Young & Hungry » Michael Landrum http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry D.C. Restaurants and Food Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:54:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 Michael Landrum Reopens Ray’s the Steaks at East River http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2012/01/30/michael-landrum-reopens-rays-the-steaks-at-east-river/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2012/01/30/michael-landrum-reopens-rays-the-steaks-at-east-river/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:15:51 +0000 Chris Shott http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=53340 Michael Landrum's pioneering Ward 7 restaurant Ray's the Steaks at East River (ranked No. 39 on City Paper's list of D.C.'s 44 Most Powerful Restaurants for demonstrating that a nice sit-down restaurant could survive in that under-served part of town) reopened over the weekend after a few months of retooling.

"Our goal is to provide an even more welcoming and versatile gathering place with more options for day-to-day dining," Landrum tells Y&H.

Back in November, the eccentric restaurateur insisted that, despite speculation to the contrary, his abruptly shuttered Dix Street NE location would be back in business in January. He also said the reinvigorated eatery "will be the culmination of what we've learned in opening Ray's to the Third," referring to his Arlington eatery focused on steak frites. And, sure enough, Landrum's new menu in Northeast D.C. offers up four varieties of steak frites, as well as a steak and cheese sandwich, which had been the focus of another one of Landrum's recent, if short lived, Arlington concepts.

To hear him tell it now, a lot of the recent tinkering at his Arlington locations was done with the D.C. eatery in mind:

"Much, if not all, of what we have tried out and developed in Arlington recently (much to the annoyance of our neighbors there and providing much fodder to question my mental faculties) has been specifically intended as a proving ground for the East River re-formating and to allow an intensive practicum for our team to grow and expand their skills, experience and horizons. The timing allowed a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to achieve these goals together."

As for the decor of the reformatted eatery, Landrum has made a few noticeable adjustments:

"There is a wood and glass divider between the dining room and the bar are so that the new TV at the bar won't intrude into the dining area. In the dining room, the carpet has been replaced with hardwood for a more inviting feel and look."

Ray's the Steaks at East River, 3905 Dix Street, NE, (202) 396-7297

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2012/01/30/michael-landrum-reopens-rays-the-steaks-at-east-river/feed/ 6 Ray’s the Steaks at East River ‘On Track’ For January Reopening http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/11/17/rays-the-steaks-at-east-river-on-track-for-january-reopening/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/11/17/rays-the-steaks-at-east-river-on-track-for-january-reopening/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:32:23 +0000 Chris Shott http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=50099 The sudden closure of Ray's the Steaks at East River last month prompted some speculation about the future of the pioneering Ward 7 steakhouse (ranked No. 39 on City Paper's list of D.C.'s 44 Most Powerful Restaurants for demonstrating that a nice sit-down restaurant could survive in that under-served part of town).

"Please bear with us as we close briefly to reformat," a sign posted on the door explained. But not everyone was convinced. "This kind of note," observed WaPo food scribe and Y&H alum Tim Carman, "is often just a knuckle sandwich delivered in a velvet glove — a way to soften the blow of closing a struggling restaurant." Carman reached out to proprietor Michael Landrum for clarification. Landrum declined comment.

Landrum now tells Y&H the sign is no ruse: "Despite the deliberately misleading insinuations of the Washington Post, my plan to reformat the menu at East River while doing periodic, necessary repairs is on track for reopening in early to mid January—exactly like the sign says."

During renovations, Landrum says some 20 staffers of the shuttered restaurant have been working at his other eateries in Arlington, which the owner describes as a "real world practicum" allowing his employees to "expand their horizons and confidence in service" in a more established community. "They are growing and thriving and improving their confidence in that environment," he says.

As for what to expect from the new and improved Dix Street NE location, Landrum, true to character, is short on details. "Ray's to the Third," he says, referring to his recently opened steak frites joint in Arlington, "is the result and culmination of lessons learned over a decade, and the reinvigorated Ray's at East River will be the culmination of what we've learned in opening Ray's to the Third."

So, does that mean that Ray's to the Third is a sort of preview of what to expect from the reformatted Ray's at East River?

