When NOTUS reached out recently to ask me what I’d like to do, the first idea that came to mind was to host a regular Q&A with readers. During my 25 years as the food critic for The Washington Post, from which I took a buyout last summer, the most important hour of my work week was 11 a.m. Wednesdays, when I’d answer reader rants, raves and everything in between.
Ask Tom was a place where I tried to help people find what they wanted, learn something new, solve a dining dilemma. The online exchange was so popular that it often trumped Trump news. The interactions also gave me an immediate sense of what readers were thinking about, which led to a number of my best-read critic’s notebooks.
Besides, even after I left The Post, readers followed me with their questions. Why not create a dedicated forum for responding to them?
Welcome, then, to my new advice column, Talk to Tom, where I’ll be addressing your dining questions — every Thursday.
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Got a gripe or concern? Something you’re curious about? Send me an email at TalkToTom@notus.com. Questions and comments may be edited for length.
Why do so many American restaurants force us to eat in the dark? We are frequent travelers to Europe, where you can actually read the menu and see your food without using a flashlight.
A dim interior accomplishes several things. For starters, it tends to relax people, which makes eating feel more pleasurable and may encourage lingering (say, to order more drinks, a win for the restaurant). Darkness also has a way of compressing even large rooms, creating cocoons of space, at least mentally. Dim lighting can hide flaws, too, in the decor as well as on diners. Don’t we all look better away from klieg lights?
That said, a thoughtful restaurant provides sufficient illumination — and a menu with easy-to-read print — for diners to see what’s in front of them. I’ve long said, restaurateurs need to audition everything diners will touch or see — utensils, chairs, lights — before buying them.
I’ve got family coming to D.C. Is there a restaurant on the Mall you prefer?
For proximity to the museums and value, I’m partial to America’s Table Cafe inside the lower level of the National Museum of American History, which fuels between 6,000 and 8,000 visitors a week around this time of year.
Leading the kitchen: executive chef Mollie Kaufmann, who previously served as the culinary operations manager for World Central Kitchen, and who offers food more personal than the crowd-size suggests. (Quick, what other local cafeteria offers shrimp and grits, flavored as if you were in the South?) A recent lunch also embraced a snappy bratwurst striped with brown mustard and topped with tangy sauerkraut; a salad bar that goes beyond the expected; and appealing side dishes to accompany the generous entrees. Fresh-tasting apple-fennel coleslaw, mustard-punched baked beans, and pickled okra outperformed a plate of slightly dry smoked chicken thighs. Nodding to the season was a fine trifle sweetened with blueberries and peaches. I get hungry just typing that.
Lines tend to move fast, by the way, thanks to friendly cashiers. “You’re going to fall asleep, eating all that!” one of them teased two of us as we paid. Snare the right table, and you
can enjoy your meal with the Washington Monument as a backdrop — a twofer attraction.
Help settle a debate. I say it’s just as easy to open a $30 bottle of wine as a $300 bottle. An oenophile in my group thinks otherwise — and says the tip should be higher on the more expensive wine.
Much as I enjoy wine, which I tip on like the food it is — 20%, the industry standard — I seldom splurge on anything priced in the triple digits.
Regarding dearer bottles, I turned to ace wine consultant and former restaurateur Janet Cam, who thinks an extra 10% or so gratuity should be applied to wines in the $350 and up range. In those situations, she says, “expertise [is] expected.” Customers should receive proper stemware, “ideally finely made Riedel, Schott Zwiesel and Glassine,” she gives by way of example. “The thin lip of the glass affects the taste and perception of wine.”
Cam says the wine should be presented and tasted before the food arrives, as “food aromas enter the glass, distorting the perception of wine.” Higher-priced wine typically involves the sommelier’s “attention, knowledge, time in sourcing the wine” and storing it properly — conditions the wine authority says “should be considered and compensated” with “cash in the hand of the sommelier.”
In short, sourcing, storing and serving minor versus major wines requires different effort.
Sushi seems to be on everyone’s mind in the District these days. Unfortunately, I find many non-omakase meals to be exceedingly “spendy,” as you say in Minnesota. Can you recommend a spot that doesn’t cost the fish’s weight in gold?
