rlalasz

Care to join us at the farm on Sunday Mr. Lalasz?  Might make a good story...

It does sound like a good story, but I'm otherwise engaged.

And of course, when I was talking about backstory in the piece, I was talking about how the waitstaff describes it...

So, was your problem with the service at Restaurant Eve somehow related to the fact that you ordered the vegetarian tasting menu?  Would you include Eve in the category of white tablecloth restaurants that does not devote its full energies to vegetarian items on its menuy?

I don't know, and not exactly. I've been clear that the dishes were excellent, although monotonally rich. The other people at my table (all omnivores) got the same service, and reacted to it similarly. One is a professional food critic.

There was no "thesis" to the piece. A few people are willfully misreading the article. It contained a personal history, mini-reviews of five restaurant experiences, more restaurants, and a coda. Obviously, during the trajectory of the piece, I find a couple of restaurants that do right by me; there's movement to my thinking. Did the majority disappoint me? Pretty much. Is Eve's tasting menu a sustainable option for a vegetarian over the course of several months? I didn't think so, but I'm willing to let others judge whether my description suits their tastes.

He's not being tarred and feathered; his article is being discussed.

With 5,000 views in 36 hours, this often-stressful discussion is exactly the "problem" any author of a controversial piece should want.  Imagine if there had been only two follow-up postings, consisting of things like, "Great piece, Bob!"

No doubt he has popped a valium or two, but it sure beats languishing in obscurity.

Cheers,

Rocks.

Nada on the valium. This has gone pretty much as I expected. But I expect you'll get another angry phone call from Mr. Kliman about your opinion that being published in Washingtonian is "languishing in obscurity."

Except that it didn't, because the protagonist chose not to employ any techniques other than "supplicating and submissive."

I have no doubt that the article spoke for a lot of people.  But from the standpoint of making change, there are too many holes in it.

The scope of the article wasn't to make change. Its publication might make change--who knows? The point of the piece, as many of us are tired of making, was not to pull out every stop to get the best possible meal. It was to take the temperature of the typical vegetarian's dining experience in DC. Something about that seems to bother a few people--perhaps the idea that such a diner should actually be given voice...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've found exactly two "holes" (the matusake and the description of Eve), both of which I've parried above, both of which a reader not disposed to defend these chefs at all costs would have accepted as an accurate description of my experience.

Is that their posture?  Is that posture understandable?  Neither is clear to me.

But the article was also just about a hatchet job on Eve and includes other remarks that speak to either disinterest ("$14 flatbreads, a faux pizza I refuse to eat unless Costco is offering samples") or lack of knowledge (the above-mentioned matsutake remark--if it was mis-executed in such a way as to render the mushroom more boring than a portobello, you should have sent it back). 

And I don't buy for one second that you would have to compromise your anonymity to make a complaint, either.  I mean, you've already shown ten times more civility under fire on this thread than someone who'd yell, "I'm a blogger, I'll write about this!"

Sorry, I actually had to work a full day with concentration and couldn't respond to the discussion until now.

People are not reading carefully what I wrote about Eve. Eve represents that they have a meatless tasting menu--they assure you of that when you make a reservation. What they have is meatless options for every tasting menu course--not the same thing. My previous experiences of tasting menus is that they have a logic, a throughline. This menu didn't, perhaps because it wasn't really a menu, just a collection of options--I don't know, so I chose not to speculate on it in the piece. By contrast, 2941's light tasting menu courses commented on and led onto each other. So did Komi's veggie plate. They felt like journeys, or as I said in the piece, linked short stories. A far more pleasant experience.

The presentation---its ceremoniousness, dare I say its officiousness--was a separate issue, although I certainly disliked that style and prefer service that doesn't take itself quite so solemnly. (CityZen and 2941 were far better on that score.) Details like that are fair game for such a piece which was, of course, not a brief devoted to one thesis as you seem to insist on wanting, but very personal in tone and therefore full of spiky detail. Hardly a hatchet job.

