September 14, 2006
Moby Talks Smack on D.C. Food
Moby is most famous for his vegan lifestyle, his atmospheric techno, and the spartan NYC digs. Oh, who are we kidding? Moby's really made a name for himself recently for his attack on TomCat and their decision to let Vanity Fair be the first to carry pictures of their little bundle of Scientological joy, Suri.
But a little DCist digging (well, we were just reading his blog) has found a few things Moby had to say about the city we call home. In a post dated August 14, 2006, this is what he opined on the District:
i like d.c.Though the "D.C. was a swamp" meme is merely an urban legend, we agree with his other criticism. D.C. just isn't a vegan town. Spare Vegetate -- which, given the troubles it has had with its neighbors, is a surprise to still have around -- and Viridian, there aren't many other places to get vegan-friendly fare. We'll try harder next time, Moby.
it's a swamp, and once the ice-caps melt it'll be under 10 feet of water, but it's an interesting place.
although i have to say that i've pretty consistently had some really bad food in d.c.
like, really, really bad food.
almost as if people have gone out of their way to make bad food.
but who wants to listen to me complain.
and d.c does have great vegan baked goods.
just not so great in the regular vegan food department.
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Moby annoys the hell out me. Plus he's got Baby Big Head (his head is way too big for his body, like a baby's).
But he is so right about DC food, and not just vegan stuff. By and large DC restaurants suck, especially when compared to say NY, Chicago, SF, or even many smaller cities. We've gotten accustomed to crappy service, average and often below average food, and high prices.
So often I have very forgettable meals in DC restaurants. It's not bad enough to demand my money back, it's just not very good.
And this is at all price levels, from burger joints (what damn few we have) to pricey joints.
Ever check out the menu for Moby's NYC restaurant, Teany? (see https://www.teany.com/cafe/cafemenu.html) It isn't exactly the height of gourmet. Beans on toast? Maybe in the UK, buddy. That doesn't fly as good eatin' here in the States! And with cheese, chicken and turkey on the menu, it isn't even all vegan.
What's that old saying about throwing stones in glass houses....??
To be fair, Teany is a tea house that has some food, rather than the other way around. Having eaten there in the past, the food they do have is really good: especially the desserts.
The food does suck here as a whole compared to places like NYC, Chicago, etc. (having lived in all three places).
Where DC has NYC beat is our Ethiopian, Vietnamese, and Thai restaurants. These are either pretty non-existant in almost all of NYC or they pretty much blow except for a handful of places that are still rather mediocre.
IMHO: DC has the best Vietnamese and Burmese food. Chicago has the best Thai. DC and Chicago are tied for Ethiopian. NYC is best for vegetarians, Chinese food, and Korean food.
MMM... now I'm craving some Ethiopian. Perhaps Meskerem is in my future.
Um...Soul Vegetarian?
http://www.soulvegetarian.com/our_restaurants.htm
Some of the best food in dc period.
What, no shout out for the mention of Sticky Fingers there in his comments ('vegan baked goods')?
You forgot Java Green for vegan fare...
He should drop by Ching Ching Cha.
Relaxing, simple, delicious.
While DC's elevation above sea level ranges from 0-410 feet, New York City's is about 0-33 feet.
I guess the most vulnerable locations, the National Mall and New York's financial district, are both in the lower end of things. Either way I'll take my chances in NW over the Village should the ice caps melt and drown us all, the day after tomorrow.
My ass makes prettier sounds than Moby's last album.
Ahh, Moby. Musician, food critic, political power player, and all-around "good-guy."
Despite DC's dearth of offerings for people who feel that it's immoral to eat cheese, we certainly have an abundance of appropriate capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure.
I love that beautiful bald man.
Perhaps Moby forgot the vegan selections at Asylum?
But he's right overall. The DC cuisine experience is sub-par compared to other cities of our income level and scale. We have a couple of restaurants worth eating at for high quality fare (2941, Asia Nora, Inn At Little Washington, Citronelle) but that's painfully few for the quantity of cash coming though this city.
