May 7, 2008
Wine on the Go
Maybe you've got a 20-year old bottle of Burgundy chilling in your wine cellar that you want to drink for a special dinner out. Or, you just want to order something nice off the wine list. Up until now, D.C. ABC regulations dictated that you can't carry any remainder out of the restaurant. So of course, most folks would either try to finish the whole thing, leave it behind, or stealthily hand it off to some other lucky diner. This leaves you with the options of dangerous, wasteful, or illegal.
But in case you missed the news briefly noted this morning, this silly regulation looks to be going away. The D.C. Council Tuesday voted to allow restaurants to re-cork wine and place it in a tamper-proof, single-use plastic bag (like these). The Examiner quotes Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry as the surprising voice of reason here: "If you buy a very expensive bottle of wine and you can’t carry it with you, you tend to drink it. And you may get drunk. And then you’re out there driving while drunk."
This is great news for wine lovers and restaurants alike. No waste for consumers and higher sales for restaurants. And with so many more wine-centric restaurants, wine bars and more to come, this change comes at just the right time.
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i feel bad for that bottle of wine. it looks so sad and miserable in there. it doesn't have to end this way.
Leave it to the resident expert on substance abuse, automobile maintenance, and unusual driving habits to be the voice of reason on the Council.
Well, we have to trust Mr. Barry and his experience.
Me too! Isn't wine supposed to be able to breathe??
By the way, whatever happened to the weekly wine articles DCist used to have?
the bigger question is, can we take wine TO restaurants in DC? i've done this before in NYC and it worked out swell. for a small cork fee, you take your own vino to the restaurant, the waiter opens it and you just enjoy it with your meal. anyone know the deal for DC? anyone? bueller?
I don't believe there's anything in DC law that specifically prevents a person from bringing a bottle of wine to a restaurant. I think it's simply up to the restaurant whether it allows that or not.
i couldn't agree more, ViciousTrish. we need more BYO restaurants in DC. lots of 'em. as well as restaurants that serve good tasting food.
I've definitely seen that pic before. It's from the obscure German oenophilia asphyxiation video, "Chardonnay Chokers in Heat [Entartete Rheinwein Erdrosselnerin]."
Charlie Palmer and Dino both allow BYOW, the latter with a corkage fee, so there's no law prohibiting it in DC.
thanks, mono. helpful info.
um, that link talked mainly about some place called "Arlington". isn't that where the cemetery is? do they serve food at the cemetery?
correct me if i'm wrong, but if a restaurant allows you to BYO, they don't need a liquor license and therefore save money? or do they make more money by serving $30 bottles of Robert Mondavi?
the bigger question is, can we take wine TO restaurants in DC? [snip] anyone know the deal for DC?
As far as I know there is no specific law prohibiting it, but restaurants generally only allow you to bring in a wine they don't offer. Corkage fees vary by restaurant, with some not charging corkage at all under certain conditions. DCist also had an article on this a while back.
Drink Up,
HR
The Arlington Cemetary snack bar is a favorite haunt of mine. I highly recommend the dead man's leg poutine with a dry, crisp pinot grigio.
You don't want wine to breathe while in storage. Oxidation speeds spoilage (and increases the likelihood of hangover), which is why there are things like Vac-u-Vin.
If only we could import some of this sensibleness to Montgomery County!
(Love the tamper-proof plastic bag. I guess that's to prevent teenagers with trust funds from buttonholing people on their way into Cork: "Hey, man, could you help me out with a bottle of French chardonnay? Something nice and minerally, not too oaky... I got $50 right here...")
engineergirl, our old wine columnists got a little burned out and had to step away from it. If you know anyone who'd be interesting in starting it back up again, they should email me at sommer (at) dcist.com
i want to come up with something snarky here, but i can't. kudos, mr. barry, for helping push through some intelligent legislation.