Why does the failed matsutake speak more to my ability to taste and describe than to the kitchen's ability to plan and execute an interesting dish--simply because it was matsutake, and simply because a top-line chef made it? And why do you assume it would've been any better had I sent it back? The absurd conclusion of this logic is that, because very few of us have the abilities or sensitivities of Eric Ziebold, very few of us has the option of not enjoying a dish he prepares, and anyone who doesn't immediately doesn't know what he's talking about.

Anonymity just doesn't count for the moment as a journalist, especially one who'd like to write about food in the future. Making a complaint post facto at some restaurants warrants scrutiny by a manager. Maybe they'd like to take a name, an address; maybe they look at a credit card receipt.

I was on the job, and my job, as Waitman keeps pointing out very nicely, was to replicate and describe an average diner's experience. It was not to get the best possible experience so as to put the restaurant in the best possible light.

I know that you were focusing on “white tablecloth” restaurants, but why does this exclude the entirety of ethnic dining alternatives?  To put it more bluntly, is there any reason that “white tablecloth” has to be, well, white?  And why is Komi an exception if Zaytinya or Indique are not?

It seems to me that you are dismissing a huge number of opportunities from the outset, as if you waved your hands and said “these don’t count.” As I recall, Jose Andres’ restaurants offer a pretty nice variety of veggie tapas (well, Atlantico excepted), and the room at Oyamel is pretty grand. (I’d second the criticism that your complaint with Atlantico was not one of food quality, but of service.  I’m inclined to wonder you felt your waiter served you differently, or just poorly).

For mid-scale, I know there are a number of places within a short car-ride from my house that do a very nice job with veggie dishes:  Layalina, Bangkok 54, and Lalibela all come to mind.  Punjab Dabha is only a little further down Rt. 50.  I’m personally curious about both Indique and Rasika, but have not yet been. 

So, while I agree that some trendy/upscale restaurants deserve a few dings for not making more of an effort, I also think you threw away the baby and are carping at the bathwater.

The thing I didn't include on my website (which is in the print version) is a sidebar of my survival guide, my places to get what I want. Zaytinya made it. Indique didn't, but could have. I don't have a file of the sidebar handy, so you'll have to read the piece. I probably live near you, because I frequent Layalina, Bangkok 54, Thai Square, Thai Noy, Restaurant Abi, and Myanmar, among many others in Arlington and Fairfax.

So of course there are plenty of places that I enjoy. The pretext of the piece--the reason it got to run in a service-oriented magazine--was that there are two new veggie-friendly restaurants (Vegetate and Viridian) as well as some new vegetarian tasting menus around town (CityZen, Eve, 2941) that are used as selling points by these restaurants. These are not ethnic restaurants in the common sense of the word, although of course everything has its own ethnic markers.

And the frame of the piece was: I don't want to eat Thai or Salvadoran or Vietnamese all the time. I'd like to eat well at some of the places--not all of them, I know that's impossible--but some of the places people are talking about all the time and that pubs such as Washingtonian praise. I can already eat at many of these places--there are often things on the menu, or an established tradition of a veg offering off-menu--but do the dishes I'm served stand up to the buzz and the critical discourse about the rest of the menu? Too often not.

The issues at Atlantico were both service and the portabello, which was ordinary, which has always been ordinary in my experience there. My wife loves their scallops, so I'm happy to oblige: a situation quite common for vegetarians.

A lot of people are getting the tone of the piece, but some are not. I had hoped it would be whimsical and wistful, but also rigorous in its food descriptions. It certainly wasn't intended as a strident call to arms. More like the request that some are saying I should make in person.

My issue is with the author's stated assumption that people with "a dietary restriction that limits what you can eat at the vast majority of restaurants to 1 choice and some to zero" should be "supplicating and submissive."  And then writing an article describing the use of that approach to dine at a few top restaurants (and a few less-top restaurants), and then using in-part-irrelevant observations of said restaurants to tar many restaurants without examining the effects of an alternate approach to dining at those restaurants, namely, being something other than "supplicating and submissive." 

