Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide

Where should Alex and I eat there? Lives hang in the balance. Your assistance is much appreciated.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

J&G Steakhouse, web site, 15th and Pennsylvania, at 515 15th, across from Treasury, in W Hotel, Washington, DC, 202-661-2440, open for breakfast and sometimes dinner starts as early as 5. (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | Yelp | Gayot]

I went once and expected fancy and innovative, as it is from the Jean-Georges empire. What I got was solid and affordable. So I’m a bit confused. I will go back, and can recommend it with some qualifications. The service was iffy, but the dishes are yummy. At this point, though, I prefer Bourbon Steak.

Yes I know the article is gated but I wanted to blog the link anyway, out of sheer enthusiasm. It's a superb piece. China Star is my favorite Fairfax restaurant and it's the #1 restaurant for GMU blogger lunches and debates (though one of us hates it; can you guess which one? We make him go nonetheless). It's also where we take job candidates, at least the ones we respect. Even though Chang is now gone, the restaurant remains superb in the hands of his successors, who have kept many of his original recipes. Some people claim they get better meals when I go there to eat with them. It's so close to our house that sometimes Natasha and I walk there. They know us well and are rarely surprised by our order. For two, our default is the braised fish and Sichuan chili chicken, on the bone of course. Scallion fried fish is a must for larger groups. John Nye likes General Kwan's Spicy Beef there. They have real kung pao shrimp. Kudos to Calvin Trillin for covering Chang and his mobile culinary empire.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

Here's another article about Peter Chang: "Todd Kliman Chases The Perfect Chef"

Eric Crampton emails me:

Why don't we see more of this? I went to the only Ethiopian restaurant in New Zealand last night. It runs one day a week - Mondays - in a Burmese restaurant that otherwise was closed on Mondays.

http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2010/02/one-day-week-restaurant.html

I can understand that this kind of arrangements would have risks for the host restaurant. Ideally, you'd want it from a non-competing cuisine style. But this is the first instance of it I've ever seen. Have I just not been paying attention? The story from the Dominion Post on how the place opened is very nice. The woman running the Burmese restaurant was an immigrant from Burma who later started volunteering with an NGO that helped new migrants acclimatize. She met a guy there who wanted to open an Ethiopean restaurant but had no capital; her restaurant was closed Mondays.

The other 6 days a week the Ethiopean restauranteur drives a cab.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

Leigh Caldwell offers an analysis. Here is one bit:

...why is it losing so much money when demand is so high? The 48-seat restaurant has a six-month season with about 8,000 covers a year. It receives 300,000 applications for those seats [though this article says a million and this one two million], selling out the whole year's reservations on the same day that bookings open for the season. Why wouldn't they bump up the price from 230 to 330 euros, to simultaneously manage demand and eliminate the losses? Price elasticity can't be that high.

My hypothesis is that the restaurant was never intended to turn a profit, but rather it was a loss leader for book sales, endorsements, lecture fees, TV contracts, cookware lines, and so on for Ferran Adria. Even if higher prices could bring in a twenty percent rate of profit, it wouldn't -- at this point -- be worth keeping the place up and running. Adria already has a reputation as the world's greatest chef, running the world's greatest restaurant. It's best to quit while ahead and branch out into food-related money-making ventures.

The low prices make going a hard-to-obtain event, open up the restaurant to more people than just the very wealthy, and maximize the publicity value of Adria's name.

He won't and can't stop cooking forever, but cooking six months a year is probably not an optimum for him at this point. The real profit and loss calculation for El Bulli has to include the shadow price of his labor as an important variable.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

Malik’s Kabob, 9542 Arlington Boulevard, Fairfax, VA, also accessible from Rt.29, right smack at Fairfax Circle, 703-246-9005 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [zabihah | Yelp]

This place is a knock out. Ask for it spicy. The Karahi chicken for two is first-rate. The breads are freshly cooked. I like the chapli kabob. The vegetables taste like…vegetables. The service is sometimes a disaster, especially for lunch. There’s amazing people-watching at night when the hookah bar is up and running, though if the smoke bothers you ask for the back room.

For the first time we have a superb Pakistani restaurant in our midst, you just need to bear with the service a bit.

Banh Cuon Thang Long, web site, 6737 Wilson Boulevard, #22, Falls Church, VA, 703-534-1746, East Eden Center, (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [WaPo | MetroMix | Yelp]

Indoors, against the back right corner of the mall. Their #1 dish is excellent -- one of the best dishes in Eden Center -- just don't ask me to describe it. It's not weird, though, just original. The menu here is limited but they specialize in what they do and they do it well. Worth a visit.