Have to say, the perpetual bitching about DC's food scene pisses me off. No, DC doesn't have NYC or Chicago or SF's wide array of choices, but it's also a fraction of the size.
Beyond comparing apples (Big or otherwise) to oranges, there are lots of fantastic places to eat in DC. You just have to exert a bit more effort. Burmese, Ethiopian, Vietnamese and Thai have been mentioned. There's some phenomenal Chinese and Korean around DC too if you're willing to look, and go someplace out of your normal spatial (and social) circles.
Lots of other stuff too. Komi serves one of the best menus I've ever eaten, anywhere (including Paris or Tokyo, etc.) with truly exceptional service. Yeah, good food can be expensive; deal with it. Crème and Ohhs+Ahhs are fantastic and cheap. Corduroy is excellent, and not too pricey. Obelisk? Equinox? Galileo Grill? 2Amy's? The list goes on.
Bottom line: if you want to live in NY or Chicago, please move there and/or stop bitching about DC. Better yet, open your own place!
Per Moose's comment, I think that Moby paid a non-specific compliment to Sticky Fingers when he said that DC has "great vegan baked goods." Every vegan I've ever asked simply raves about Sticky Fingers, and even my omnivore self finds their cookies quite tasty in the overall cookie world.
As far as true vegan cuisine in DC, though, there's not a lot to write home about. Sure, Vegetate and Viridian are around, and Asylum has a handful of true vegan offerings, but other than that, there's not much for the "no animal-derived ingredients" set to enjoy in the greater DC area.
Granted, a lot of the cutting-edge DC food scene has to do with who is in power at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, not necessarily with anything involving local influence (thus the glut of steakhouses and so-called Tex-Mex places that have popped up since 2001). That which does have local influence - like the aforementioned Vietnamese and Ethiopian offerings - typically cuts the fare close to the original, not going for a "fusion" adaptation (which a lot of vegan food is, at least in the non-simple sense).
Moby automatically earns douchebag status for composing his blog entries in ALL FUCKING LOWERCASE. Anyone who writes in that style automatically loses all credibility. It doesn't look cool, it only makes you look like a lazy moron or a 12-year-old.
I second Michael.
I second Dick.
all lowercase does not make you look sensitive or cool
and eschewing punctuation doesn't either
see?
DC has no food history to speak of outside of crabs, certain kinds of soul food, and the half-smoke. Our food culture comes primarily from the British and the African slaves. The British are not known for their food. Whatever people say about modern DC restaurants, the food is 20 times better than it was in the 1970s when Rumours, Clydes, Boey's and Childe Harold were the hippest hangouts and the lobbyist steakhouses (Blackies, Orleans) were high style. But even with that, my parents always said the 70s were better than the early 1960s when you had to go to a hotel to get reliable food or else hang out at the Zebra Room. In 1979 there were still no reliable bagels in the city.
DC is a city in flux, and presuming that the government money doesn't dry up, we will be closer and closer to one of the Top 5 cities in the US, but as of right now we're barely in the Top 10 biggest US cities.
From what I can tell, DC food hit a high point in the 1990s and it's been downhill since. Lots of great neighborhood places were replaced by suburban yuppie crap like Tryst. Adams Morgan was decimated. Dupont Circle was decimated. Georgetown was decimated. Arlington was decimated. Chains pay the higher rents.
However, the same exact thing can be said about lots of New York neighborhoods. The Lower East Side is not as cool as it used to be. Times Square is utter crap on a stick.
So over all, compare DC to our neighbors Charleston, Raleigh, Richmond, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and we look good. Compare us to Los Angeles, San Fran, Chicago, New York, Miami, New Orleans and Boston and maybe we don't look good. But we're better than Denver, St Louis, Dallas, Detroit, Cincinatti, etc.
Sheesh people. We're in the top 10, not the top 5.
Don
Yawn. Pretty creative there Moby...boo hoo DC doesn't have good vegan food.
Who cares?
Ya don't like DC?
Don't visit.
We've done okay without ya so far...