I think, perhaps, it's time for someone to again write the article about how nice it is to be a regular at a restaurant.

I'm sorry, but you're distorting what I wrote. I never wrote we should be "supplicating and submissive." I wrote that that's often the posture of people who don't have much on offer to them at these places--an understandable attitude.

As I also posted earlier, I didn't just dine at a few top restaurants. I dined at close to 25 for the piece, and have been dining for a decade here. If the issue is veracity, I suggest you try your own suggestions for three months and report back on your results and satisfaction. The idea of speaking up more is not a bad one--and in fact, that's what the article just did, to over 100,000 people. But I have no illusions that a restaurant-by-restaurant crusade of one (or 100) will solve the issue.

Maybe the background and training of white tablecloth chefs is the better part of this answer?  An Indian trained chef, for example, comes from a more veggie-centric background and can draw on tried-and-true vegetable entrees.  But even at a modern Indian restaurant like Rasika here or Devi in NYC, they are mainly tweaking and updating those old standards (usually in terms of presentation), not coming up with anything truly originial.  When they offer you Paneer Makhani at Rasika, it's basically the equivalent of a white tablecloth place offering you mushroom risotto again, isn't it?  It takes alot of creativity and effort to create an original vegetarian entree that's delicious (in fact, I can't think of when I've ever had one).  Thinking about the background and training of the chefs of most white tablecloth places, what do they have as a base to work from in terms of veggie entrees?  All your favorites: risotto, pasta primavera, veggie ravioli, etc...

You make some thoughtful points. But when I travel, I generally find more variety for me in other cities (NYC and SF and LA, of course, but also Chicago, Philly, Portland, Milwaukee--Milwaukee, for crying out loud) than I do here. As someone suggested earlier, perhaps it's the extreme expense account culture here that's holding things back.

I think that this type of sentiment of portraying vegetarians as "victims" may be what has engendered some opposition to your views.  Victims of what? Some scheme hatched by chefs to make your dining options less than desirous? Or perhaps victims of simply being unable to prove that what you seek can be provided profitably.  Yes, it may be a "chicken or the egg" scenario, but I can empathize with restaurateurs who may not want to take the risk of pioneering a new attitude toward vegetarian offerings.

We haven't established at all that good vegetarian entrees can be swapped in for the present mediocre ones only at great economic risk. I wish a restauranteur would attempt to demonstrate that during this discussion.

For instance, Ceiba told me Jeff Tunks makes a point of changing their veg entree every season. They only have one on any single menu, but Tunks' attitude alone better disposes me and I'd suspect many other vegetarians toward Ceiba, regardless of what I think of their swiss chard relleno. (Not great, but not bad, for the record.) It's a nice gesture that builds goodwill (as well as the client base) and clearly won't break them. More restaurants should consider it.

As for victimization. I was using a figure of speech. But the piece--I keep returning to the piece, probably because I wrote it, but also because it stands on its own as a document of experience, an experience that other veggies here and that I've talked with ratify emphatically. It is tiresome and disspiriting to be forced into the role of supplicant--which, let's face it, is what you are when you're always asking kitchens to make something special for you, or praying that the ravioli is somehow more interesting than the last 50 you've had. And it's especially tiresome when you encounter restaurants such as Komi, where your food is great, and you wonder why it can't be that way more often elsewhere.

After almost 100 points on this topic, I'm still wondering.

You need a better editor. 

Expecting a nasty phone call,

Rocks.

You just fell right through the ice there, my friend.

I think the point that Joe and others have made is that restaurateurs operate businesses.  As such, if they see a trend in their area of business that: (a) fits within the theme that the restaurant focuses on and ( will (hopefully) be profitable, then they will embrace said trend.  Thus, I disagree with your assumption that culinary trends are driven primarily by chefs and not customers.

