Michael Landrum has been getting some flak lately over his portobello mushroom caps.

Landrum’s Arlington eatery, Ray’s the Steaks, offers a slew of entrées for diners to choose from, including 21 different plates of beef and four kinds of seafood dishes.

But, if you happen to be vegetarian, the ’shrooms, marinated in balsamic vinegar, grilled and plated on a recent evening with eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, grilled onions, and blue cheese, are your one and only option.

As a guy who makes no bones about his meat-centric business, Landrum would hope that the meatless crowd could simply appreciate the effort. “We’re trying here,” he says.

To the contrary, he says, some people “take great offense that someone would dare offer grilled portobello mushroom as a vegetarian option, and that it’s somehow lacking.” Landrum is baffled by this. He notes, “Twenty years ago, 10 years ago, [the portobello] was the most exciting thing in the vegetarian world.”

To a beef-focused entrepreneur like Landrum, the portobello’s burger-like shape and meaty texture probably seems like a no-brainer. To the modern vegetarian diner, however, it seems like an afterthought, what with the farm-to-table movement elevating other produce—such as heirloom squash and purple cauliflower—to newfound prominence.

But appeasing the veg-heads was never really the point, Landrum says. Putting the standalone fungus on his steakhouse menu isn’t about attracting vegetarians at all. To the contrary, it’s about not losing steak eaters.

Landrum explains his single-veggie-entrée strategy like this: Say a family of five walks into his restaurant one night. Mom, dad, and two of the kids are all carnivores. But the third child doesn’t eat meat. If Landrum’s menu doesn’t cater to her tastes in some way, he risks losing the whole group. “I have five family members who otherwise wouldn’t be here,” he says.

There’s a term for this form of minority rule in dining. It’s called the vegetarian veto vote.

It’s an idea that Erica Meier talks up quite often. “It’s just the concept that when a group of people are choosing where to dine out, that the majority rarely rules,” says Meier, executive director of the Takoma Park-based nonprofit animal-rights group Compassion Over Killing. Part of Meier’s job involves lobbying local restaurants to include more meatless options on their menus. Earlier this year, her organization launched a new campaign providing comment cards that diners can casually leave alongside their bill to encourage restaurant managers to expand their menu offerings to include vegetarian and vegan dishes.

On a recent afternoon, Meier was on the phone with the manager of Julia’s Empanadas, asking the kitchen to trade in its traditional egg wash for an egg-free substitute in order to make the eatery’s vegetarian empanadas amenable to patrons who are following an even stricter vegan diet.

Meier takes credit for helping to convince some 35 Baltimore- and D.C.-area restaurants to create or enhance vegan menu options. For her purposes, the vegetarian veto vote is a persuasive part of the overall argument.

It’s not exactly an easy sell. Many chefs and restaurateurs are reluctant to forgo precious menu space on full-size plates of mushrooms and tofu—items traditionally viewed as loss leaders.

“I’ve only got six or so spaces,” says chef Kyle Bailey, “so I want to make sure I cover everything”—everything, that is, except a main course to please the meatless crowd, which his Logan Circle restaurant Birch & Barley entirely lacks. The restaurant does accommodate special orders for vegetarians, but those are rare. According to Bailey, the kitchen fields just one or two requests a night. “Because the majority of people want fish and want meat, we have to make sure that we cater to those people, too,” he says.

The threat of a vegetarian veto doesn’t concern Bailey nearly as much as losing money. “I think there’s also a fear,” he says. “What if you only sell two [vegetarian entrées] a night? That is a failure. That’s a failure rate for any other dish.”

But Meier contends that the numbers are moving in her favor. While only a small segment of U.S. population identify as vegetarian—less than eight million of the more than 300 million Americans—Meier notes that an additional 22.8 million are “vegetarian inclined,” according to a 2008 study sponsored by meatless advocacy magazine Vegetarian Times. This suggests that many omnivores are apt to skip the animal protein when presented with another option.

And the more vegetarian offerings that are readily available, Meier says, the more people who are willing to try them—regardless of whether those people are vegetarian or not.

“The power of using the vegetarian or vegan vote is behind the growing number of people who are looking for these options,” Meier says.

In D.C., in particular, the numbers are even more favorable to Meier’s cause. LivingSocial, the Washington-based daily-deals site, surveyed 20 major cities this past September and concluded that D.C.’s “preference” for vegetarian and vegan fare ranks number one, with eight percent of diners identifying as vegetarian or vegan, compared to just five percent nationwide.

