Many District residents have become used to carrying reusable bags for shopping trips (or are prepared to pay five cents for a plastic or paper bag). Now Montgomery County seems to be next up in the effort to curb the prevalence of single-use shopping bags. As the Washington Business Journal reports, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett has proposed a nickel-per-bag fee that would, if approved, go into effect on Jan. 1, 2012. Like D.C.'s bag fee, revenue raised from the Montgomery County regulation would benefit local water protection efforts.

Photo by Flickr user currybet using an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license

She met up with Robert Wulff of developer B.F. Saul, the firm overseeing Wheaton's redevelopment, at Saigonese and talked about lessons learned from Silver Spring's downtown redevelopment of the past decade:

He contends there are now more small businesses than before, since those that could adapt thrived, and the office development provided a customer base for more to start up.

The same will happen in Wheaton, he says, digging into a plate of chicken and rice at a Vietnamese place on Grandview Avenue. Even with top-notch bánh mì sandwiches at $2.50 a pop, the restaurant doesn’t do much lunch traffic, which is typical of Wheaton eateries. Adding a few thousand office workers would change all that—for restaurants that can market themselves to a new clientele.

“Small businesses have to think big. They can’t think about who their current customer base is and what their current products are,” Wulff says. “They have to think about who’s coming, what are they going to buy, what are they going to eat. Do they want to roll, or not?”

Easier said than done for Julio Cruz, owner of Sergio’s Place on Fern Street. He has expanded his businesses, offering karaoke and starting a pupusa-making operation, but business is still slow—his bread-and-butter clientele, day laborers on area construction jobs, haven’t had as much disposable income lately. And he doesn’t think he can serve his food fast enough to attract office workers at lunchtime.

“Even though I have some Americans that come, they like the food, but it’s not always enough,” he says.

While local neighborhood redevelopment narratives have been dominated by tensions and fights inside the District line, more suburban areas, where plenty of ethnic communities—some with distinct food cultures—have found a home and in the process, have created dining destinations.

How do you think the Columbia Pike corridor in Arlington County's food identity might change with a streetcar line planned? How has the food identity of Arlington's Rosslyn-Ballston corridor evolved over the past two decades as more dense development filled in along the Orange Line? What would happen to the Eden Center if Seven Corners became more transit accessible and Clarendon-style dense development started to take root?

Ethnic food geographic identity is something that's intertwined with urban evolution. And we've seen—and will continue to see—how it plays out, for better or worse.

Photo of Hollywood East's Janet Wu by Darrow Montgomery

Shut Up, Foodies! is a delightfully cheeky site — sort of the thinking man's Food Network Humor. It's a destination that loves to skewer the pretensions of the food world, as declared in SUF's in-your face manifesto, which reads in part:

Your chickens won't save the world and we don't want the life story of everything on the menu. We don't care what you eat — we just want you to lower the volume. Also, please stop talking about ramps.

I read with interest SUF's latest post shredding the growing, gourmet culture of food trucks, and the pampered palates who embrace these rolling gustatory wagons. A sample quote:

One thing that really irks me about the food truck thing is that it’s only become a “trend” now that food trucks are “gourmet” and run by middle class people. I grew up in Los Angeles going to taco trucks all the damn time, and since living in New York have eaten multiple falafels, pretzels, and ice cream sandwiches from food trucks.

And it’s even more irksome when you read about people like Oleg Voss, “a 28-year-old culinary school graduate and one-time investment banker.” He had to give up his lucrative job in Vienna to open his veal cutlet cart, because of “the brutal economic recession.” That is brutal!

It seems like “I opened a niche gourmet food business” is the new “I found myself.” Who needs an ashram when you can sell artisanal delicacies to people who enjoy the added flavor of self-righteous foodiness? Oh and isn’t it funny, hahaha, when people who have been working on the street for their entire lives don’t take kindly to being pushed out of business by a trend?

For years now, I've shared a similar opinion about the metro area's food truck scene, which, I'm sorry, did not suddenly mushroom into existence with the addition of Rebel Heroes, the Fojol Brothers, and the Red Hook Lobster Pound rig.

No, Montgomery and Prince George's counties have enjoyed a vibrant food-truck culture for years. But it's been virtually ignored by the non-Latino communities because the humble pupusa and taco don't have the same sex appeal as buttery Maine lobster rolls or cream-deficient butter chicken served in a Styrofoam container by a group of guys with a theatrical sense of irony.  I find such street-food myopia frustrating myself.

But here's where we disagree, SUF. One street food culture has nothing to do with the other, just as the ethnic mom-and-pop eateries in Rockville and Falls Church have nothing to do with the expense-account dining found in downtown D.C. The only thing these food trucks have in common is their ability to roll to different locations.

It seems rather naive to think that middle-class foodies would curb their enthusiasm for new and better street food options just because the suburbs and exurbs in many cities have been a source for amazing Latin snacks for years. Eating is almost always about proximity. After years of suffering through a food-cart scene dominated by dirty water dogs and sodas, downtown D.C. office wonks finally have some decent street options near them. Of course they're going to be excited.

The question is this: Will that excitement translate into a curiosity for food trucks outside these eaters' immediate neighborhoods? Probably not. I don't necessarily subscribe to the rising-tide-lifts-all-boats theory, not in this economy, not when a trip to Montgomery County may require a 30-minute Metro ride and extra coinage.