Indeed, I believe that your foie gras example suffers from several problems.  First, I don't believe that foie gras can be lumped into the same category of food trends as mini-cheeseburgers.  While many high-end restaurants may serve it, it is a classic French dish, not some newfangled concoction. Second, and more importantly, while you may be correct that customers aren't directly asking for foie gras on their way out, I would argue they are doing so indirectly by virtue of the choices they make when they order.  And that is the point that I think many who found areas of disagreement with your article have been trying to make: by virtue of collective choices, we can drive the marketplace of available dining options.  Your belief that there are too few options for vegetarians, I would posit, stems from a failure of the vegetarian (and non-vegetarian) community to establish by the choices that they make that customers would support in sufficient numbers what you desire.

I'd like to share your optimism that all we need to do is ask. Placing the onus completely on vegetarians, though, does smack of blaming the victim. Again, we're avoiding the obvious: Why would chefs with estimable reputations risk putting a mediocre dish on their menus just because it's meatless? Isn't it a bit of chicken and egg--the vegetarian meals are poor, so vegheads go elsewhere, or only to these places under duress? (Again, sorry for the mixed-animal metaphor.) I guess to eat well at the places everybody's buzzing about, we have to start a movement. And to think somebody was mocking me earlier when I talked about a right to dine.

I was commenting on the recent boomlet in foie gras manifestations on area menus, not on foie gras as traditional fare. Sorry for the confusion. Perhaps I should stick to my team.

As for the article focusing only on the tepid vegetarian offerings of the area's "white tablecloth" restaurants, that would be true except that there were issues discussed with regard to service.  An example:  "The problem was preciousness and a lack of pacing. The evening was all exclamation points, an ESPN SportsCenter version of the Vegetable Plate served with a ceremoniousness more suited to the delivery of a papal bull."  If the pace is slow, mention it.  That doesn't change the focus of the article if it was, in fact, dedicated only to pointing out the lack of options for the vegetarian diner.

I was using "pacing" in another sense--that of variance, rhythm, and logic, one course leading into another. I expected to spend a long time at Eve. What I had hoped for was more of the sense of interplay that I got with Komi's vegetable plate. As I said in the piece.

Do you feel that it is disingenuous to not only write negative reviews on this board, but publish an article for the general public to read without giving the restaurants an opportunity to address your concerns at the time?  One of the issues discussed frequently here is how unfair and easy it is to criticize restaurants after the fact.  And if you don't tell the restaurants that you are bored and disappointed with their vegetarian offerings, then how will they know what to change or improve -- or should they just wait to read about it in the Washingtonian?

No, it's not disingenuous at all. Criticism engages the object, not the creator--at least not on an interpersonal level. Perhaps complaining to the restaurant will get you a better meal. But why aren't the restaurants serving better vegetarian meals in the first place? One point about the piece was not to give the venues every opportunity to put their best foot forward, but to capture a typical experience, as well as my experience.

Something that I may have missed both in the article and on this thread is whether or not you did alert the restaurants to your specific dining requirements in advance or were the requests for alternate items  made when placing your order (other than when actual vegetarian tasting menus were available).  Also, at any time either during the dinner or afterward while still at the restaurant, did you let the manager/chef/waitstaff know that you were disappointed?

For the piece, I generally confined myself to places that had at least one (and, except in the case of 2941, had only one) veg entree already on menu. But I've previously been to many high-end restaurants here without veg menu entrees, so I felt I understood that experience well. I didn't want to play gotcha.

For reasons I hope are understandable (to maintain my anonymity and to replicate a typical vegetarian's experience at these restaurants--i.e., supplicating and submissive), I didn't complain.

I don't quite get your first statement. Customers mention it to waitors/mgmt/etc to register demand. If you happen to be in Jackie's say, "Gee, I'd come in more often if you had something vegetarian besides the mushroom risotto. I have a lot of friendss who feel the same way." Restaurant owners see a place getting big business from vegetarian dishes or a packed completely vegetarian place and says "Aha, there's a demand".  Matchbox succeeds with mini-burgers and the damned things are ubiquitous (some might say trite) within two years. If restaurants were not in a fairly efficient market, then they wouldn't go out of business when noone goes.