At Eatonville, restaurateur Andy Shallal’s Southern-inspired eatery on 14th Street NW, Meier’s lobbying ultimately culminated in the addition of a vegan jerk-marinated tofu entrée sold for $15. General Manager Michael Woods says he was initially skeptical about how well the meat substitute would fare at a place better known for fried chicken and baby-back ribs. While the tofu is by no means a top-seller—accounting for about five percent of entrée sales at Eatonville this past October, Woods says—the vegan dish isn’t the restaurant’s worst performer, either, even outselling the grilled salmon.

Danny Bortnick, executive chef at Firefly in Dupont Circle, doesn’t need a lobbyist to tell him the stats on vegetarianism in the District. “We have a lot of vegetarian customers and the sales show,” says Bortnick.

Firefly is that rare D.C. restaurant, not labeled as vegetarian-specific, which nonetheless offers not one but two meatless entrées on the menu. “For a long time we just did one and it just kind of came to mind that vegetarians come here and essentially eat the same thing every time but meat eaters have tons of choices,” Bortnick says. “It just didn’t make sense to me.”

On his seasonally rotating menu, Bortnick now generally keeps a starch-based entrée—most recently, a kuri squash and porcini mushroom risotto—and one shining with vegetables, demonstrated by late-season eggplant reuniting with mozzarella and tomato. Sales aren’t awful. Combined, these two items accounted for about 18 percent, or nine percent each, of entrées sales last month, he says.

Other D.C. eateries that offer vegetarian-friendly entrées report similarly steady, if not stellar, sales of those items. At Ripple in Cleveland Park, chef Logan Cox makes agnolotti to showcase the über-seasonal vegetable of the moment, currently pairing beets and olives with tarragon and ricotta. This rotating pasta dish accounts for about 20 percent of overall entrée sales, he says.

At Café Saint-Ex on 14th Street, where a recent kitchen expansion finally allowed chef Billy Klein enough refrigerator room to offer a permanent menu slot for a meatless plate, the sweet corn risotto cakes aren’t just taking up space. Burgers generally account for 50 percent of sales. But of the rest, the cakes represented about 17 percent of sales last month, Klein says.

At Ray’s the Steaks, meanwhile, the dubious portobello dish fares pretty poorly. The restaurant regularly cranks out between 3,000 to 3,500 covers a week, Landrum says, but only eight to 15 of those diners order the vegetarian entrée.

As much as Landrum respects the vegetarian veto, he’s not naïve enough to offer something he can’t afford not to sell. Of the portobello, Landrum says, “I could afford to run at a loss and still recover my costs on alternative uses.” Leftovers provide heft to the mixed-mushroom side dish and eggplants appear in kitchen staff meals, he notes.

“Despite public opinion,” Landrum jokes about his image as an anti-establishment restaurateur, “I think that it’s a necessary service for every restaurant to offer the most hospitable environment for all guests, even the not frequently occurring occasion of a vegetarian diner.”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

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

Ray's the Steaks at East River

Logo courtesy of Ray's the Steaks East River

Dishes We Dug

Dishes We Didn't: Hot dog nuggets at Nathan's Famous. We should know better.

Best Lack of Congressional Representation-Related Tie-in at a D.C. Watering Hole: "No Taxation Without Fermentation," the week-long American Craft Beer Week celebration at Smith Commons on H Street NE begins Monday. "In a place where a taxpaying citizen can’t get full representation in Congress, it is possible to get some pretty amazing American Crafted Beer," according to last week's release.

Most Dubiously Titled Charity Event at a D.C.-Area Restaurant: "Eat a Chicken, Save a Breast." The Bungalow in Arlington and its sister restaurants announced last week a fund-raising campaign to donate the proceeds of "certain chicken dishes" and t-shirt sales throughout June to breast cancer research. Good cause, cringe-worthy branding.

Photo by Chris Shott

By his own estimate, Don Rockwell eats approximately 700 restaurant meals a year, spending nearly $30,000 of his modest computer consultant’s salary at high and low-end establishments alike. Rockwell reviews many of those meals in minute detail on his eponymous food board, which he founded in 2005 and which has become a prime local destination for chefs, sommeliers, restaurateurs, and diners, many of whom engage with DonRockwell.com on a weekly or daily basis.

