I knew this day would eventually come. The beer geeks have taken over the Y&H blog! With their unholy alliance of timely information and sheer ambition, they and their kind (those stupid vintage beer commercials!) have captured the top three spots this week.

Here, without further ado, are the most read posts for the week:

1. Vintage TV Beer Commercials
2. D.C.’s a Great Beer City, Chapter 1
3. Upcoming D.C. Beer Events
4. Landrum Releases ‘The Catch’ to Bring On More Burgers
5. Food News You Can Use: Playing Catch-Up Edition

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Much to Y&H’s surprise and delight, more of you clicked on the item about Mark Furstenberg’s forthcoming street food restaurant than on Obama’s much overhyped (guilty as charged!) visit to Ray’s Hell Burgers. Congratulations on being so damn cool. The top posts of the week:

1. Furstenberg’s Street Food Restaurant Will Stretch Far Beyond Bread-Based Snacks
2. President and VP Waited in Line at Ray’s Just Like Everyone Else
3. Spike Mendelsohn Set to Open Pizzeria in D.C.
4. Everyone’s Squeezing the Juice Out of Obama’s Visit to Ray’s Hell Burgers
5. Obama and Biden Order One “Hell” of a Burger

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

If you haven’t heard already — and I really hope that you’ve been spared — Hannity, Ingraham, and other right-wing pit bulls have been attacking Obama for ordering his Ray’s Hell Burger with spicy mustard, which they see as elitist or French or something so drastic that it’ll mean the downfall of God and country. (MediaMatters has a decent breakdown of the right’s nervous breakdown over spicy mustard.)

But, really, why stop there? Why not go after Obama and all those other tree-hugging liberals who like to eat their hamburgers on fermented bread, which was created around 1,000 B.C. in ancient Egypt? I mean, c’mon Hannity, don’t you remember what those ancient Egyptians believed in? Math! Science! They probably didn’t believe in Jesus either. Oh, wait, Jesus wasn’t born yet. But still, they didn’t believe in Jesus! No one should ever, ever eat their hamburger on a bun!

OK, Y&H is officially obsessed with this Ray’s Hell Burger business. I will no longer claim to stop the madness. And how can you when Jon Stewart delivers this zinger about Obama’s sludge-like ordering style? “I don’t care if you’re the president, no one in New York City is going to let you take that long to order a fucking burger.”

OK, I know y’all must feel like you’ve had it up to HERE with the Obama burger madness, but allow Y&H to add a final footnote to this presidential prole moment at Ray’s Hell Burgers. Michael Landrum, over at donrockwell.com, swears that this interchange occurred between him and the prez:

Actual true moment, and the most beautiful moment in my life—something that will never make it into the press—when the President sat down to eat, this was what was playing: click Harvest for the World. Can you believe that shit?

Me to the President: “I don’t know what’s on your I-Pod, but check out our soundtrack. Here we play the Isleys”

President to me: “Right on.”

No lie.

See Landrum’s other Rockwell note after that jump.

Read More “One Final Note on Obama’s Visit to Ray’s Hell Burgers” »

Michael Landrum has never been one to suck up to the rich and powerful, so to hear the owner of Ray’s Hell Burgers suddenly turn deferential to President Obama took Y&H by surprise. (Michael, I’ll have the cell phone on all night, so you can call and bitch about this intro.)

Getting info from the chronically talkative toque is usually easy. But when Obama and Biden visit Ray’s Hell Burgers? Waterboarding wouldn’t have parted Landrum’s lips.

Did the president’s staff call ahead to make arrangements or was this a surprise visit? “The less I say about how the president got here, the better,” Landrum says. What did Obama order? “He had a cheeseburger,” the owner allows. What kind of cheese? “Any details beyond that are his private business,” Landrum adds.

Read More “President and VP Waited in Line at Ray’s Just Like Everyone Else” »

The editors (aka, the Meat Grinders) are busy putting the final touches on this year’s Best of D.C. issue, even though all the picks have already been made, including a large number in the Food & Drink section. Personally, if you ask me, too much emphasis is placed on the Best Restaurant category.

Seriously, do any of you expect to be surprised by the winner of that category? Far more interesting to me is the Best New Restaurant pick. Despite the crappy economy, our market saw a wealth of new eateries open in the past year. Below the jump is a list of the restaurants under consideration for the honor. Which one do you think deserves top billing?

Read More “Best of D.C.: Which New Restaurant Deserves Top Honors?” »

The recent spate of new burger joints in the D.C. market has inspired the Washingtonian to debut a March Madness-like contest, Burger Brackets, which pits ground-beef sandwich vs. ground beef sandwich until an ultimate winner is crowned. Wanna bet that Ray’s Hell Burger takes top honors?

Regardless of its predictability, Burger Brackets is a great idea. I wish I would have thought of it. Few things rile readers up like a debate over hamburgers. Politics? War? Abortion? Opening presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morn? They all take a backseat to hamburgers. Eaters seem to cling to their favorites like a child to his mom’s apron strings. I have my faves, too, of course, but I mostly subscribe to the motto of Urban Burger’s David Calkins: “Burgers are like pizza and sex: Even bad experiences are pretty damn good.”

Read More “Alert Las Vegas: Washingtonian Debuts Burger Brackets in Time for March Madness” »

Thanks to a Huffington Post mention, Mike DeBonis‘ item last week about Adrian Fenty and Michelle Obama lunching at Georgia Brown’s took the top honors this week. After DeBonis’ upset win, the Top 5 settled down into the usual Young & Hungry mix of posts, which apparently aren’t good enough for Huffington.

1. Can You Blame the Economy for the Cameron Perks Tragedy?
2. Urban Bar-B-Que’s Brisket Rises to the Top of the Class
3. Komi: Best Restaurant in D.C. or ‘Overrated’?
4. El Pollo Rico: Is It a Magnet Because It’s Good or Hyped?
5. NPR’s Morning Edition Surprise: Ray’s Hell Burgers Will Survive the Economy!

If I may, allow me to boil down Yuki Noguchi’s Morning Edition report today on how local restaurants are surviving this vicious economy: creating affordable prix-fixe menus, doing more with lesser ingredients, and, well, being Micheal Landrum.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why NPR would choose to focus on only two restaurants, Ray’s Hell Burgers and 1789 Restaurant. The former is owned and operated by Landrum, who, by sheer act of will, philosophy, and maybe lunacy, sells a 10-ounce steakhouse burger for $6.95, a feat that no one restaurateur in town can match. The latter is owned by the Clyde’s Restaurant Group, which has far deeper pockets than your average neighborhood eatery looking to escape this economic quicksand.

Read More “NPR’s Morning Edition Surprise: Ray’s Hell Burgers Will Survive the Economy!” »