My hypotheses would be simply that a)there a high enough proportion of vegetarians in DC's eating out population to make a difference, b.) re your statement above - vegetarians have not expected enough excellence nor made a big enough stink over poorly done dishes

Isn't what other chefs are doing the real engine for culinary change (vide the miniburger), not consumer's verbal demands? (For example: the foie gras craze. Consumers didn't suddenly start asking their servers: "Hey, some foie gras next time, OK?") And if nobody's going to cook interesting veg dishes, how will people go crazy over them? Which brings up something else I touch on the piece: that interesting veg cooking is going on all over the country, but the example doesn't seem to be penetrating DC culinary consciousness. Why not?

The miniburger faces none of the obstacles vegetarian food faces: a pervasive, creative indifference to and/or lack of training in creating meatless dishes, plus a fear of the unknown based in the industry's overall razor-thin profit margins. The miniburger (cute, fun, retro) was almost predestined to be a hit.

Still, although I think your cascade scenario is optimistic, I'm willing to flap the butterfly's wings by mentioning seeking out chefs and mentioning my disappointment every single time I encounter a boring veg meal...sigh. I'll be doing it a lot.

You may also have been thinking about my 5% being the three that he liked being 5% of all whit table cloth  restaurants (acronym time --WTR) in the city, but this is a flawed number (oops).

He liked the dishes at 3 of the 7 he reviewed, or roughly 43%. I omitted the ones mentioned in passing like Ray's (liked) or Kinkaed's (I think he liked,but not enough food), or Jackie's (couldn't tell if he liked or not)

So let's say that the 7 are a decent sample of the WTR's in town, a 43% rate is probably smaller than most meateaters' overall success rates, but not by much.

You're assuming a great deal here, and mistakenly. For the piece, I actually went to far more restaurants than were mentioned even in passing--about 25. And because I'm married to a omnivore who loves to eat, I've dined at far more than that over my time in DC, although with difficulty as per the story. What you're doing is akin to assuming that the quotes in an article are the only things a subject said.

Again, I have to caution that the piece was not a service piece, although there is a sidebar (not on my website) of places I go when I want what I want. It is representative of my decade-long experience eating high-end in this city and, based on responses in this thread, that of several other vegetarians who care about food.

It's interesting that the discussion here (not unexpectedly) seems to have a strong anti-special pleading bent to it, as if the majority's average high-quality experience should be sufficient for a substantial minority (one that, as others here have pointed out, includes omnivores who occasionally want a break from meat). In effect, some people are arguing that chefs have the right to indifferently make a dish that they've already chosen to put on their menu--in effect, putting their signature to it-- simply because it's meatless. Fascinating. Thank God it's not your dish they've decided to punt on.

Others have argued that if the demand is there, the market will respond. Clearly, restaurants are far from a perfect market. There is no market mechanism to register demand for something (a good vegetarian meal) that chefs or owners are too cautious or indifferent or hidebound to produce. We take what we can get, what's offered to us. And that the offerings are generally so disappointing in DC is due to culture, a constellation of chef's desires and training, or just bad luck...is something I hope someone can shed some light on here. It wasn't part of my ambit for the story.

You self-selected into a tiny minority (5%) and found a minority -- 2941, Asia Nora and Komi -- of fancy restaurants, probably about 5%, that serve your needs. So what's the problem? My thoughts run mainly to  "You made your bed, now lie in it".

It's as if I decided I would only eat chicken and then got pissed that so few restaurants did it well (and few do).

I'd disagree that 5 percent is a tiny minority, as would Al Gore. I'd also disagree that I self-selected into a group that presupposes boring, monotonous dining. Certainly, most of the DC chefs quoted in the article's sidebar agree that veg eating can be interesting. Too bad their cooking often doesn't bear that out.