Antipuqueño Restaurant (also Intipuqueno), web site, 2504 Ennalls Avenue, Wheaton, MD, 301-942-1129 (web site says place is for sale)

This place is a total wreck and mess when it comes to service, décor, and organization. They also serve the best pupusas I’ve eaten in the U.S., ever. It’s worth it. The soups look pretty good too. The menu is ghastly in its presentation and it doesn’t list a lot of what they serve. Just try to talk your way into what you want to eat. The cute waitresses will giggle and mess up your order, but they do know what a pupusa is. I call this a find, though you need to go with the proper expectations.

James Hinckley asks:

Which cuisine are you most likely to be satisfied with when dining out? Which disappoints you the least # of visits?

If you were at a shopping center you've never been to before and it has one restaurant of each cuisine and your goal was to simply be satisfied (you're not looking to be blown away, you just don't want a bad experience), which cuisine do you pick?

Korean is perhaps the safest bet, for two reasons. First, non-Koreans are not usually interested in the food. They might enjoy Bul-Gogi but there will be plenty of other dishes for Korean patrons and these will not be "dumbed down." The lack of mainstream interest limits the potential for sell-out behavior on the part of the restaurant. Second, many Korean dishes, most of all the pickled vegetables, "travel" relatively well and do fine in a culture -- the USA -- which is not obsessed with fresh ingredients.

The most dangerous cuisine to try, in the United States at least, is Chinese. Your best working assumption is that the restaurant simply isn't any good. Even in a Chinatown, such as in New York or DC, most of the restaurants aren't very good. Inverting the two principles mentioned above puts you on a path toward figuring out why. Still, even in Paris or most of Europe for that matter, most of the Chinese restaurants aren't very good.

I find also that (in the U.S.) Mexican restaurants are risky, Vietnamese establishments are relatively safe, and Thai places were traditionally safe but they are becoming riskier. I've never been to a bad Nepalese restaurant.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

Mayuri, web site, 2316 Hunters Wood Plaza, Reston, VA, 703-860-2444 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [VAIndia.US | Yelp | Insider Pages | Gayot]

I have mixed feelings about this place. They have the single best and most authentic Indian menu around, ranging from the Chicken 65 dosa to Kori gasi, namely chicken made in fresh coconut, red chilly, and curry leaves, plus a lot more in between. And none of it is bad. Yet somehow the dishes don’t quite taste right. With some superior execution this could be premier places on this list, but as it stands it is an interesting curiosity of unfulfilled potential. If I lived nearby I’d go all the time, but it’s not yet worth the trip.

Super Chicken, 422 S. Washington Street, Falls Church, VA, right next to Blanca’s, 703-538-5366 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Falls Church Times | MenuPages | City Paper | Insider Pages | Yelp]

How good can any chicken be? Should any roast chicken place be on the “must-tries” list? Maybe not, but this is the best chicken place around and it didn’t make my guide at all last time, so I believe it could use the extra publicity. Northern Virginia Magazine did a blind taste test of about ten different roast chicken dishes from leading restaurants. Super Chicken was a clear winner, including in my eyes. I since went to the restaurant and found it was even better on-site. They also have the best rice and beans around and occasional Peruvian dishes such as fried fish and tripe stew. No, it doesn’t transcend its category but it does win its category. Worth a try.

Eyo Restaurant and Sports Bar, web site, 3821-B South George Mason Drive, Falls Church, VA, 703-933-3084 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window)

This unassuming locale is one of the two or three best Ethiopian places at the moment. Furthermore they serve Ethiopian breakfast, starting at 10 am, though sometimes interpreted flexibly by management. Their foul is simply superb and more generally you can’t go wrong with anything here. This single strip mall in Virginia is raising Ethiopian food to an entirely new level and making the trip to 9th Street obsolete. This place is also a favorite of the local cab drivers.

This one is not so easily excerptable, but it's one of the best pieces-with-graphics I've seen all year. It's about all the "nudge" tricks which go into designing menus, and how to avoid being fooled by them.

You really do need the image with it (best is to buy the New York issue), but if you insist on an excerpt, here's one:

5. Columns Are Killers According to Brandon O’Dell, one of the consultants Poundstone quotes in Priceless, it’s a big mistake to list prices in a straight column. “Customers will go down and choose from the cheapest items,” he says. At least the Balthazar menu doesn’t use leader dots to connect the dish to the price; that draws the diner’s gaze right to the numbers. Consultant Gregg Rapp tells clients to “omit dollar signs, decimal points, and cents … It’s not that customers can’t check prices, but most will follow whatever subtle cues are provided.”