Ah, this stale hipster meme again....There are what, 7,000 restuarants in the metro area, and I am to believe all of them "suck"?
DC is easily one of the top ten restaurant cities right now. New Orleans, Boston and SF have all slipped quite a bit (for different reasons) in the past few years. SF, in fact, has lost a number of its top chefs (and a huge chunk of its accomplished wait staff) to prosperous upstarts like Las Vegas and Aspen. DC, meanwhile, has really come into its own as a hub for new and exciting American chefs. What's more, DC like NY and LA continues to expand and evolve as a massive multicultural gastrinomic hub. Right now DC is hot -- whether or not Moby agrees.
David,
You just pulled those elevations out of your ass.
New York's maximum height is 33 feet??? Ever hear of Washington Heights? There are rock formations in Manhattan that are taller than 33 feet.
FACT:
Moby's entire career is just a rip off of David Byrne and Brian Eno's "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts." Which you should all purchase ASAP.
And as for food, what does Moby know? A few visits to DC certainly won't give you the range/focus that living here does. Besides, whatever happened to cooking. With all the small "ethnic" stores, big chains like Whole Foods and Super Giant, you can make a nice vegan meal that'll please non-vegans like me.
And if Moby still wants to hate, what has the LES done in the past 10 years that was actually cool? Mind you, I'm a New Yorker and I'm talking shit.
I think Meskerem kicks the ass of any Ethio restaurant I've ever been to in Chicago. Yum.....
DC's food problem, IMHO, isn't so much quality as it is variety. But that's likely just a function of the city being small. I've generally been quite satisfied with the eatings in town, but the city could really use some more late-night ethnic restaurants. But then, I'm spoiled from years of living in NYC.
uh, i dont know what that guy who said DC was barely in the top 10 largestamerican cities was talking about a couple posts back. Fact is, DC is the 27th largest US city and is loosing people every year. Dc is actually smaller than Milwaukee, Columbus, and Louisville.
Washington has a very good restaurant scene, if you willing to get out to the suburbs. The best ethnic selections are all in Northern Virginia and Maryland. But I doubt Moby ever dares venture out there with the real Washingtonians who actual live here, work here, and...like it here.
What's the big deal about vegan food anyway? A real man needs/gotta have meat to survive.
If some bald geek with no musical talent doesn't like the food here he can go jump up a frog's butt.
Octavio where art thou? First of all, DC officially isn't shrinking anymore. The US Census Bureau has revised the 2005 population numbers by 31,000 and DC is now growing at a healthy clip -- this really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has eyes and spends more than 10 minutes walking around the city. For the DC is shrinking poster, DC (the 60 sq. mile federal district) is now 22nd in population (woo hoo!) not 27th. Furthermore, the far larger and more relevant figure, of course, is the DC Metro area number. Depending on how you measure it, DC has anywhere from 5.5 to 8 million people. By most objective measures we are the fifth (soon to be fourth) metro area in terms of population -- so the bottom line is that we have plenty of people to eat lots of good and also lots of not so good food!
Yeah, yeah, and junkies get stabbed in front of Moby's cafe- it's clear he doesn't look out for the downtrodden.
No, DC is not shrinking. The latest census puts us gaining I think 50,000 or so residents.
Michael, I'm glad you found restaurants you liked but I stand by my post. DC restaurants by and large suck. The wait staff is terrible, untrained, and rude. The food is average at best, and often cold. The bathrooms are filthy.
Is this always the case? No. But it's been my experience that it is the case more often than not.
The way to look at the census 'rise' or 'gain' in population is not really a rise at all. The Bureau of the Census has been undercounting, and in some places, like DC, by a lot. (Most reserachers figure that the 1990 numbers were low, too.) Those are revisions based on estimates because DC government complained to the Census. Williams wanted those 100,000, and boo hoo, he didn't make it happen.(btw anyplace can complain and have there figures changed) Let's remember that the Census, while they claim it's a total count is really still a survey; the intercensal years are estimated figures.
One part of DC's food history that needs to be brought back is the Maine Avenue fish sandwich: 4-inches of perch fried in lard! Horace & Dickies is probably the last practitioner of this near extinct art.
