With only three weeks of voting left in the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame, the leaderboard remains virtually unchanged from last week’s, save for a little jockeying at the bottom and 2Amys‘ suddenly move into a fourth-place tie with the falafel sandwich at Amsterdam.

Remember, only the top five dishes will be part of the Hall’s inaugural class. So if you don’t like the looks of the list below, get voting.

1. Half-smoke with chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl, 334 votes
2. Hamburger at Five Guys, 157
3. Peruvian chicken at El Pollo Rico, 128
4. Margherita pizza at 2Amys, 115
5. Falafel at Amsterdam Falafelshop, 115
6. Burger from Ray’s Hell Burger, 99
7. Salty oat cookie at Teaism, 98
8. Palak chaat at Rasika, 89
9. Pho at Pho 75, 88
10. Fried whiting at Horace & Dickie’s, 83

The interesting thing is, several high-end dishes are holding their breath just below the surface of the Top 10 list. Check it out:

11. Atomica pizza at Pizzeria Paradiso, 58

12. Lobster burger at Central Michel Richard, 46

13. Cowboy-cut bone-in ribeye at Ray’s the Steaks, 45

14. Shrimp and grits at Vidalia, 41

15. Spit-roasted goat at Komi, 41

With a coordinated campaign, any one of these dishes could easily sneak into the rarefied air of the Top 5. So what are you waiting for? Start canvassing for votes!

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

But then I looked further into Blais’ concept at Flip Burger Boutique in Atlanta, the hamburger joint with the pretentious name and the cool concept. The operation combines Blais’ affection for molecular gastronomy with the foodstuff that Washingtonians seem to love more than even Wimpy does.

The molecular gastronomy side of Flip seems, for the most part, limited to the milkshake section of the menu (PDF), where the creamy drinks are flash frozen with liquid nitrogen and come in oddball flavors such as Krispy Kreme and (I kid you not) foie gras. Here’s what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Meridith Ford wrote in her (I kid you not) four-star review of Flip:

The milkshakes, all quick-frozen with “LN2” (liquid nitrogen), are brought to the table trailing a cloudlike fog. The most talked-about flavor is the creamy Krispy Kreme concoction (yes, it tastes exactly like drinking a KK doughnut, only very cold), but the best flavor is the groovy green pistachio laced with white truffles. Drink them with a meal, or order them for dessert.

Other than the shakes, the menu reads like an after-hours bet on who could create the funkiest burger ever. There are some creative patties here, from the Tartare burger (hanger steak with garlic, chili, capers, Worcestershire, pickled onion, frisée, smoked mayo, and a sous- vide egg yolk), the Korean (Wagyu beef and short rib with kimchi ketchup, pickled veggies, and crispy tempura onion), and the Ossobuco (veal patty with braised veal, gremolata mayo, braised ketchup, and crispy fried onions).

(A side question: Just what the hell is braised ketchup?)

Again from Ford with the AJC:

Beyond that, this jazzy joint is more fun than a barrel of burgers, which are beef, house-ground of short ribs, hangar steak and brisket. The mix makes them fattier — and juicier — than a burger made with leaner meat.

Smaller than average, but certainly larger than sliders, the size encourages ordering more than one — and so does the price (ranging from $6.50 to $11). Think of them as — dare I say it? — tapas burgers. Take a group of friends. Take your kids (there are always kids in this dining room). Take your wife. Your boss. Take a first date.

Then try as many of these little round marvels as you can wrap your chops around: a country-fried burger smeared with tangy pimento cheese and topped with house-made pickles dipped in house-made ketchup; a Japanese Kobe burger crowned with seared foie gras, truffle butter, bread-and-butter pickles, onion-and-red-wine jam and frisee; a “pate melt” of ground veal and pork sandwiched with Dijon and cornichons. What fun.

Could this place give Ray’s Hell Burgers a run for its money as the metro area’s most popular hamburger? Blais tells NBC Washington that he plans to open a Flip Burger Boutique in the Verizon Center area (aka Penn Quarter) next spring.

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

Y&H has been promoting the pleasures of fried whiting for years. It’s truly one of the District’s under-appreciated plates, which is why I was happy to see the whiting at Horace & Dickie’s enter this week’s leaderboard for the D.C Dish Hall of Fame.

Granted, the dish still doesn’t have enough votes to enter the Hall. It needs to be among the top five to earn that honor. But regardless, I’m glad to see it get some love. Maybe you’d like to give it more affection? Vote here.

Speaking of which, the falafel sandwich at Amsterdam Falafelshop also made a strong move last week, adding nearly 30 votes to its total despite the owners’, ahem, questionable behavior at the Strathmore. I credit the uptick to a groundswell of vegan/vegetarian voters, who were no doubt spurred by some online petition. How do I know this?

