Tyler Cowen, a Harvard-trained economist who now teaches at George Mason University, recently released the 17th edition of his Ethnic Dining Guide. The guide is decidedly big-tent in its definition of ethnic: “all food is ethnic food” in the words of Cowen. His guide runs the gamut of cuisines and locations, from Eric Ziebold’s CityZen to Rita’s, a Jamaican restaurant on Georgia Avenue where the diner is told to “try to park the car right in front of the restaurant where you can watch it.”
Cowen’s site also seems less of a guide and more of a list. The page begins with a listing of Cowen’s favorites, in no particular order, before launching into a directory of restaurants listed alphabetically by cuisine. Entries within each cuisine type show no obvious organization scheme, which is to the list’s detriment. However, Cowen’s succinct, sometimes tongue-in-cheek reviews of each restaurant make the searching worth it. Though Cowen often devotes less than a paragraph per each listed restaurant (and sometimes less than a visit), his writing is full of humorous gems. Lebnan Zaman in Vienna, for example, is “surprisingly authentic given its Tysons location,” while Scotland Yard in Alexandria receives a less-than-stellar review:
… it is in Old Town Alexandria, it is the only Scottish place around, it will draw people simply because Scotland is popular, Scottish food works best with Scottish ingredients. Have I convinced you not to go?
To say the site is exhaustive would be an understatement; at 10-point font, the Guide comes to over 76 pages of text.