As I said previously, I am dumbfounded that CM Grahamstand was opposed to this...he hasn't met an ABC establishment that he doesn't like and this would only serve to assist ABC establishments, ie: someone might now purchase an entire bottle of wine (at a ridiculously marked up price) instead of just a glass...you gotta think the restaurants are gonna love this which makes no sense that CM Grahamstand would oppose it....but then again he does a lot stuff that makes no sense...
http://www.winedoggybag.com/statelaws.htm#MD
If a movie called "Vac-u-Vin Sluts" doesn't exist, it needs to.
Oh, snap! Too late. They already made it.
Oh, PLEASE can we have some restaurants that serve good-tasing food on a regular basis and are reasonably priced? Oh, and in a nice atmosphere?
I moved here from Philly 4 years ago, and I still miss the restaurants. So here's a question: is the food in DC so remarkably mediocre because we don't really have a restaurant culture, or do we lack a restaurant culture because the food we're served is so mediocre? Discuss.
It's already been discussed. Verdict: if you think the food in DC is mediocre, you're looking in the wrong places.
Sonoma also waives their corkage fee on Sundays, though I think there's a limit of two bottles per table.
Man, there is nothing like a picture of a wine bottle in a catheter bag to get me thinking about the weekend!
[Insert humorous comment here about wine columnists get "burned out" and the recent increase in homeless population at some downtown DC park.]
so is it still technically an open container through a pissed-off cops eyes? i would hate to be on the metro with a couple of those puppies and get detained for carrying open booze around with me.
Yes, I'm pretty sure that's the case. Where I grew up (South Jersey) almost every restaurant is BYOB becuase liquor licenses are either difficult or expensive to get there.
@AdamsMorgan: I think Graham's main opposition was that someone was daring to offer legislation dealing with alcohol - something he views as his personal and exclusive fiefdom. And Graham suffered the indignity of losing on two consecutive alcohol-related bills. So Graham did what he usually does when he doesn't have the votes - he proposed holding a hearing, rather than enacting the proposed legislation. The other council members said no dice. They voted. Graham lost and pouted.
Verdict: if you think the food in DC is mediocre, you're looking in the wrong places.
Seconded.
However I will grant you that some things you take for granted in Philly (good sandwiches) are hard to come by in DC and are only available if you know where to look. Same with restaurants, you have to work a little harder to find good ones; but they do exist in DC at all price points.
DC has some good midrange-and-up restaurants. Good, cheap lunch options, though, are sadly lacking. It's been four years and I still miss Portland's lunch carts with diverse, healthy, veg-friendly food to go, for under $8.
That photo reminds me of the scene near the begining of the first Nightmare on Elm Street where Nancy is dreaming she's in a classroom and her recently dead classmate is in a body bag next to hear saying "Naaaaaancy....Naaaaaacy"
God that image haunted me for many, many years. Thanks a lot WPIX's Shocktoberfest.
My biggest gripe about the DC restaurant scene is the high price of wine, which I consider a real deterrent to eating out often. I would love it if we would develop a BYOB culture as Philadelphia has.
Or failing that, just please offer a reasonably-priced house wine. I'm sick of places where the cheapest bottle on the menu is $35, which with tax and tip is closer to $50. Bistrot du Coin is one of the handful of places that offer carafe wines in the European style, and they are packed every night. If restuarants want butts in seats, don't make us pay through the nose just to enjoy some simple wine with our meals.
I (heart) the WPIX reference! Bring back the Yule Log! Heartless secular progressive anti-Americans!
It's not that I've never had a good meal in DC, but for the most part I've been underimpressed by the selection here. It's taken me 4 years to come up with a handful of restaurants that I would consider really excellent and not terribly expensive. The other issue is that restaurants here are often inconsistent -- I'll go once and have a fabulous meal, but the next time it will be bland as anything.
The bigger issue for me is the lack of a specific restaurant culture like you have in places like Philly (centered around BYOs, not sandwich shops -- although I also miss the lunch trucks!), Chicago, and New Orleans (just choosing those 3 b/c they're the ones I'm most familiar with). In those places, going out to dinner with a group of friends is often the main part of the evening, with maybe a couple of drinks afterwards -- it's all about good company, good food, and good wine. It's not that people don't do that here, but they seem to do it much less frequently. Of course, those places also have a serious food culture. Those folks like to eat!