"Somewhat," Landrum says, "and that's one of the reasons for the timing because I wanted the Dix Street crew to be a part of the opening of Ray's to the Third so that they could experience first-hand not just what it takes to run a great restaurant but what it takes to build a great restaurant. And that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have that timing come together."

But the term "preview," Landrum adds, isn't quite the right word: "Not necessarily a preview. But what we've learned together as a team in opening Ray's to the Third will be applied to how we can best serve the east-of-the-river community. "

Logo courtesy of Ray's the Steaks East River

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/11/17/rays-the-steaks-at-east-river-on-track-for-january-reopening/feed/ 3 Deviled in the Details http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/26/deviled-in-the-details/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/26/deviled-in-the-details/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:27:00 +0000 Chris Shott http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=48961 Deviled Eggs Take Over D.C. Restaurants

Deviled eggs, like the common hot dog and macaroni and cheese, are one of those classic comfort foods that have lately taken on a sort of contemporary chic—and, in some cases, sheen.

To wit: One recent evening at Boundary Stone in Bloomingdale, a plate of the $3 hors d’oeuvres arrived in the standard fashion—hard-boiled, bisected, and served cold. Except for one glaring element: The yolks were frickin’ pink! What horrible deformity had befallen that poor chicken embryo?

Thankfully, the blushing semi-orbs didn’t taste all that abnormal. They were just slightly sour and a tad tangy. It seemed no genetic mutation was at play here, nor was this some ill-conceived promotion to benefit the Think Pink campaign for breast cancer awareness. “I take some pickled beet juice and add that in with the yolk to make the deviled mixture,” chef Vincent Campaniello later explains.

When I made a return visit a few weeks later, the eggs had changed from bright pink to a sort of greenish gold. They smacked of heavy salt and spice, as well as a more subtle flavor that I couldn’t immediately identify but eventually found out to be dill.

This sort of guessing game has become commonplace at the increasingly hip neighborhood’s newest boîte.

A woman sitting next to me at the bar, who described herself as a “deviled egg snob,” claimed to have previously tried three different colors of eggs at Campaniello’s rustic-looking restaurant on Rhode Island Avenue NW: pink, orange, and purple. Her favorite? The orange—though she added that she had no clue what was in that one.

“My deviled eggs will change nightly depending on what I feel like playing around with and putting in them,” says Campaniello, whose Sunday trips to nearby farmers markets often dictate what sort of creamy egg filling his patrons will be eating for the next week. “I try and give the people something new.”

Despite the mystery, or maybe partly because of it, the bar snacks have become quite popular sellers, according to the chef. “I get a lot of questions sometimes,” he says. “But once [customers] try them, they fly out of here. I get in trouble stocking them. I’ll think I make enough orders and they’ll be gone with plenty of time left in service.”

Campaniello’s eggy experiments underscore a larger trend. At D.C.-area eateries, the summertime picnic staple has become as common an appetizer as fried calamari, yet as varied in preparation as pizza.

Deviled Eggs Take Over D.C. Restaurants

Perhaps the local standard-bearer of the genre is 2Amys in Cleveland Park, where deviled eggs have been listed on the menu since the restaurant first opened in 2001. Peter Pastan’s place is best known for its traditional Neapolitan-style pizza, but the eggs are outstanding. They win my vote for best in the entire city. The yolk filling tastes of curry, but not overpoweringly so. And, the accompanying oily green sauce—whipped up with chopped parsley, pickles, anchovy, capers, and mustard seed—piles on the salt.

Prior to the pizzeria’s opening, Pastan, also proprietor of Obelisk in Dupont Circle, had served the dish at local fundraisers. “Either people would get it, and they’d be like, ‘Oh, who doesn’t love deviled eggs?’ or, they’d be like, ‘What? Deviled eggs?’ like it was nothing special,” says 2Amys co-owner Amy Morgan.

Between the deviled delights and other egg-laden recipes, 2Amys generally goes through about five cases of eggs each week, she says. That’s 150 dozen.