Between his prodigious eating habits and his online gastronomic gathering place, Rockwell has accumulated a lot of knowledge about the local dining scene—and the people and organizations that comprise it. He knows, for example, that many of the folks who have waited on him and cooked for him lack health insurance. He knows the frustrations of restaurant owners who must battle the District’s bureaucracy to even open for business. And he especially knows about their frustrations with the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, the trade group established to promote and protect the hospitality industry’s interests.

One of those exasperated restaurateurs is Michael Landrum, the man behind Ray’s the Steaks, Ray’s the Classics, and Ray’s Hell Burger. His regular comments on Rockwell’s boards include this Oct. 28 salvo, fired the day after RAMW split with its parent organization, the National Restaurant Association: “They are a self-serving, parasitical organization where often-times the parasite has grown larger than its hosts. They are openly hostile to employee’s rights,” Landrum wrote. “One thing to be clear, they do not, do not, represent or work on behalf of independent restaurants, restaurant workers, farmers or chefs.”

In an interview, Landrum levels a few other charges. “RAMW is an organization that uses its substantial financial clout to enrich itself,” he tells me. What’s more, he adds, the organization’s “political agenda is hostile to what most people would consider the interests of the restaurant community as a whole.”

By that, Landrum means that RAMW’s lobbying hasn’t always represented the best interests of either restaurant workers or restaurant eaters. Fighting against a higher minimum wage, for instance, may please owners, but it undercuts the line cooks, bussers, and others employees who rely on those meager salaries. Likewise, RAMW’s efforts to exempt bartenders and wait staff from the District’s Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act of 2008 took away basic rights from hundreds of workers. And RAMW efforts directed at battling food trucks, smoking bans, and menu labels have also tended to favor traditional brick-and-mortar owners over everyone from street vendors to diners who’d prefer clean restaurant air.

Rockwell doesn’t have answers for all of these issues, or even most of them, but does have a vision for the future of the local hospitality industry. He has tentatively started an organization, the Association of Independent Restaurants, which will attempt to harness the collective power of the area’s independent restaurants to assist both management and workers. Rockwell wants to offer discount group health insurance for line cooks, wait staff, bar backs, and everyone else who needs it. He wants to put quality ingredients in the hands of smaller restaurants by pooling their purchases and negotiating lower prices. He wants to help employees get work visas, and he wants to help restaurateurs negotiate the cumbersome process of establishing an eatery in the District and elsewhere.

Rockwell is still a long way from accomplishing these goals. At present, he doesn’t have an office, employees, a budget, or even a solid business plan. He just has a domain name (air-dc.com) and a desire. “I see a need that needs to be filled, and I want to fill it,” Rockwell says over lunch at Circle Bistro last week. “I view [AIR] as more a complementary thing than a takeover attempt” of RAMW.

What Rockwell does have, however, is the support from some influential people in the industry, like Landrum, chef Eric Ziebold of CityZen, and Cathal Armstrong at Restaurant Eve.

He also has his own frustrations with the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington to motivate him. Like the annual RAMMY awards, where it remains a mystery as to how or why a restaurant earns a win or gets nominated. Or the association’s bi-annual Restaurant Week, in which participating RAMW members offer three-course lunch and dinner menus for around $20 and $35 respectively. Rockwell, for one, thinks this is not a deal for anyone, unless they’re dining at one of the area’s few fine-dining palaces.

“I think the dining public is being absolutely duped by this,” he says. He’d like his organization to work with restaurants to offer discount menus year-around, perhaps at off hours or on slow week days.

Restaurant Week is sore spot for some restaurateurs, too. Not only do owners have to pay a fee to participate in Restaurant Week (typically $500) and offer meal discounts, but ever since RAMW started steering people to OpenTable to book reservations, restaurateurs must pay a $1 fee for each person who goes through the online service. The money adds up quickly, biting into whatever profit may be available during the week. Bob Kinkead, the Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Kinkead’s in Foggy Bottom, says his payments to OpenTable will usually double or triple to nearly $3,000 a month during the promotion, which often runs longer than a week.

Kinkead, like other restaurateurs I spoke with, has mixed feelings about RAMW. He’s a past board member who understands what RAMW does well and what it doesn’t. He believes the association does a good job of preventing governments from raiding the pocketbooks of local restaurateurs when budgets fall short. At the same time, Kinkead thinks RAMW didn’t fight hard enough to stop the city from raising parking meter fees and extending their hours into the evening, thereby hammering downtown eateries.