Because Y&H received a number of e-mails like this one from avalon345:

“Not enough vegetarian/vegan choices! Looks like 1950s fare…”

Yeah, sure. Where were you eating palak chaat, pho, and Peruvian chicken in the ’50s, avalon345?

The current leaderboard after the jump:

1. Half-smoke with chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl, 250 votes
2. Hamburger at Five Guys, 118
3. Peruvian chicken at El Pollo Rico, 104
4. Falafel at Amsterdam Falafelshop, 92
5. Margherita pizza at 2Amys, 87
6. Burger from Ray’s Hell Burger, 76
7. Salty oat cookie at Teaism, 70
8. Palak chaat at Rasika, 70
9. Pho at Pho 75, 63
10. Fried whiting at Horace & Dickie’s, 40

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

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

 Michael Landrum, the man who put the meat into the Ray’s mini-empire, has never been shy about telling the world about the superiority of his beef.  The New York Times‘ investigation of the commercial ground-beef industry gave him another chance to do more of the same.

Landrum responded to three of the four questions posed by Y&H in the wake of the investigation. I asked Landrum — and BGR’s Mark Bucher before him — to try to alleviate public fears by explaining the differences between commercial ground beef and their ground beef.

Y&H: What was your overall impression of the Times‘ piece and what do you think it will mean for ground beef and burger sales in the future?

Landrum: Didn’t see the piece, so I can’t comment on question 1. 

 Y&H: How can you alleviate the fears of diners who worry now that ground beef will be contaminated with E. coli?

Landrum: I will say that consumers, if they have any health or safety concerns, should avoid all commercially produced ground beef and all processed beef products that come from centralized packing plants. The beef that goes into commercially ground beef is basically scraps off the floor or otherwise inedible and unusable parts and cuts of meat, regardless of how it is labeled — e.g. 100% Angus, 100% Sirloin, 100% Chuck, etc. This goes for all fast food chains, including the small local ones, which receive their burgers pre-pattied or their beef pre-ground. The grounds for fear, overall, are very real.

Y&H: Where do you source your beef and do you grind the meat yourself or have it ground for you?

Landrum: We use only whole muscle cuts which undergo no processing at the plant from farm-raised steer. Additionally, we hand trim all of the external surfaces from these whole muscle cuts to our exacting standards for not only safety, but for quality and taste as well. Not only do we grind in-house, we grind in small batches with complete washing and sterilization of the equipment between batches to eliminate risk. These batches are then tagged and kept separate one from the other with no carryover between batches to insure total quality control.

Y&H: Will you continue to offer rare, medium-rare and other hamburgers that do not reach the USDA-recommended temperature of 160 degrees?

Landrum: That being the case, we are completely confident in being able to continue to serve burgers prepared to order to the desired degree of doneness with no qualms or worries whatsoever. In fact, I eat 3-4 rare/medium rare burgers myself each week and regularly sample raw beef direct from the grinder throughout the day.

Y&H does some side work for Askmen.com, but this week he took a break and asked Michael Landrum to step in and recommend a few manly places for the site’s D.C. readership. Obviously, that was too humdrum a task for Landrum. He went ahead and wrote an essay about “how to be a man in a restaurant.” It involves tipping generously. Very generously.

Sample lines from Landrum:  “Tip to the point beyond fear and, like a roller coaster ride, be prepared for an experience more exhilarating and rewarding than you could have previously imagined or hoped for. Do not make the mistake of tipping what you think the person deserves; instead, tip based on the man you want to be — and you will be taken for that man. Remember, though, that the equation works both ways. There are many things that reveal the difference between a man and a punk — and being cheap will always make you a punk.”

You can imagine the shitstorm this has started over at Askmen.com. Let me quote just a few of the comments Landrum’s essay has generated:

The CEO says:

Tip to Michael Laundrum: Pay your staff better salary.

Obviously, you are too cheap to pay them so you expect for customers to make up for your stinginess towards your staff.

“a 20 at the door” : You expect the average American to work 4 hours to afford getting through the door? Inconsidered human being you are ML.

dream on buddy says:

$5 tip per drink? Unless that bartender is also curing me of swine flu i dont think so. The typical buck or two is plenty. Tipping isnt about helping you maintain a lifestyle. Drinks are like $12 bucks anyway, and you think it should be $17 a drink?? And yeah, if you suck, are slow, are unfriendly, or give me a awful service, your tip will suffer. Do a good job and youll get your tip. Remember, a tip is gratis, but you seem to think its owed to you.

AM21 says:

I am one so I can this, but I noticed asians and old people tip horribly so i don’t tip as well at asian places. Also sometimes the waiter will tend to hang around looking over ur shoulder to see how much u tip.