In recent years, other venues have tried to elevate the old cold egg in weird ways, with varying degrees of success. At Ray’s to the Third in Arlington, the latest establishment in beef-centric restaurateur Michael Landrum’s empire, the traditional yolk mixture is tossed out entirely. Landrum instead fills his white ovals with steak tartare and smothers them in Hollandaise. The powdery yolks are scattered about the plate as a sort of garnish along with some pickles, capers, and diced onion. Call me old-fashioned, but the yolk is where the payoff is. Relegating it to the side is just plain wrong.

Retro-chic comfort food, like overpriced pet food, seems to cause marketers to break out the puns: At Ray’s, the classic deviled descriptor is altered to “devilishly good” on the menu. At Founding Farmers, the Foggy Bottom church of farm-to-table dining, eggs filled with lobster, crab, and salmon-infused mixtures are labeled “devil-ish.”

* * *

Deviled Eggs Take Over D.C. Restaurants

Economics may help explain the ascension of the old-school, albumin-rich dish to prominence on local menus. Eggs are cheap. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average retail price of a dozen grade-A eggs in September was less than $2. Slice each of ’em in half and your profit margin on the main ingredient instantly doubles.

Another financial factor: Prominent local chefs I’ve interviewed give me the distinct sense that they think the cure for our current national economic malaise involves healthy doses of mayonnaise, plus yolk.

“In these times, people are looking for what comforts them,” says Boundary Stone’s Campaniello. “I’ve done the five-star fine dining and everything. People aren’t really looking for the white linen service anymore. They want to come in and just enjoy the simple things that spark a little memory.”

And yet, even some of the city’s finer dining establishments are churning out deviled eggs. Consider Central, where fancy French chef Michel Richard serves what his compatriots calls œufs mimosa, a quartet of creamy egg halves topped with marinated anchovies called boquerones, for $7. They are quite good. The seafood topping is neither too fishy nor too salty.

At Richard’s even fussier Georgetown location Citronelle, a more traditional version of deviled eggs also appear on the menu of a special pre-theatre promotion honoring the Washington Ballet’s upcoming production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic jazz-age novel The Great Gatsby. (The story’s action, you’ll recall, takes place in fictional West Egg.) It seems that what was good for the dapper gents and flapper-clad gals of the roaring ’20s is also perfectly suited to the 21st-century high rollers still raking it in within the Beltway’s yet-unburst bubble.

On the flipside, you find the same style of finger food getting hands sticky inside some of the District’s dingier dives. At DC9, where former Frank Ruta acolyte Amber Bursik now helms the kitchen, deviled eggs help ease the sting of whiskey shots and ear-ringing indie rock.

Bursik infuses her egg filling with pimento cheese. It’s a natural extension of the chef’s go-to morning-after remedy: grilled cheese filled with the pimento spread. “That’s one of my favorite hangover foods,” she says.

Add some paprika and a sliver of real pimento on top and you’ve got one potent bar snack. “It’s got a little bit of a smoky flavor to it, then it’s kind of sweet, a little salty, a little cheesy, and a little eggy,” she says.

Beyond the homey appeal of the dish—“They remind you of your childhood, they’re tasty and they’re kind of a guilty pleasure,” the chef says—Bursik floats another reason why folks flock to local restaurants for their deviled egg fix: “They’re a pain in the ass to make for yourself.”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Boundary Stone, 116 Rhode Island Ave. NW

2Amys, 3715 Macomb St. NW, (202) 885-5700

Founding Farmers, 1924 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, (202) 822-8783

Ray’s to the Third, 1650 Wilson Blvd., Arlington

DC9, 1940 9th St. NW, (202) 483-5000

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/26/deviled-in-the-details/feed/ 5 Renovation or Expiration? Ray’s the Steaks at East River Suddenly Shutters http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/25/renovation-or-expiration-rays-the-steaks-at-east-river-suddenly-shutters/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/25/renovation-or-expiration-rays-the-steaks-at-east-river-suddenly-shutters/#comments Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:12:54 +0000 Chris Shott http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=48891 Ray's the Steaks at East River (ranked No. 39 on City Paper's list of D.C.'s 44 Most Powerful Restaurants) had raised hopes that a nice sit-down restaurant could actually survive in the culinary dead zone known as Ward 7. Is this trailblazing effort now in jeopardy? Pirate-flag-waving restaurateur Michael Landrum's no-frills steakhouse on Dix Street NE has abruptly closed its doors. WaPo food scribe and Y&H alum Tim Carman has the scoop. A sign on the door attributes the closure to forthcoming renovations and notes: "We eagerly look forward to seeing you soon after re-opening in January 2012." But Carman reports that no work permit has been filed with the city. Landrum declined to comment.