The interesting thing about Kinkead is that he’s no sideline critic. In the late 1990s, he and some fellow restaurateurs created the Council of Independent Restaurants of America, a nationwide organization designed to battle the major chains. At one point, CIRA had chapters in 17 cities, including the District, where its membership peaked at about 50 establishments.

CIRA’s ambitions were similar to those of Don Rockwell and his budding association. CIRA tried to establish health care coverage for the employees of its 100-plus restaurant members (it proved almost impossible to find a policy to cover workers in the various states, Kinkead says); it tried to create a central ordering system for restaurants so members could take advantage of group purchasing rates (some cities already had companies performing this function, Kinkead says; chefs in other cities sometimes couldn’t agree on what ingredients to purchase); and it even tried its hand at expediting to help owners negotiate the Byzantine bureaucracy necessary to get restaurants open (lawyers already have this market well covered).

In the end, Kinkead says, the local chapter of CIRA was undone by the kind of things that bring down most such organizations: a lack of funds and a chronic inability to reach consensus. CIRA remains alive in other areas, Kinkead says, mostly smaller towns where members are willing to put aside their own needs for the greater good of the chapter. The veteran restaurateur believes one factor will determine whether Rockwell succeeds with AIR: “If he’s extremely well funded, there’s not a reason why it shouldn’t work,” Kinkead says. “If not, don’t bother, buddy.”

But another industry insider expresses a separate worry about Rockwell’s budding venture: Should AIR get traction, assemble a healthy number of dues-paying members, and start offering insurance and group purchasing, it could step on the toes of some powerful interests. The hotel and restaurant workers union, not to mention the companies that already offer group buying, would not sit idly and watch AIR take over their markets. “In the beginning,” says the source, “I don’t think anybody’s going to pay very much attention because [AIR] is so small.” But should AIR grow, Rockwell needs to be prepared for battle.

At the same time, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington will not be standing still, either. The group no doubt has heard about the situation in New York City, where a number of high-profile restaurateurs including Stephen Hanson and Keith McNally recently started the NYC Hospitality Coalition to serve as a complement to the local chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association. The question here, of course, is this: How long will it take before this “complementary” organization becomes an actual competitor, fighting for the limited number of dues-paying members and donors.

Lynne Breaux, a former restaurateur herself, is the president of the non-profit RAMW. As the leader of the association with more than 650 members in the District and Northern Virginia, Breaux oversees an organization that took in $1.26 million during fiscal 2009. Far from being a group that cares only for owners and management, Breaux says, RAMW also looks out for workers. The association has a lawyer available for members to help them secure work visas for employees. Earlier in its history, Breaux notes, RAMW also offered group health insurance for restaurant workers and is looking into the proposition again. “It’s down the road,” she says. (A RAMW board member who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the association had a “substantial conversation” last week about a group health plan for workers.)

But Breaux is clearly aware that RAMW has its detractors, whether Landrum and his belief that RAMW lives to enrich itself (Breaux, incidentally, earned about $161,000 last year as president) or restaurateurs who are frustrated by the economics of Restaurant Week (Breaux says the group is talking to OpenTable about lowering its rates). “Maybe you can’t please everybody all the time,” she says.

That may be a lesson Don Rockwell will learn when the Association of Independent Restaurants finally gets off the ground. Or will it get off the ground? Or will local restaurateurs and their employees be forced to live with the imperfect work of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington? Michael Landrum has an opinion on this.

“I think there’s nothing that Don can’t accomplish once he sets his mind to it,” Landrum says.

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com. Or call (202) 650-6925.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Before it became base camp for an army of celebrity chefs, the District’s restaurant scene was ruled by steakhouses—big, gaudy ones where the size of your porterhouse determined your status. These were steakhouses for politicos, lobbyists, fundraisers, and influence peddlers, folks eating large on someone else’s nickel.

With stints at Morton’s and the Capital Grille, Michael Landrum got to know the scene so well that, when he started his own steakhouse, he undermined the entire bloated concept. Landrum’s original Ray’s the Steaks in Arlington was the anti-Palm: zero ambiance, but affordable, wet-aged cuts of beef.