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

To Sok Jib, web site, 7211 Columbia Pike, Annandale, VA, 703-333-2861 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Yelp]

Previously reviewed on TCEDG in 2006 here, but this seems to be a new place.

Quite small, very mom and pop. Of all the Korean places around, they have the best whole fried fish, the croaker in particular and maybe the mackerel too. That’s the thing to get here. Of all the rest, nothing is below average, though not much above the prevailing average. This is a fun place and you can’t go wrong here. At lunch time it can fill up, though if need be there are other nearby places you can walk to, if you don’t want to wait.

You'll find it here, namely on my home page (you may need to scroll down). This version of the guide has more revisions than any other new edition, mostly because there has been a lot of quality turnover. More than half of the "Top 20" list has changed in the course of a year. Currently my two favorite places are Sichuan Pavilion and Abay Market (you now can and indeed have to order vegetables in advance), with Thai X-ing a perennial. Komi is the "finest" dining and Bourbon Steak is the place most likely to be better than you think.

I should note that if you've been following the blog version of my dining guide [here at TCEDG.com], the html version is simply a print-it-all-out-at-once compendium, rather than a source of new information.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution.

China Jade, web site, 16805 Crabbs Branch Way, The Grove Shopping Center, Rockville, MD, 301-963-1570 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Washingtonian | Don Rockwell | Yelp]

This is run by the same people who do Hong Kong Palace and it has pretty much the same menu. Oddly, for a new branch, it is not quite as good as the home base. Their braised pork belly is much superior, but the five other dishes we tried were all lesser than at Falls Church. They were still pretty good and if you live in Maryland you may wish to come here. But right now it isn’t worth the trip from VA. It may yet improve, we will see. It also has a less interesting atmosphere and décor than the home branch.

X.O. Taste Seafood Restaurant, 6124 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA, 703-536-1630, note that you actually have to turn north on Patrick Henry Drive to see the place and that is also the best way to get there. (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [WaPo | Don Rockwell | Yelp]

This is a tough review to write. This is clearly the most authentic Cantonese place around and their menu is superb, all the way down to the casseroles. Nothing here tastes bad. The service is fine. I like the atmosphere. The name of the restaurant is excellent. But where is the wow factor? What’s the dish you go back for and why? This place simply needs to be better. Maybe it will get there, it still has time. In the meantime it’s worth a visit, just don’t think it is the answer to your prayers. Right now there’s no truly good Cantonese food in this area.

Me Jana, web site, 2300 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA, 703-465-4440 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | Don Rockwell | NoVA Mag | Yelp]

Right now this is a clear #1 in the Lebanese department. The sausage, and dishes involving fatty meats, are especially good. As is the raw meat. Simply an excellent restaurant, tasty all around, and the best place to eat in the Courthouse area short of Ray’s Hell Burger.

I'll have three days there, fairly soon. I've never been to Nicaragua before, though I've spent a fair amount of time elsewhere in Central America. Your recommendations would be very welcome and many of them will be used.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

Spice Xing, web site, 100 Gibbs Street, Rockville, MD, 301-610-0303 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | WashTimes | Yelp | Gayot]

Right now this is one of the three or four best Indian places around. Gibbs St. is not the obvious place to go eat in Rockville, but the food here is genuinely excellent.

The dishes are truly spiced and I don’t just mean hot. (The level of heat is quite bearable, though present.) The spices are fresh and taste like a genuine part of each recipe. It’s not a mom and pop, as it actually looks like a nice restaurant, which indeed it is. Some of the cooking has a Parsee slant, to my taste, such as mixing lamb and fruit. I was especially fond of the chicken with spinach.

Brasserie Beck, web site, 1101 K Street NW, Washington, DC, 202-408-1717 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | Don Rockwell | Yelp | Gayot]

Good French fries, mussels, and comfort food dishes. It can get crowded and noisy but go early for what can be quite a good meal. The beers here are very popular, I would say stick with the weirder, more Belgian entrees to avoid being stuck with the boring dishes on the menu.

Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams, web site, 2603 Hwy. 411, Madisonville,TN 37354, 423-442-5003 [Wikipedia | Yelp | Thyme For Food | Kate Sonders | Knoxville News Sentinel | NYT | Southern Foods Connection]

It's equal to the best I've had, including what I've sampled in Spain. (I've also had especially fine ham in Slovenia.) You can read about it and order it here. It ships without incident or loss of value. It's what David Chang uses in Momofuku and its affiliated restaurants, by the way. It's not even very expensive.

Speaking of animal products, a few of you asked me a while ago how the eating of animals could possibly be morally justified. My primary objection is to how we treat animals while they are alive, especially in factory farms. The very rise and continuing existence of humanity is based on the widespread slaughter and extinction of other large mammals, not to mention other animals as well. I'm not saying we should feel entirely comfortable with that, but rather a "non-aggression" stance toward other animals simply isn't possible, short of repudiating all of human civilization, even in its more primitive versions. Everyone favors the murder of animals for human purposes, although different people draw the lines at different places. I don't know of any good foundationalist approach to these issues, but at the very least we should be nicer to non-human animals at the margin and less willing to torture them.

At the policy level we should tax meat more heavily and regulate farms more strictly, for both environmental reasons and reasons of animal welfare. I draw a line at where the life of the animal is "not worth living," but for me animal slaughter is not immoral per se.

There are a few things you can do personally, including:

1. Buy less from factory farms.

2. Eat better meat and in turn eat less meat, substituting quality for quantity. This is a common demographic pattern, so it shouldn't be too hard to mimic.

If you are a vegetarian, I think that is excellent. If you're not, Benton's is a step toward both #1 and #2.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution

Bazin’s on Church, web site, 111 Church Street NW, Vienna, VA, 703-255-7212 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Washingtonian | WaPo | NoVA Mag | Yelp]

Very American, the crowd is very NoVa. It’s OK enough, but why would you want to spend the money there? I shared a bunch of dishes and of those I thought the lamb lollipops were clearly the best, in fact they were quite good. Genuinely Turkish and I believe the chef is Turkish as well. But otherwise it is “just another place.”

Alex and I will be there for the Southern Economics Association meetings, along with many other economists. I don't know the city well, as I've been there only once. There might be a bit of free time. What should we do? Where should we eat?

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions

Osaka, 6669 Little River Turnpike, Annandale, VA, 703-256-0152 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Yelp]

They keep on putting not-quite-feasible Korean-Japanese restaurants in this space. This place is OK, but I don’t see any reason to think it will survive.

Paraiso Latino, there are several El Paraiso and Paraiso Latino restaurants in the DC area, I ate at 4716 King Street, Alexandria, VA, 703-820-2040 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Yelp]

Below average, everything was a bit dry. In the El Salvadoran category there is too much competition for this place to merit a repeat visit. I might have hit a bad day but at my favorites that never happens.

Meanwhile here are links to YouTube videos of the band Paraiso Latino: "Grupo Paraiso Latino tocanda en una fiesta. Cumbia Sonidero Mix" and "Tocando un popurri de duranguense movidas"

Bay Lo, web site, 6757 Wilson Blvd., Falls Church, VA, Eden Center (Saigon East), northeastern corridor, #21, 703-241-4094 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [WaPo | MetroMix | City Paper | Yelp]

A very handy Vietnamese place. They have "Seven Courses of Beef," frog dishes, goat, organ meats, Hot Pot, plus some (but by no means all) of the standards. Good for when you are craving something different.

Vannipa Thai Restaurant, web site, 6037 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA (please note that this address does not map properly if you use Falls Church as the city rather than Bailey's Crossroads) - it is in the Culmore Shopping Center, next to Peking Gourmet Inn, between Seven Corners and Bailey's Crossroads, 703-671-2201 (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Yelp]

The Thai place in this spot is always OK (the original Neisha Thai started here many years ago), but never really worth going to. That has yet to change.

A parody we think loyal TCEDG readers will enjoy.

Why Are Swedish Meatballs So Much Smaller Than Their American Counterparts?

And although it should be obvious: The parody linked above is not by Tyler. Or Tyrone. Or Alex.

See this post by the real Tyler: Why are Swedish meatballs so much smaller than their American counterparts?

Café Assorti, web site, 1800 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA, 703-465-0036, open at 8 am for breakfast, through to 9 or 10 pm (Metro Trip Planner - opens in new window) [Washingtonian | Wash Times | Menu Pages | Don Rockwell | Yelp]

It’s called Kazakh food but in reality I know a lot of Russians who eat exactly this stuff. Vegetable salads. Pelmenyi dumplings. Crepes. Cutlet. Etc. But you know what the problem is? This place is right across the street from Ray’s Hell-Burger. Since my in-laws cook this food for me, I always head for Ray’s. I look forward to your reports.