Logo courtesy of Ray's the Steaks East River

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/25/renovation-or-expiration-rays-the-steaks-at-east-river-suddenly-shutters/feed/ 3 Even Michael Landrum Doesn’t Know What Michael Landrum Is Up To At Ray’s Hell Burger Too http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/12/even-michael-landrum-doesnt-know-what-michael-landrum-is-up-to-at-rays-hell-burger-too/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/12/even-michael-landrum-doesnt-know-what-michael-landrum-is-up-to-at-rays-hell-burger-too/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:52:10 +0000 Chris Shott http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=48349 “With my restaurants, I don’t know when they’re going to open, or what’s going to be on the menu, until the day before… Honestly, everything works, but I sort of just make stuff up as I go along.”—Restaurateur Michael Landrum, talking to ARLnow after abruptly shuttering Arlington's Ray's Hell Burger Too and posting a sign in the window: “Coming Soon… Big New Surprise!”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/10/12/even-michael-landrum-doesnt-know-what-michael-landrum-is-up-to-at-rays-hell-burger-too/feed/ 0 A ‘Very Soft Opening’ Tonight At Michael Landrum’s No-Name, No-Menu Restaurant In Arlington http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/09/21/a-very-soft-opening-tonight-at-michael-landrums-no-name-no-menu-restaurant-in-arlington/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/09/21/a-very-soft-opening-tonight-at-michael-landrums-no-name-no-menu-restaurant-in-arlington/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:11:55 +0000 Chris Shott http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=47047 Y&H alum and Washingtonian critic Todd Kliman reports on the "very soft opening" of eccentric Ray's the Steaks proprietor Michael Landrum's new restaurant in Arlington tonight.

The details are sketchy to say the least: “We don’t have a name, the menu is still to be decided, but there will be food and there will be drink, including wine and alcohol,” Landrum tells Kliman.

At least it has an address: 1650 Wilson Blvd.

If he wanted to be cute, Landrum could call the place "TBD." Of course, Arlington already has one of those.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/09/21/a-very-soft-opening-tonight-at-michael-landrums-no-name-no-menu-restaurant-in-arlington/feed/ 0 Changing Tables: Arlington Rooftop Bar and Grill Now Open, Another Matchbox on the Way http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/08/changing-tables-arlington-rooftop-bar-and-grill-now-open-another-matchbox-on-the-way/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/08/changing-tables-arlington-rooftop-bar-and-grill-now-open-another-matchbox-on-the-way/#comments Wed, 08 Dec 2010 19:05:25 +0000 Andrew George http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=30627

The latest in restaurant openings, closings, and highly unstable target dates.

Coming Soon:

Openings:

Closings:

Photo by Arlington Rooftop Bar and Grill

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/08/changing-tables-arlington-rooftop-bar-and-grill-now-open-another-matchbox-on-the-way/feed/ 2 Changing Tables: Sweetgreen Opens Today in Ballston http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/02/changing-tables-sweetgreen-opens-today-in-ballston/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/02/changing-tables-sweetgreen-opens-today-in-ballston/#comments Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:10:04 +0000 Andrew George http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=29993

The latest in restaurant openings, closings, and highly unstable target dates.

Coming Soon:

Openings:

Closings:

Photo by Tom (andertho) via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/02/changing-tables-sweetgreen-opens-today-in-ballston/feed/ 4 The Salad Daze: Farewell, Young & Hungry http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/02/the-salad-daze-farewell-young-hungry/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/02/the-salad-daze-farewell-young-hungry/#comments Thu, 02 Dec 2010 13:49:53 +0000 Tim Carman http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=30054 The first Young & Hungry column I wrote, almost five years ago, was a review of Miss Saigon in Georgetown. I was auditioning for the job of food columnist for Washington City Paper, and these were my marching orders in December 2005: critique a Vietnamese restaurant that no one cared about. I was puzzled, but I dutifully turned in a 975-word review.