But perhaps the opposite will occur? Perhaps one or two of the more enterprising pupusa trucks in Maryland will make the move into the District and take advantage of this growing culture? It'd make sense on a number of levels. But mostly it might open some eyes: Once a downtown office worker, after all, tasted Sabor Latino's tacos, they may realize just how mediocre some of the new trucks really are.

Let's not examine why Y&H has liquor on the brain at this hour. Let's just review some of the latest in firewater news.

• Montgomery County is thinking it may not feel so blue on Sundays anymore. [DCist]
• Tune Inn on Capitol Hill slathered on the pomade for its moment in the spotlight. [Washingtonian's Best Bites Blog]

• Fritz Hahn dangles some opening dates and/or time frames that give us hope that Biergarten Haus and Buddha-Bar may actually launch soon. [WaPo's Going Out Gurus]
• Speaking of Buddha-Bar, Metrocurean sneaked in for a peek at the place (and has a different opening date).
• Beer with dessert? Sounds like a pairing made in heaven ChurchKey. But does it work? [Chow.com blog]
• We're No. 1! We're No. 1 We're No. 1! That's right, we're the country with the crappiest beer in the world! [HuffPo]
• Bitter over the limited flavors of commercial bitters? Derek Brown helps you geek out and make your own. [Atlantic Food Channel]
• Lazy man's charity: Drink to save the Brazilian rainforest. [Metrocurean]
• Comet sees a ray of hope about getting its liquor license back soon. [Aw, shucks.]

Image courtesy of Seattleye via Flickr Creative Commons, Attribution License

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

It takes bravado—and lots of bull-headed determination—to run a wine-centered bistro in Montgomery County. Grapeseed chef/owner Jeff Heineman has both. He works the whacked-out county-controlled liquor system as well as a mere mortal can, building and maintaining a wine list that’s deep, approachable, and, at its frequent best, altogether satisfying. Heineman custom-builds the dishes on his menu to pair with specific wines, like his recent portobello-mushroom take on chilaquiles, that classic Mexican breakfast dish, which he suggests you sample with a cool, fruity glass of French rosé, for an Old World/Third World partnership that snootier toques would never touch. That’s the thing about Heineman; his vision of New American cuisine often has a wide lens. It could be that chilaquiles, or it could be his goat cheese-stuffed piquillo peppers, which are more roasty and tart than spicy. Now, I just wish Heineman would bring back his chef-driven take on chicken and waffles (in bourbon sauce!), which makes a mockery of the other insipid versions around town.

 Grapeseed, 4865 Cordell Ave., Bethesda, (301) 986-9592

For nearly a month, the General Store, chef Gillian Clark's home-spun Silver Spring restaurant with the killer fried chicken, has been operating as a take-out joint only. Montgomery County apparently wanted Clark and her partner, Robin Smith, to have more dedicated parking spaces before issuing them a certificate of occupancy.

The matter dragged on for weeks, Smith says. She'd call the bureaucrat in charge of commercial properties, who couldn't issue a certificate of occupancy without a parking waiver. Then Smith would call the desk jockey in charge of parking waivers, who couldn't issue a waiver without a certificate of occupancy. This Kafkaesque scenario ended only when Clark and Smith's lawyer finally made a call.

"Magically, it all came together" when the lawyer called, Smith says.

The renovated 19th-century General Store, with seating for about 30 to 35 diners, has been operating as a sit-down restaurant since Tuesday, Feb. 24, Smith says. Parking for the restaurant can be found in two locations—behind the store, where there are seven spots, and across the street, where there are about 15 more spaces. So far, parking hasn't been a problem, although competition for those spaces could increase once Clark and Smith open the Post Office Tavern, which is located downstairs. The watering hole has seats for about 13-18 people.

Speaking of the tavern, Clark and Smith also have their liquor license in hand, and should the county make its expected delivery, the General Store will be selling beer tomorrow. The list is limited now, but will expand in the near future, Smith promises.

The wife and I stopped by the General Store late on Sunday night, around 9, hoping against hope that chef/owner Gillian Clark might still have some fried chicken and collards available for take out. She didn't. She had sold the last of her birds about three hours earlier, so we had to satisfy our General Store itch with some face time with Clark's partner, Robin Smith, who told us the story behind the bear diorama and the slogan, "Grab a Root 'n' Growl." (See picture.)

As a child growing up in California, Smith knew it was dinner time whenever her mom used to holler, "Grab a root and growl!" Smith, somewhat sheepishly, admits she never gave the phrase much thought until one day, in her teens, she suddenly realized that it had ursine connections. Up until then she always considered the phrase merely a call to chow.

Rather than let the phrase fester as just an embarrassing memory, Smith and Clark have embraced it as part of their new General Store in Silver Spring, which opened this weekend for take-out only as the partners continue to iron out their parking issues with Montgomery County. The problem was finding a stuffed bear. Smith, understandably, had no idea how to secure one, but she eventually found a taxidermist who would do the work at a price the partners could afford. Which lead to the next obvious question: Did Smith and Clark need to provide their own bear?

Nope, the taxidermist told Smith, he had a couple ready to stuff.

The bear diorama, with said stuffed critter pawing around for a root no doubt, now sits proudly atop the Nickelodeon player piano by the front door. (More on the piano later today.) It strikes me as a nice nostalgic touch in a renovated 19th-century post office/general store that's dedicated to gentler times, when people still composed hand-written letters and when mothers called their children, still playing in the streets, to dinner with a simple holler from the front porch.