The Yule Log has been back for the past few years, btw.. in HD, too!
It's not that I've never had a good meal in DC, but for the most part I've been underimpressed by the selection here.
A valid criticism. I have a three year old and don't go out nearly as often as I used to, so the lack of selection is much less of an issue for people like me.
The bigger issue for me is the lack of a specific restaurant culture like you have in places like Philly (centered around BYOs, not sandwich shops -- although I also miss the lunch trucks!), Chicago, and New Orleans (just choosing those 3 b/c they're the ones I'm most familiar with).
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that there isn't a unifying culinary tradition in DC or that there isn't a whole DC restaurant social scene/culture with a lot "celebrity" chef star fucking?
I think the restaurant culture issue can be traced in part to the dissipation of downtown ethnic enclaves. Philly, Chi, and to some extent New Orleans still have theirs. DC used to have Italian, Jewish, and Chinese populations, but they all migrated to the suburbs. With the imminent closure of the Wah Luck House retirement community, Chinatown will be Chinatown in name only. Even much of the working class Black cuisine has either died on the vine or moved to P.G. In the 1950s, there used to be fish frys all along the Maine Avenue waterfront (local croaker and catfish deepfried in pure lard). The only remnant of that culture is Horace & Dickies, and they get their fish flown in from South America.
The consistency issue can be traced to both servers/cooks that come and go at will, as well as the mercurial taste of the customers. Many ethnic restaurants have to dumb-down their cuisine for mainstream tastes, or expand their menu to cover food they aren't necessarily good at, yet have to carry. Pick any restaurant in DC and they are guaranteed to offer a hamburger, a chicken caesar salad, and some kind of halfassed vegetarian entree. All three are usually pretty lousy, yet there they are, because people keep insisting that they serve that stuff, regardless of how crappy it is. The classic example is the steakhouse vegetarian option, usually some lame salad or vegetables boiled all to hell, which forces the question: what is a vegetarian doing in a steakhouse in the first place? Bewildering.
Contrast that with, say Baltimore, which still retains a decent Little Italy and a Greektown. Went to a little place called The Akropolis this weekend and had octopus in garlic and olive oil, saganaki, perfectly fried calamari, pastitsio, and an excellent house wine for less than what I'd pay for a couple plates of precious chichi at The Source, and the old Greek dude liked us so much he threw in some kickass baklava. These are people who like to eat and like to feed people who like to eat! In DC, it's all about how much cash you can throw around, how expensive the ingredients are, and whether the head chef has his own show on the Food Network. To that, all I can say is, "Eat me."
Nice points monkey. As for Baltimore, I have to say that, generally speaking, Little Italy is not what it was like many years ago. I think that Little Italy is buoyed by the continual interest in Italian cuisine, its popularity, and its proximity to the Inner Harbor. The area did not face the crime problems DC's Chinatown had that resulted in a Chinese flight to the suburbs. Also most restaurants in Little Italy are now largely staffed by Eastern Europeans and not Italians.
It's also possible to suggest that as Chinese increase in affluence they're more likely to sell the businesses, and move to the suburbs, as was the case with Baltimore's Chinatown, which now only occupies about a block on Park Street.
Conversely, dining in DC isn't what it was like years ago. It's much, MUCH better. I remember when you could count all the sushi restaurants in DC on one hand, and Duke Ziebarts was considered high-end dining. Whatta dump! Local power brokers three-sheets-to-the-wind wolfing down gristly meat, smoking cigars, and farting up a storm. If you think local dining choices are limited, you don't know how lucky you are. You've never had the salmon mousse at Lion d'Or: pureed fish injected into a fish-shaped mold and drowned in some white sauce that had enough butter in it to make your heart say, "Game over."