what an Italian restaurant was in DC,” says Peter Pastan, who was inspired to open nearby Obelisk some years later. “It was a revelation, perfect seafood, simple, authentic Italian preparations,” explains Mark Furstenberg (creator of Bread Line and Marvelous Market).

“He had a true passion for making recipes authentically, and true to their origins, and he was equally passionate about finding great ingredients,” explains former White House chef Frank Ruta, who worked for MacDonald before opening Palena. He remembers that Vince would drive to NYC for the high-quality fish he would cook and serve whole, and for other ingredients, including brick oven–baked bread.

Pastan, no doubt, was exaggerating for effect, but let me set the record straight. As good as MacDonald was—and I had one dinner at Etrusco, many years ago, that still resonates as one of the best Italian meals I’ve ever had in D.C.—he still wasn’t the first person to introduce D.C. to authentic Italian cooking. As I noted in a previous column (quoting from an authoritative story published by the Washingtonian’s Robert Shoffner), that honor goes to Joseph Muran de Assereto, who opened Cantina d’Italia in the late 1960s.

That’s not to take away from MacDonald, but let’s not lose our sense of history in honoring this restaurateur.