Landrum has since become a local celebrity. But even as he opened one Ray’s after another, he was constantly planning a project to give back to his community. First, it was going to be part of his Ray’s the Catch concept in Arlington. Then it morphed a stand-alone project in Ward 7: Ray’s the Steaks at East River.

If the original Ray’s was the inverse of a D.C. steakhouse, then the one in East River, I’d argue, is a true D.C. steakhouse­—run and managed and fussed over by longtime Washingtonians. You know, the ones marginalized not only by the federal government, but also by the local transients who’d rather drink battery acid than cross the Anacostia.

“I opened a restaurant where I could serve the food that I really love to eat myself, working off the core menus of the other Ray’s restaurants but with a much more down-home, well-seasoned, and easily accessible—but still unique—approach,” says Landrum.

Ray’s the Steaks at East River may be D.C.’s first soul-food steakhouse. You won’t find creamed spinach here. But there are collard greens, mac ’n’ cheese, and sweet-potato fries. It’s a steakhouse that serves fried chicken —organic, free range chicken that’s smoked then fried. It’s a steakhouse that serves a rib-eye for $18.95 and gives you a house salad and two sides. It’s a steakhouse designed around value and respect, not power. “The exact same portions on our classic cuts are served with prices adjusted downward to allow for as many people from the community to enjoy a great steak as possible,” Landrum tells me.

So what’s in it for Landrum? Here’s his grand, and grandiloquent, answer: “To have the pleasure of seeing the incredible potential of those around me explode in an expression of talent, achievement, and accomplishment that otherwise might never be given the opportunity to shine.”

3905 Dix St. NE (202) 396-7297

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The mayoral election may be a referendum on D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her role in transforming the school district, but I'd like to conduct a mini-referendum on her taste in food. According to a DCist interview that I'm just catching up with, the chancellor singled out these restaurants as her favorites:

Well my new favorite restaurant is Ray's the Steaks, where Kevin [Johnson, Rhee's fiance] and I went, and now I've been a couple of times, because I had a phenomenal prime rib there. Me and the girls, our old standby is D.C. Coast, my girls love that place. We also like Zentan, because when Kevin comes to town he stays at the Donovan House, so it's just convenient to eat there. The girls also love House of Prayer, which is this restaurant that is in the bottom of a church, at the United House of Prayer. Oh my gosh, they have the best soul food in the District. It's at M and 7th, I want to say. They have the best food ever there. Kevin's favorite place to go on the weekends is the breakfast place at Eastern Market, so we go there a lot too.

Based on these picks alone, I'd have to say I approve of Rhee's taste in restaurants.

Sure, D.C. Coast is an obvious, K Street power spot and Zentan is another celebrity chef cash grab, but Ray's the Steaks is an inspired, counterintuitive choice. It was a steakhouse created specifically to counter the power puffery and pricey-ness of the downtown meat emporiums. And the United House of Prayer? Anyone who decides to lunch at the church's Saints Paradise Cafeteria, where "love is our main ingredient," clearly knows something about where people eat in this town. That scores plenty of points with me.

Where do you stand on Rhee's dining choices, Y&H Nation?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

While reporting out this week's column on the 2011 Zagat guide, I talked to Michael Landrum, who's something of a student of the biennial survey. He surprised me early in our conversation when he said:

Ray’s the Steaks never deserved to be a 27-rated restaurant, as much as I’d like to say this, but it received a Zagat’s 27 rating for six years running, which to me was embarrassing on a personal level, to see my Zagat rating being at the same level as something like Restaurant Eve or Corduroy or people who do much stronger culinary work from what we do at Ray’s the Steaks. This year, we dropped to 26, which I think is a more appropriate level and still very very complimentary to us...

I was somewhat surprised by Landrum's comment, given the nature of the democratic Zagat survey, in which any restaurant, regardless of its complexity, can technically score 30 points. I told Landrum that if a more casual restaurant, like Ray's, performs its job to perfection, no matter its limited culinary ambitions, the place should be rewarded 30 points. That's how Zagat should work.

Landrum clarified his stance:

"I think like in diving, there’s a degree-of-difficulty factor.”

But there's not, I interrupt Landrum.

“But there should be," he counters. "Ray’s the Steaks is an outlying example, because we do excel at what we do to a very, very high standard that does warrant a 27, but where I said 'embarrassment,' I mean that sort of in comparison with some of my peers, where the degree of difficulty in what they do is much higher than what we do, and that’s not necessarily reflected in the Zagat’s score."