The chicken-eating analogy is specious because (a) there's no recognized group like that (if there is, email me so I can pitch a feature on them to the New Yorker), and ( lacto-ovo vegetarians don't eat just one kind of vegetable. I take the chefs at their word: The majority have both the desire and the skill to do right by us. So do it!

Expressing frustration about the lack of vegetarian dining options is acceptable but expecting all restaurants conform to the needs of this group is not.

I did the first, but not the second. If you read the piece, I think you'll see that.

A common feature of discussions of vegetarians in restaurants is that they depart the realm of business and cooking for the land of "ought." 

That it is good business to cater to vegetarians is, to an extent, for the market to decide.  There is already movement towards greater variety and and quality in acarnivorous cooking, we'll see how far it goes.  If there really is more pent-up veggo-demand, someone will figure how to tap it.  If there's more smoke than fire on this particular grill, then choices will remain limited.  We'll see.

That vegetarian cooking is often unimaginitive and trite is virtually inarguable, though that is a failing that extends into the realm of omnivority.  My next article is titled "My Friend the Tuna Carpaccio."  Again, if people demand creative vegetarian cooking (by ordering it, not by writing about it) chefs will get the message soon enough. 

But, the argument that restaurants "ought" to serve vegetarian food is prima facie absurd -- any more than they "ought" to have any other category of cooking on the menu: vegan, Tandoori, Atkins "sanwiches" or raw food...whatever.  And while I dislike chefs who are so convinced of their own genius that they refuse to change a sauce stroke of their edible masterpieces, asking for a special order in the middle of busy service is a asking a good deal.

I read the article more as a frustrated rant (and also to get ideas for when my friend Beth comes over; her article: "My Friend Charles and His Goddam Portabellos") more than a cry of entitlement, and enjoyed it.  But the fact is, most vegetarians have chosen to become vegetarians. If that limits their dining, it's not our problem.

That being said, I would like to see more and better vegetarian offerings, on general principal, and I think a little more attention from a few more chefs could start a virtuous (though, let us not get into a discussion of whether or not vegeterians are more virtuous) circle:  better vegetables, more demand, more attention, better vegetables....

I think we agree more than disagree. But I would disagree about lumping vegetarians in with vegans, fructarians, and other people who have self-selected themselves completely out of mainstream eating. Vegan offerings at the restaurants we're talking about are rare, whereas lacto-ovo veg dishes are fairly common. The limitation is by and large not on where we can eat, but in the execution and variety of the dishes served to us. I more respect a chef who says, no, I can't do that for you, it's outside my tradition, than I do one who says, yes, I can do something for you, and then it's a plate of vegetables in butter every single time.

Welcome, Bob - I had heard you were coming.  Your article was well-written and very entertaining!

Part of your piece keys on area high-end kitchens - you mentioned Restaurant Eve, CityZen, and 2941 - but you didn't mention the vegetarian tasting menus at Gerard's Place, Citronelle, Maestro, or Inn at Little Washington.  Have you tried them, and what did you think? 

How about this argument (just to stir things up):  you mention that 5% of all diners are vegetarian, but I'd counter that at least 5% of all main courses are vegetarian - for example, the Vegetable Blue Plate at Vidalia, or the Melange of Seasonal Vegetables at Corduroy - and at least 10% of first courses.  In fact the other day I was feeling primal and carnivorous, and groused that seven out of ten first courses at Corduroy were from the ocean, and the other three were vegetarian.  Whazza problem?  Is it because this ratio often limits you to one main course per restaurant?  Are the majority of vegetarian plates at white-tablecloth restaurants really just piles of chopped carrots and sliced potatoes?

There's always wine.

Rocks

Don, thanks for the kind words about the piece. To answer directly--no, I haven't had tried those tasting menus. In my defense, only one of those restaurant's websites (Maestro) advertises a vegetarian tasting menu. A vegetarian develops a cringing posture after years of not being fed well at high-end restaurants--you start not to look, to avoid yet more disappointment, yet another instance of exclusion. I regret not knowing about Maestro and look forward to enjoying their Colors of the Garden menu.