Kyle says:

Usually I stick up for articles but this is the biggest load of crap I’ve seen in a while. 5 dollars per drink? It takes a person approximately what, 20 second to retrieve and open a beer. Do you have any sense of money? Bottom line, if you are this wealthy to be doing this, you won’t be for long. If it’s one thing that I know from working at a bar, regardless if you tip a lot or what you are expected, nobody thinks you are the “cool” guy. If you need this to pretend you are important, rethink your strategy.

No Class says:

Lets define REAL MEN for a moment ,, first off , real men don’t go out to dinner ,, real men catch their dinner with their bare hands , no weapons, thats for wimps , If a doorman should open a door for them they give him a smackdown , real men do not shave or bathe , thats for sissy men , real men do not go to a bar and order expensive watered down drinks , they drink 200 proof vodka like wild mountain men , why the sarcasm , the reason is that real men do not exist anymore , they have been manipulated by women , by society , by the media , by hollywood into being weak-kneed willys that TIP to impress , that drink wine out of a glass instead of a bottle , they have become whooses that TIP everyone ,, The truth be said REAL MEN DO NOT TIP , servers TIP THEM or they get their ass kicked .

How does Landrum respond to his many new critics?

“My advice was for those seeking an extraordinary experience, not the average,” he told Y&H this afternoon. “As an industry insider, I have very little opportunity to indulge [in a social life]…When I do, I want to enjoy my experience to the fullest, and I know how to do that.”

Landrum was hoping to share the secrets for those who wanted to “take their service experience to the next level.”

Y&H’s take on this? The Askmen.com readership didn’t quite get that Landrum was overstating his case for effect.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

In the September/October issue of Imbibe, the editors selected their 99 favorite beers in different categories, such as seasonals or beers to drink with a burger. In “Imbibe Vs. Beerspotter,” Y&H’s Beerspotter takes each list to task.

The editors of Imbibe write that their ideal burger beers “complement, rather than overwhelm” the flavors of their burger. I suppose that’s fine if you’re writing from Portland, Ore. — the dry, hoppy Victory Prima Pils does cut through unctuous beef fat like, um, a knife through unctuous beef fat. But in D.C., where our chain burgers are Five Guys and our boutique patties are presidential, we want our beers to punch their weight.

I want my burger juicy in the middle and charred on the outside, and I want a Stone Smoked Porter to go with it. Its bittersweet chocolate flavors give it a hefty body, while a dose of smoked malt puts grill marks on your pint glass. Nonsmokers should try Duck Rabbit Schwarzbier, a black lager that swaps the smoke for chewier flavors in the form of toasted coffee. Samuel Adams Black Lager would do in a pinch, too.

What do you drink with your burger? Tweet up @Beerspotter!

Imbibe picks:

• Anderson Valley Poleeko Gold Pale Ale

• Bear Republic Racer 5
• Deschutes Mirror Pond
• Firestone Walker Pale 31
• Full Sail Session
• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
• Trumer Pils
• Uerige Obergärige
• Widmer Drifter
• Victory Prima Pils

This blog has gone to Hell, and readers are taking Select 55 with it. For Christ’s sake, people, can we get over this Budweiser post, which tops the list for the third straight week?

The most-read items for the week:

1. Budweiser Launches Select 55, Light Beer Arms Race Gets Absurd
2. Not So Fast: There’s No Deal for a Ray’s Hell Burger in Adams Morgan
3. No Hell Burger for Adams Morgan, but a Ray’s the Steaks for NE
4. Did Vidalia Use “Inferior” Ingredients During Restaurant Week?
5. Drool List: Pizzeria Paradiso at Dupont Circle
   

Adams Morgan may have to wait — as in forever — for a Ray’s Hell Burger, but Northeast D.C. will have to drum their fingers only ’til this fall for the debut of Ray’s the Steaks at East River, says owner Michael Landrum.

When WaPo first announced RTS@ER, it was known as Ray’s the Heat, but Landrum decided to change the name as a sort of official notice to the neighborhood, which restaurateurs have historically neglected like an ugly stepchild. The name-change, Landrum says, is “a signal to that community that they’re getting my A property.”

This Ray’s the Steaks, however, will be more family-oriented than either the original location in Arlington or Ray’s the Classics in Silver Spring, both of which cater to an adult crowd. East River will feature a kids’ menu, Landrum says, including a burger and hot dog.

Adults will be able to choose from the usual line of RTS steaks as well as two different kinds of chicken (a spicy Memphis version and the classic Maryland skillet-style) as well as that Hell Burger that everyone seems to crave, including the president. “The burger will be a mainstay of the restaurant,” Landrum says, an acknowledgment of President Obama’s stature in the neighborhood.

Landrum also plans to honor his original vision for Ray’s the Heat, which means he’ll sell an entree and three sides for a fixed, affordable price. It is Landrum’s version of the classic Southern combo known as the “Meat ‘N’ Three.”

Ray’s the Steaks at East River should open this fall, the owner says, likely before October, if the final permits are secured.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery