In conjunction with the "Rep Your Local Restaurant" thread, here's the counterpoint: What's messed up? Food you can't get? Irritating trends? Whatever. I'll post what's wrong with mine when I think of it. It's really so much better than I had any reason to hope that I have nothing...
I am amazed at how much higher we punch above our weight than we ought to. I don't have any real complaints for a place where restauranteurs basically need to budget for eight months of steady business and four of relative paucity of customers.
Waaaaay too many chains and not enough mom-pops where "fern" food is concerned (Asian, Latino, Greek). The decent mom/pop standalones around here are traditional American country, German or Irish. And we don't have a Whataburger. It's wrong for a town not to have a Whataburger.
OK: Auriaprottu reminds me of one: We have too many chains in the outlying "communities" and they're shit chains. We have a large latino population in the area, so we need a ... and not two more ********ing Taco Bells.
Yeah: that's pretty much us, too. We've had relatives and friends visit us, and we always take them out to restaurants that are better than the ones they take us to when we visit them. Much to my sister-in-law's chagrin. She doesn't like that we can take them to better places than they can take us in the Western (Chicagoland) suburbs.
I'll start with what was mentioned in another thread: 1. There is no place here to get an Italian beef sandwich. It's hard to hold that against DC, though, as Italian beef sandwiches are almost impossible to find anywhere outside northern Illinois. Others: 2. There are a couple of decent high-end/expensive regional Mexican places -- emphasis on Oaxacan cuisine etc. -- but no good mid-priced or budget Mexican, and the only good Mexican street food I've found is out in the suburbs. 3. There's no good Chinese food here. None. Not in the District, not in the suburbs, nowhere. Every place you go just sells the usual fake Chinese food -- General Tso's Chicken and Hunan Beef and all that stuff that really only exists in the U.S. -- and it's only ever mediocre at the very best. Usually it's crap. (although now that I think about it, there is *one* relatively new Chinese restaurant here that I genuinely liked, but I've only been once so I can't yet say that I think it's genuinely good) 4. Sushi prices here have exploded in the last year. That's likely a problem everyplace though, not just here. 5. The only cheap seafood here is fried seafood. 6. It's now an article of faith with folks creating new restaurants here that a restaurant will be seen as livelier, and therefore better, if it's louder; so new restaurants here are being intentionally designed to have very sonically live spaces, so that it's absolutely impossible to converse with someone without shouting. This is beyond a trend; this is the norm here now. 7. The big trend here lately is for restaurants that won't accept reservations under any circumstances. There have always been restaurants here that held back from their reservation system a certain percentage of their tables, which were then in the mix for walk-up customers. But now many of the most popular restaurants in town take no reservations, ever. Because they are popular, they develop wait times that are often in excess of 2 1/2 hours, and you have to wait there. The practical effect of this has been that the elderly and the handicapped cannot ever eat at these restaurants. This sucks.
1 - A portabella burger or pasta Alfredo or a quesadilla does not mean you cater to vegetarians. And everybody has a ********ing salad! 2 - On the Border is not Mexican food! Neither are their local imitations. 3 - Where, oh where, is a real Indian restaurant? 4 - And as Bootsy mentions, no really good Mexican street food.
I'm disappointed by the paucity of good Indonesian restaurants here. Really got to enjoy that cuisine when I did work in the Netherlands and miss it now that I'm not travelling there anymore.
Move to Houston, dummy. Problem solved. Except for number 1, looks like you have the same problems as Auria. #DeepSouthprobs
I agree with a lot of the above. More veggie options that aren't just a wad of cheese would be nice. I'm not going to stand in line for hours to get into a restaurant. The paucity of authentic Mexican food is due to the paucity of authentic Mexicans. So many of the Hispanics in greater DC are from other countries, but they feel like they have to offer their version of tex mex to draw customers. I agree about there not being enough "real" Chinese food. Though Bootsy, you might like http://chengshouse.com/. A bit of a drive for you. We checked it out a couple weeks ago and there is a section of the menu devoted to authentic stuff. What we had was very good. But what you say about Chinese goes for Thai, Vietnamese and Indian as well - if I have a phone number, I can order takeout from any of these type restaurants without ever looking at a menu because I can be sure that they have the same stuff as every other place. I have to drive at least 45 minutes to get dim sum, but that's my fault for living where I do, I suppose. And yes, not enough mom and pop kind of places. It's either fast food, a chain, or a really upscale place - not much in between. I grew up in NOLA where there are lots of "neighborhood" restaurants that serve really good food in unpretentious surroundings at a reasonable price. Of course to have neighborhood restaurants, you have to have neighborhoods. When there is nothing but wall to wall bland suburbs, you get fast food and Olive Garden.
Does Toronto have an Indonesian population? There is a good size Indian population here, and good Indian-owned restaurants that Indians eat in as well as the rest of the citizenry. There are a lot of Nepalese and Tibetans here, too, but no restaurants. But alas, I can't really complain without being as bad* as those "promotion and relegation is needed before American soccer can be any good" people who spend other people's money. If we ARE going to have chains here, I'd gladly dump our Quiznos and Taco Bells for a Noodles and Company. * worse, actually, because I would be spending the money not of rich people, but of people who are mostly refugees and really poor at this stage.
Best advice a native gave my brother when he moved to NOLA was "never wait in line for a table. Just go somewhere else. You'll still get great food."
We do, and we have a few places in the North and east ends - most of the Indonesians I've met are professionals, and not the type to open a restaurant. I'm glad the Chipotle franchise is here now, seems the locally sourced franchise model is growing, not that the regular old bad fast food chains aren't either - though Krispy Kreme did fail up here.
We have a pretty good, under-utilized supplement to the restaurant scene, and I would guess many of you do too. The international student communities at both Univ. of Idaho and Washington State Univ. have "India Night," "Africa Night," "Pacific Islander Night," and the like on an annual basis. These are typically held on a Friday or Saturday night, include an hour or two of entertainment, and often feature 6-8 items made fresh that day by natives of that culture. The cost almost never exceeds $15. It's an amazing deal. We also have an annual event called "Cruise the World" where all of the international groups gather in a large ballroom. Kids get "passports" at the door and get them stamped from dozens of countries, each represented at a table where crafts are displayed and the students are wearing traditional garb. And most of the tables have food for sale, and the sampling is truly wonderful. We don't get enough students from many countries to have a culture night like the ones noted above, but for one afternoon you can sample, say, Kazakh food, Paraguayan food, Omani food, etc. Amazing. Check out this sort of thing and you'll be surprised what else your local food scene can offer.
Yes, so many good places. But really, the best food in NOLA isn't in restaurants - lots of home cooks putting out awesome food every night. That's a town where everybody is into food.
Well, on Sunday afternoons I tend to take 15-20 mile walks. Usually without my phone. Alas, because today I came across a place called "Java Kitchen" advertising "Indonesian Cooking." Long gone, from what I can tell. If I ever bring a phone with me, I'll take a picture of it, along with my other favorite closed restaurant: " Scarfo's: Fine Elegant Dining." Scarfo? Really? Are you not aware of the slang words related to "scarfing," etc...? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scarf
It didn't help that they opened one, which became a wildly popular novelty, so they opened umpteen more that couldn't survive the fad. There may be a couple left yet, but they are no longer a visible presence.
Too many Italian restaurants. I understand that New York was filled with Italian immigrants back in the day, but not so much anymore. As I would never go out just to eat pasta since I can easily prepare that at home even with my limited kitchen skills, the dominance of Italian restaurants can significantly reduce my options for food in certain neighbourhoods.
A friend of mine, a born and bred Venetian, went to grad school in NYC for 2 years. He remarked that the Italian restaurants he went to were not really Italian, but Italian-American. When prodded, he said that it seems that most were of Neapolitan origin. He wanted more variety - looking for Tuscan, Piedmontese, Ligurian, Venetian, etc. but it seems that Neapolitan red-sauced establishments seem to have taken over New Yorkers view. And that pasta portions were huge.
Or anywhere, really. Indonesian food can be one of the world's great cuisines and typically the closest you can get is a Thai restaurant.
For a year, I shared a house with an Indonesian exile when I was in grad school. Occasionally I got some of the food he cooked: absolutely fantastic. As you suggest, most people's awareness of food from Southeast Asia only goes as far as Thai food and, maybe, the shallowest bit of familiarity with Vietnamese -- which is a real shame. So much of my favorite food in the world comes from that part of it.