What's a "Moby," and why should we care that it's not being properly fed?
Moby, you are a Grade-A cxnt and y'haven't made a decent record since you sampled Julie Cruise about fifteen feckin' years ago.
Capital City Service #1 ya bas!
Something I would like to point out:
When Moby shows off his condo and likes to talk about how the spartan walls and recycled bamboo simplicity allows him to think clearly or whatever his garbled BS for it is, please remember it cost him like $2 million, and that he pays more in property taxes each year than most New Yorkers make. Spartan, my ass.
Let's not overlook one crucial aspect of DC food history: we invented chicken wings with mambo sauce. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Hillman, I have to say that the esperiences you describe are experiences that I have rarely had here (well, okay, except for the filthy bathrooms), and I have been to a hefty percentage of DC restaurants. There are places here that can hold their own against my favorite places in NY or SF. And Colorado Kitchen, up in Brightwood, serves the best burger I've ever eaten anywhere, period.
There are plenty of vegan-friendly places in DC. Java Green, The Vegetable Garden, Sunflower, Harmony Cafe, etc. Just go to VegDC.com -- they have a huge list of places to get vegan fare.
Of course there aren't as many as NY, but can you really expect there to be? NY will always have more food choices than pretty much any other place you can go.
Horace & Dickies is probably the last practitioner of this near extinct art.
MMMmmmm, Horace & Dickie's. I wonder how long they are going to last on the quickly gentrifying H St corridor?
Hillman and others who complain of terrible service or cold food - where on earth are you going to eat? I've lived here 8 years now and have never had any food served to me cold and found the service to be just as attentive as in any other city. DC has lots of really good restaurants. Of course it has its mediocre ones, too, but so does NYC, SF, Chicago or wherever else.
As for the census figures that Downtown Tim is quoting, the larger one includes Baltimore and its suburbs up to the PA line, chunks of WV and the eastern shore and down to Spotsylvania. The smaller one includes everything in NoVA up to Winchester and the WV border to Spotsylvania and includes Frederick, Charles and Calvert counties. That's a remarkably huge area and I don't think anyone who actually lives in DC or Arlington would legitimately consider Spotsylvania or Frederick to be part of DC or it's Metro area when considering the population of the city. Frankly, including anything past Fairfax in VA or the immediate MD counties is fairly ridiculous.
But he is so right about DC food, and not just vegan stuff. By and large DC restaurants suck, especially when compared to say NY, Chicago, SF, or even many smaller cities. We've gotten accustomed to crappy service, average and often below average food, and high prices.
Hillman - It pains me to hear you spout such ignorant rubbish my friend! Yes, there is plenty of suck ass food in DC (especially the Hill) but there is also tons and tons of GREAT food in this city. Check out donrockwell.com for info on where to find good food in DC.
David,
You just pulled those elevations out of your ass.
New York's maximum height is 33 feet??? Ever hear of Washington Heights? There are rock formations in Manhattan that are taller than 33 feet.
Apparently you've never taken a geography class. He's referring to elevation above sea level. As in, if the sea level rises 33 feet, New York is toast, whereas DC will only be partially submerged.
Joe's Noodle House in Rockville has an extensive vegetarian menu.
There are a couple of other vegetarian/vegan Chinese restaurants in Rockville.
The populations of DC and SF are nearly the same. Give or take a 100,000 people. And the metro areas are almost identical in size. Just FYI.
The problem with DC's food is cost, quality and imagination. Even in the most transitional neighborhoods in SF, there are gourmet corner stores. Right next to cheap liquor stores and across from dive bars. Even fast food is made with care and the ingredients taste fresh. And sushi is cheap after the bars are closed food. In fact, all around I've yet to have a really good cheap meal. I could always find that. And find gourmet foods at whatever cheap corner store I went to in both Oakland and SF.