"In diving," Landrum continues, "they rate whatever points the judges give you, the 9 or 8, and they multiple that by the degree of difficulty factor and what that dive is rated at."

But they don't do that with Zagat, I interrupt again.

"If there was a degree-of-difficulty factor in the Zagat rating for the food quality, a place like Corduroy would be rated a little higher and a place like Ray’s the Steaks would be rated a little lower."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Michael Landrum gobbles up more kitchen talent

It didn't take Frank Morales long to land on his feet. Just weeks after parting ways with Jackie Greenbaum and her industrial go-go/modern American eatery, Jackie's in Silver Spring, Morales found a new gig. It's our lead item in this edition of Food News You Can Use:

• Michael Landrum hires Morales to be director of culinary operations over all his Ray's themed restaurants. (GoG)  
• The Columbia Heights farmers market — excuse me, Columbia Heights Community Marketplace — will launch on June 5. (PoP)
• Egads! More cupcake competitions. (Washingtonian)

• A two-floor restaurant (with lofts above) is planned for Dupont Circle. (DCmud)
• Spike Mendelsohn will square off against Michael Symon on Iron Chef America on March 7. (Top Shelf)
• FOOD magazine editor is in hot water with her contributors. (All We Can Eat)
• Calvin Trillin's New Yorker piece on the mysterious Peter Chang has Team Rockwell scrambling to find copies of the magazine — or a photocopy of the story or, hell, even a cut-and-paste job. (Self-promotion alert: Y&H is mentioned in the story, too.) (DonRockwell)
• Kushi is set to mix it up (sushi with grilled meats, that is) next week in Mount Vernon Square. (Zagat) 
• Mount Vernon Square will also see the soft opening of Bar 7,which wants to cover all your nightlife needs. (Urban Daddy)
• Jump on the pisco party bus. (Thrillist)
• Posh and Polly's push up daisies. (GoG)
• Create a new Dunkin' Donut, win $12,000. (Endless Simmer)
• Restaurant Vero absorbs the last juices at Tap & Vine (Gut Check)
• Sushi Rock to launch your stage career next month in former Yaku space. (Y&H)

The Five Guys burger in all its unfiltered glory

We're down to the wire on the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame contest. You have only until Friday to cast your vote.

As you likely know by now, the top five dishes will be part of the hall's inaugural class, with more plates to be inducted in the years to come. As it stands, the leaderboard remains virtually the same from last week's, although the falafel from Amsterdam is quietly challenging the half-smoke from Ben's for the top spot. The Falafelshop is probably gaming the system, but, hell, that's the problem with public online contests.

Just as troubling: As the contest winds down, Y&H has been revisiting some of the leading dishes (see, ahem, the above photo) in preparation for writing a recap about this madness. During my visits, I've found myself confronted by some tough questions, such as:

Do we really want the current iteration of the Five Guys burger to serve as D.C.'s calling card? Does a restaurant's longevity automatically make its food worthy of Hall of Fame status?

It's not like we can go back on our promise to induct the winners, although one Y&H reader, Rob, suggested that very idea to me:

I would vote to remove 5 Guys from the list. The chain is not local anymore, even though they started out that way. Should we have McDonalds on the list then?

To be fair, the site of the original McDonald'sin San Bernardino, Calif., has been turned into a museum, which goes way beyond a simple online Hall of Fame vote, but I get your point, Rob. I'd be curious on what the rest of you think. Chime in via e-mail and let me know your thoughts.

Meanwhile, here's the leaderboard:

1. Half-smoke with chili at Ben's Chili Bowl, 399 votes
2. Falafel at Amsterdam Falafelshop, 349
3. Hamburger at Five Guys, 223
4. Peruvian chicken at El Pollo Rico, 161
5. Margherita pizza at 2Amys, 148
6. Burger from Ray's Hell Burger, 125
7. Salty oat cookie at Teaism, 124
8. Pho at Pho 75, 115
9. Palak chaat at Rasika, 112
10. Fried whiting at Horace & Dickie's, 104
11. Atomica pizza at Pizzeria Paradiso, 87
12. Chicken croquetas at Jaleo, 83
13. Cowboy-cut bone-in ribeye at Ray's the Steaks, 71
14. Spit-roasted goat at Komi, 65
15. Lobster burger at Central Michel Richard, 60

Only four more days to go, so get votingif you want to see that leaderboard flip.

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