July 7, 2006
The Weekly Feed: Horseradish Edition
Wasabi Wa-opens
I have been searching for a good cafeteria-style Japanese place for a while. Since I'd be happy to go to Kotobuki every single day for lunch if it weren't in Outer Mongolia, the opening of Wasabi gives me great joy. Conveniently located at 17th and I Streets, NW, for you downtowners, it's a welcome addition to a scene dominated by places like the Park Place Gourmet. While my lunchtime map is roughly bordered by the Galileo Grill, Naan & Beyond, Breadline, and Couscous Café, I reckon I can walk an extra block or so to try this place where your waiter is a conveyer belt—just like all the waiters in the future.
Headed by Chef Miguel Choy, most recently of London's Yuzu and K10, Wasabi promises a casual dining experience with quality sushi. What's more, the concept provides a little less opportunity for public shame. Even though I love it, I can get a little intimidated ordering sushi. Are you supposed to try to say it in Japanese? Are you supposed to order at all, or just have the chef do whatever he wants? Why is Alton Brown's advice for eating sushi the complete opposite of what Tom says? By pulling your food off a belt, you take care of this problem. It doesn't care if you can't use chopsticks; it just wants to deliver you your uni efficiently.
The restaurant offers dine-in seating, bar-seating for the rushed and/or lonely, and a take out line for you folks who need to rush back to your computers to play Sudoku Combat. For the slightly more social, we recommend you take advantage of the nice weather, grab some sushi to go, settle in to Farragut Park and its free wireless, and check the latest posts on DCist. Hotties will flock to you, I promise.
Cathal Armstrong Holds Cooking Demonstration. Gridlock Likely, Consider Using Metro
Restaurant Eve chef-owner and recent Food and Wine honoree Cathal Armstrong will hold a free cooking demonstration this Saturday (July 8), from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Alexandria Balducci's.
Free? How could you pass this up? I haven't heard what he plans on cooking, but I hope it involves something we can all afford to make on a regular basis. For instance, I'd like to see Armstrong's best Ramen noodles or his most inventive and tasty Spam. What about pancakes for dinner? How about a dinner composed completely of microwave popcorn and the remains of a Natty Light keg? C'mon Armstrong, it's intern season! Most of them are poor-ass and could use some ideas that don't include "dress sluttier for free dinner and drinks." For more information, contact Balducci's at 703-549-6611.
Columbia Heights Wants Whole Foods
It looks like the powers-that-be at the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association are working to get a Whole Foods in all the new development up there. Not to disparage my many friends who live there, but are you for real? I just Google Map-ed it, and it's 1.65 miles to the P Street Whole Foods. That's what, about 35 minutes of walking? Also, there are tons of buses that stop right there! You get no sympathy from me, lazy Columbia Heights residents. What are you people going to want next, a Target?
Farmers' Market Tidbits
The Farmers' Markets are in full swing now, and this weekend will be somewhat temperate so you can enjoy browsing without sweating all over the produce. This Sunday's Dupont Circle market will feature a cooking demonstration by Jamie Stachowski from Restaurant Kolumbia, and next Thursday's Penn Quarter market will be attacked by a "giant paella." Do we even know what giant tastes like?
I've been out of town for a couple of weeks, but I heard some places have locally-grown tomatoes? Is this true, or just a vicious rumor? Is it time to make the 'mater salad? I'm going to be angry if those tomatoes are from South Carolina…
Picture of wasabi root from flickrite jetalone.
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actually, what's really bad about the columbia heights wanting a whole foods is that a harris teeter is going in right at 17th and Kalorama. Thats a much shorter walk for CH residents than my current 15-20 minutes to whole foods.
They're just getting greedy. How about opening some local shops folks!
i'm hooked on naan and beyond
Word. Naan and Beyond rocks.
Locally-grown greenhouse tomatoes have been available for some weeks already from growers like Twin Springs and Toigo. I saw the first field-grown tomatoes at the Takoma Park market this past Sunday, but they were stunted little things, at least partly green. I'd say that you have another two weeks before the full heirloom bounty starts to appear at the big markets, and the serious tomato salad season begins.
oh yeah, and i forgot, they already have the brand-spanking, still shiny, new-car smelling Giant up there!
Naan and Beyond is tasty.
There is absolutely no need for a Whole Foods in Columbia Heights. Don't forget the location in Glover Park, which is only a little further away than the P Street location.
As for this sushi place, there is also one of those conveyor belt joints in the Ballston mall.
Wheatland will have the first of their field tomatoes on Saturday at the Mount Pleasant Farmers market. Truckpatch may as well.
There's also Sushi Go Round at Gallery Place.
Ron, Chris, Right. More grocery stores in DC is a bad thing. Residents hoping to improve their neighborhood are whiny complainers with nothing better to do. More whole foods couldn't be a good idea when there's an overcrowded one a mile and a half away.
It's not a zero sum game. Residents in the columbia heights condos and apartments under construction, not to mention everyone on the green line, need a good place to shop for quality groceries. A metro-accessible whole foods (closer than tenleytown) can only help DC. Worst case for you: shorter lines at P street.
Neil- do you live in CH? Have you been to the new Giant? It's huge and has an increasingly large variety of reasonably priced organics. They also have the more gourmet, luxury items, although not in the quantity of Whole Foods.
In addition to the Whole Foods in easy walking distance we have 3 farmers markets within a mile to mile and a half depending on what part of CH you live in. Adams Morgan is getting a Harris Teeter. Does DC need more grocery stores? YES, does Columbia Heights, NO!
Why don't you advocate for a WF in a neighborhood that actually is starved for grocery stores-say Hillcrest (wealthy to middle class population, no grocery stores in the entire ward 8).
I grew up in a neighborhood that had 4 giant, abandoned big-box stores. It was a hot neighborhood at one point, but certainly wasn't by the time I was born and all the businesses had moved out. Nothing depresses real estate values like giant abandoned buildings. CH isn't going to be the next big thing forever, and when those people who bought $500,000 1 bdrm apartments realize that people are still getting shot on the corner, they're not go to stick around. What happens in 30 years when all of the stores they advocated for are no longer in demand? Let's advocate for sustainable growth in our neighborhood, and put up with walking a few extra blocks to WF.
e,
I go to the Giant regularly. I live in Columbia Heights. I have no interest in advocating grocery stores for hillcrest. In fact, I don't have much interest in advocating any grocery stores at all; my concern is only with this sentiment that the existing grocery stores are sufficient or that the (some?) people of columbia heights deserve criticism for being selfish and not content with already crowded grocery stores miles away.
You don't get to pick which grocery store goes where. If I could wave a magic wand and give Hillcrest the grocery store of their choice, I would do so. If I could get a Trader Joe's nearby, I would will it to be so. If I could import uwajimaya to chinatown, kazap! my magic wand would make it so. But alas, we are not all-powerful.
When a group of people get together to try to make things better for themselves and for their neighbors, we should support them, or at least, not stand in their way. There's an opportunity here, and I think "yes, whole foods" is far better then "no whole foods". I don't think these opportunities come along all that often.
I'm sure everyone in this conversation has read the new york times piece that includes an (albeit anecdotal) price comparison.
You make an interesting argument (implicit in your post) that we should keep whole foods away so that we can support farmers markets... probably the best one I've heard.