Sure there are a lot of wealthy people in DC who seem to like and be able to pay through the nose for expensive food, but that foodie culture does not transcend class or income levels. Part of this is because the 60s hippies in SF and Berkeley set out to create collectively owned gourmet restaurants and stores, so that ideal has been established for 40 years. And the ideal was always about bringing quality food to the masses. Chicago right now benefits from being the starting line of some of the most creative chefs in the U.S. Many of whom were trained at the California Culinary Academy, or mentored by those that were. Or those that have spent time in the kitchens in Berkeley and SF.
DC of course has its share of Napa and SF trained chefs, but they seem to decide that they should charge 4x what they would out there for their food. And lower the imagination quotient by about half.
DC has a pace of life -- longer work days, more expensed dinners, a lot of power couples -- that dining is apart of luxury lifestyle and not part of a relaxed and healthy relationship with food. So, I'm afraid that all of these problems are not likely to change unless the culture of class and status changes in Washington. And that doesn't seem very likely.
DC1974: Thank you. You expressed what I was trying to say far more succintly than I was able to.
I agree completely - what has always struck me as odd about DC is how few good 'neighborhood' restaurants there are. Places that us non-expense-account types may actually want to eat regularly.
I'm on the Hill, and I hate to say it but so many of our neighborhood restaurants are below average. Italian restaurants that can't seem to cook a chicken dish that isn't amazingly tough. Pubs that have truly terrible food, served by obviously untrained staff. Indian restaurants that manage to serve tasteless food. I didn't think you could get tasteless Indian food until I came to DC.
What has always struck me about other cities, both large and small, is how you can go in the little corner pub or bistro and have friendly, attentive service, hot food, etc. It may not be 4 star dining, but it's good. I find that very hard to find here in DC.
HillRat:
You are partially right, in that part of the problem is the Hill. We have some truly sucky restaurants. In fact, most of our restaurants suck.
Ugly Mug - delicious little mini burgers. Terrible wait staff, place is downright filthy sometimes.
Bistro Italiano - friendly wait staff, but they can't serve a chicken dish worth a damn. They seem to have run out of actual spices several years ago.
Hawk and Dove - burgers that resemble hockey pucks. Surly wait staff.
White Tiger - astonishingly bland (but admittedly cheap) lunch buffet. And tiny overpriced portions at night. But very attractive restaurant inside.
Cafe Berlin - delicious cheap lunch sandwiches, but fairly bland overpriced German food otherwise.
But we do have a few that are good. Old Siam is good Thai, with excellent service. On the upper income side Belga Cafe and Montremarte are both good, albeit pricey.
I love DC but yes NYC destroys it in terms of great eating. I would also point out that DC beats NYC regarding Peruvian food in terms of number of options and tastiness.
What's that Thai place on Penn Ave SE that's located in what seems to be an old British pub? SUCKS ASS... was there once, they forgot about me (while serving my two friends), and when I finally got my curry whatever 10 minutes later, it was literally as cold as if it'd been sitting in the fridge for an hour. That's NEVER happened to me anywhere else - in DC or elsewhere.
Italian restaurants that can't seem to cook a chicken dish that isn't amazingly tough.
This is the stop where I jump on the DC food bashing train. After living in New Jersey for seven years, I was spoiled by the ready availability of cheap, delicious Italian food. Oh how I loved "grabbing a slice" whenever I needed a little something to put in my stomach. Some of the best Italian food I ever ate was served at unassuming strip mall locations with $8 entrees.
All is not lost though, there is a good Italian food option in DC (actually Alexandria) that isn't ridiculously overpriced, called a la lucia. They have a chicken parm on the lunch menu that is to die for! Two can have a great meal with wine, apps, etc. for around $70, which is about what I paid for the last mediocre meal I had at Tunnicliff's.
Also, for quick everyday dining on the Hill I suggest you check out Kenny's Smokehouse at the corner of 8th & Maryland NE. I'm not a big fan of their sauce (I get my ribs or chicken dry and hook it up with some Stubb's when I get home), but just about everything else there is awesome. I'm hoping that with a half dozen bars opening on H St in the last few months, that we'll have some better late night food options than [visible shudder] Danny's.