The editors promptly tore it apart, word by word. I’m not sure how many editors had a say on my first draft, but it felt like management was treating my Y&H debut as the journalistic equivalent of a tackling dummy. I figured it was a test of my mettle, particularly when an editor told me I wasn’t brilliant enough to use metaphors. I couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting, but I knew for certain that if I were to survive as the City Paper food columnist, I was going to need to develop thicker skin. This was no place for wallflowers who want to craft their prose in monk-like solitude, guided only by their “muse” and some arch, overly precious sense of the food world. The editors stood steadfastly against preciousness on all fronts.

Half a decade later, I look back on the edit of that first column (sample comments: “Fuck this; I hate this equivocation. Forget what I said up top about you keeping a strong POV throughout this piece” and “I don’t give a flying fuck what your entrée was!”) with a mix of nostalgia and bile-churning, spit-hurling anger, which was probably the whole point. Editors had time back then to find your pressure points and see if, by pressing them, they could make you a better writer and reporter.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to turn my farewell column into some sentimental, revisionist claptrap about how journalism needs more editors who treat their reporters like Bo Pelini treats his star quarterback. No, I’m just reflecting back on how much things have changed in five years, starting with the very job I’m leaving. Back in February 2006, when I officially became the paper’s next Young & Hungry, I wrote exactly one column a week. I went through at least three drafts on each column. I answered further questions from the copy desk. I didn’t blog at all. We didn’t even have a blog at City Paper. And today? Well, let’s just say I miss the old work load.

The food and dining scene has experienced its own growing pains. Consider that in late 2005:

• Washingtonians had a president who never visited restaurants. George W. Bush was content to sit in the White House, choking down pretzels while watching football. By contrast, Washington now has a president who has stopped at some of the area’s most recognizable restaurants, both high and low end, from Komi to Five Guys Burgers & Fries. In one instance, the president’s visit propelled a popular eatery, Ray’s Hell Burger, into the stratosphere. Owner Michael Landrum was forced to put his planned seafood restaurant on hold and expand the Hell Burger empire. That’s a good problem for a local restaurateur to have.

• The District boasted restaurants by Todd English and Charlie Palmer, but our biggest celebrity chef was a Frenchman, Michel Richard, who dared to base his operations in D.C. In the intervening years, chefs of varying celeb status have decided to throw up a restaurant and drill down into our wallets. On one end you have a TV-generated, semi-celebrity like Spike Mendelsohn who has also made D.C. his home, while on the other, you have a Michelin-star hoarder like Alain Ducasse who thought he’d send some emissaries down to D.C. and start cashing in on his considerable reputation. There are benefits on both sides of this star spectrum, but there are also sinkholes. Some of these culinary carpetbaggers take dining dollars (and sometimes kitchen talent) away from the home team.

Michel Richard

Michel Richard

• Roberto Donna still had his Galileo empire. He not only had the flagship restaurant, but also the Osteria and the Laboratorio. He was also hawking grilled sandwiches on the sidewalk outside of Galileo. Five years and one failed restaurant later, the chef returned to D.C. with a storm cloud over his head. He owes taxes to Arlington County, owes money to former employees, and owes the people a better accounting of his abuse of public money.

• H Street NE was a great spot for fried whiting and a tall boy. No strip has changed as much as this patch of Northeast. The Ohio Restaurant was one of the early pioneers on H Street, hawking chef-driven soul food from a ragged outpost at H and 14th streets. But other dining destinations soon popped up. Granville Moore’s, Taylor Gourmet, Sticky Rice, Liberty Tree, Biergarten Haus, H Street Country Club, The Atlas Room. These (and others yet to come) are turning the street into a dining destination. Imagine what the area will be like once the city completes that goddamn streetcar project.

• Unless you count those motorized hot dog wagons down by the National Mall, the District didn’t have a single food truck. D.C.’s streets have made a remarkable turnaround in the past two years, breaking the death grip of the depot owners who have controlled the city’s curbside eats for decades. If and when the D.C. Council ever passes new vendor regulations, you can expect to see even more variety on our streets. I know for certain that Kushi, my current favorite for Japanese cooking, plans to launch a yakitori truck in D.C. But what the District really needs, as a colleague recently pointed out, is a gourmet coffee truck. Nick Cho, are you listening? Have you paid off your tax bill yet?