Let me introduce you to the youthful Kiyomi from Masaaki “Uchi” Uchino, who made a splash in Washington when he helmed the top-notch Sushi Nakazawa at the back of the late Trump hotel (now the Waldorf Astoria). Since April, the chef can be found behind a handsome wooden door at 1895 L St. NW, in a small dining room set off with woven balloon lights overhead and a counter ringed with 16 seats. “Japanese style,” says Uchino, “with American feel.” Friendly, in other words.
The lure: a parade of (seven) nigiri or hand rolls plus miso soup for a bargain $40. The pleasure might begin with pale pink tile fish, garnished with lime zest, on a pillow of warm rice, and continue with raw yellowtail, Spanish mackerel, beef-colored tuna streaked with veins of fat, and porgy splashed with lemon juice and a touch of sea salt. The last gets hit with a blow torch before Uchino places the morsel on a small slate plate in front of you.
My neighbors on a recent weekday murmured in unison as they bit into salmon smoked in hay, a technique that elevates the flavor of the fish without masking it. Even if you go the sushi route, the drill includes a hand roll. (Make mine yellowtail ignited with citrusy yuzu, please.)
At present, the venue is walk-in only for lunch. Omakase, served on Friday night for $135 a person, is by reservation for two seatings and includes grilled and fried dishes while featuring mostly fish from Japan, says Uchino. Kiyomi, the chef’s sister’s name, translates to “pure beauty” — an apt way to describe a deal of a meal in the city.
Now that you no longer have an expense account, have your restaurant habits changed?
For sure — but not necessarily for budgetary reasons. After decades of eating out, sometimes as many as 10 meals a week for work, I’m rekindling my love for cooking at home. (Meatloaf, roast chicken, composed salads, BLTs and eggs for dinner are my current jam.) While I remain curious about the restaurant scene, locally and beyond, I’m also free to eat wherever I want, not where I feel obliged to visit.
There are a handful of places I return to frequently, both because they’re easy to get to (close to home) and their menus are to my taste: Bombay Club and Casa Teresa downtown, Perry’s, Reveler’s Hour and Rye Bunny in Adams Morgan, Donsak Thai Restaurant in Woodley Park, and Buck’s Fishing & Camping near the senior Politics and Prose are where you might find me most often.
Finally, I’m probably drinking less than when I was out every night, too; a cocktail followed by a glass of wine. No more bottles of grape juice unless I’m with a group. My liver thanks me.
Two food lovers are heading to Iceland for several days. What shouldn’t we miss?
You’ll want to book in advance for the top draws, which include Dill, the first Icelandic restaurant to get a nod from Michelin; Ox, which offers the feel of a speakeasy; Moss at the Blue Lagoon, whose seasonal tasting menu focuses on New Nordic flavors and whose view embraces lava fields; and, for something different and more relaxed, Sumac Grill + Drinks. The last is a lively brasserie with a charcoal grill and twists on Middle Eastern accents. Suddenly, I’m hungry for Reykjavik again.
I have a hankering for Burmese food. Point me in the right direction.
Arlington — specifically Padaek, the largest of the area Thai and Laotian restaurants owned by chef Seng Luangrath. Her partner in the kitchen is Nyi Nyi Myint, a native of Yangon (formerly Rangoon) who recently added several flavors from his homeland to the menu. “There aren’t a lot of Burmese restaurants” in the area, Myint says of the decision to broaden the script.
Spring for the fermented tea leaf salad — a crunchy-tangy toss that includes shredded cabbage, tomatoes, nuts, lime juice and chiles — and the fish soup mohinga that’s considered Burma’s national dish. Once you start spooning into the steaming, turmeric-tinted mohinga — thick with thin rice noodles, a whole egg, shredded blue catfish, and crisp Lao squash fritters — it’s hard to stop. Fresh ginger, garlic and fish sauce weigh in with their charms, too.
Myint says he has more Burmese dishes to add after vacation. September can’t come fast enough for some of his fans.
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