Food Trucks

• The craft beer craze was just in its embryonic phase in the District. We had brewpubs, of course, but if you wanted to sample the best of the world’s craft beer, you pretty much had to give your money to Dave and Diane Alexander, whether at the Brickskeller in Dupont or Regional Food and Drink in Chinatown. These days? You can’t wander the streets without running face-first into a Dogfish Head tap. Craft beers are everywhere. Rustico (two locations now, with perhaps more to come), CommonWealth Gastropub, Pizzeria Paradiso (three locations), Meridian Pint, Brasserie Beck, Granville Moore’s, Black Squirrel, Restaurant 3, and the mother of all beer emporiums, ChurchKey, have transformed D.C. into suds city.

• Peter Chang and Fabio Trabocchi were still cooking in area kitchens. At the time, Chang was mesmerizing diners at TemptAsian Cafe in Alexandria, while Trabocchi was blowing away patrons with his gourmet takes on Italian cooking at Maestro in Tysons Corner. Within two years, both Chang and Trabocchi were gone. But after a rollercoaster ride in New York City, Trabocchi is returning next year to open Fiola in the former Le Paradou space in Penn Quarter. And Chang? Well, after forcing his fans to follow him around the country like jilted lovers, the chef has apparently settled down in Charlottesville, where he’s scheduled to open Peter Chang China Grill in January. Has anyone started a pool yet to see how long it lasts?

• The Washington area had only three four-star restaurants, according to Tom Sietsema’s 2005 Dining Guide. They were Maestro, Citronelle, and the Inn at Little Washington. Sietsema’s latest Dining Guide listed five four-star performers. Citronelle and the Inn made repeat appearances on the list, joined by Komi, Rasika, and Restaurant Eve. A previous four-star restaurant, CityZen in the Mandarin Oriental, was nowhere to be found on Sietsema’s 2010 survey. No one can accuse the critic of ratings creep at the top end.

• The boutique pizza market had two main players: Pizzeria Paradiso and 2Amys (OK, and maybe Ella’s). The pie options today are stupefying, a reminder that the recession continues to force many restaurateurs into safe, cheap, and consumer-friendly choices. The new pizzerias are too numerous to mention, but here’s one indication of how ridiculous our pie market is today: Not one but two Frenchmen have opened pizza joints (Pizze in Woodley Park, and Seventh Hill in Capitol Hill), no doubt generating a small forest of raised eyebrows among the Gallic community, which tends to view Italian cuisine as something to feed the family pet.

• There was no Urban Daddy, no Thrillist, no Tasting Table, no TBD, no NBC Feast, and damn few bloggers ambitious enough to fight for every scoop that used to land like a butterfly onto the lap of print journalists. The competition for information today is fiercer than ever.

With this week’s column, I’m ending a City Paper tenure that has had its own mood swings. My beat and responsibilities have had to evolve and expand to reflect a changing media environment as well as a changing culinary one. This is the truth of modern journalism. We must find new ways to look at old subjects. We must venture beyond our usual circles to find the next person who wants to revolutionize what we eat. Anyone in my line of work knows that food can never, ever be treated like something too precious to withstand tough scrutiny. But my time at the paper, from that brutal first edit back in the one-column-a-week days to the radical shifts in job responsibilities that accompanied the old news media’s discovery of the Internet proves that we dead-tree types are more adaptable than you think.

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/02/the-salad-daze-farewell-young-hungry/feed/ 5 Changing Tables: American Tap Room and Ping Pong Dim Sum Are Reproducing! http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/11/24/changing-tables-american-tap-room-and-ping-pong-dim-sum-are-reproducing/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/11/24/changing-tables-american-tap-room-and-ping-pong-dim-sum-are-reproducing/#comments Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:19:21 +0000 Andrew George http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=29601

The latest in restaurant openings, closings, and highly unstable target dates.

Coming Soon:

Openings:

Closings:

Photo courtesy of American Tap Room

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