On the other hand--speaking of sacrilege--one of the points I make in the piece is that tasting menus are not enough for people that don't have enough interesting things to eat on the regular menu. It's not sustainable and a bit unfair to ask people that you're not taking care of in the usual ways to pay a premium to eat at your establishment, often forcing everyone at your table to also choose a tasting menu. I also think that most tasting menus are inhumane in scale, but I realize that might be hotly disputed by foodies.

Your argument about 5 percent of the population versus 10 percent of the menu seems apples and oranges (or pick your nonmeat metaphor) to me. The issues are threefold: 1) There's usually only one entree for me to eat; 2) It's almost always the same damn thing; and 3) It's not up to the artistic/culinary standards of the rest of the menu. The four dishes I encounter almost exclusively are: portobello mushrooms, pasta stuffed with baby food, the vegetable plate, and risotto. It's maddening. As Jonathan Krinn says in the piece, if you can't cook with vegetables, you suck. Well, there's a fair amount of, if not suckitude, mediocrity coming out of DC high-end kitchens for vegheads. Eating at Komi for the first time was a revelation.

I understand there are economics involved in devoting two entrees to meatless dishes. In that case, chefs should change it up frequently with the one veg entree.

You appear to have said something less than idolatrous about Restaurant Eve.  Blasphemer!  Your sentence: Banishment to the innermost circle of Hell -- perpetual hold on the Ray's reservations line.

I enjoyed the piece.  I have a mechanical question about your approach to eating out.  Do you verify that apparently vegetarian dishes not explicitly labeled as such do not include animal products, such as chicken stock, lard, or the like?  I know some vegetarians who, um, eat first and ask questions later in such (presumably recurring and vexing) situations.

(To answer the question you pose: Of course vegetarians deserve a place at the big table.  My wife and I recently took a trip to India, where vegetarians not only receive a place at the big table: They often constitute the entire table.  When it's part of the culture, inconvenienced chefs somehow adjust.)

Yes, I'm taking my chances with the Church of Restaurant Eve. On the other hand, I'm effusive in my praise of Ray's portabello with spicy diablo sauce. (Michael told me in an interview that he serves about three a month.)

I do verify--but always key in most waitstaff to my peculiar condition first, to which they usually respond helpfully. At Ceiba recently, they told me I could have the black bean soup without the ham croquette, which was appreciated. Unfortunately, the bowl still arrived with croquette, and I had to stop the waiter in mid-pour. (I almost didn't notice it, because of course they hold a napkin between you and the bowl to prevent splattering. That seemed like the closest I'll ever get to eating ortolan.)

My article on trying to eat vegetarian at high-end DC restaurants ("My Friend the Portabello") has just been published in the March issue of Washingtonian. It's also online at my website.

At the end of the web version, I've also included the sidebar of quotes Washingtonian collected from DC chefs such as Gillian Clark, Frank Ruta, Eric Zeibold, and others, reacting to Anthony Bourdain's infamous Kitchen Confidential quote slamming vegheads as a "persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn."

I'm interested in your thoughts, criticisms, empathy, and/or hostility. The piece is personal, with a tone of smiling through tears; it's neither an economic analysis nor an exhaustive survey. But my core argument is that DC's high-end chefs are well behind the national curve when it comes to serving vegetarians. In major urban centers such as DC, one out of every 20 people is a vegetarian, and many more would like interesting meatless options on occasion. But the sparse menu offerings for us here (when we're offered anything at all) are routine and unimaginative. Of course there are plenty of great ethnic restaurants for veggies to go to, but we're basically shut out of White Tablecloth Land and the artistry and venues this board often buzzes about. As I say in the piece, I no longer go to fancy DC restaurants (with the exception of Komi and Ray's the Steaks, of all places) for the food.

My impressions of the meatless tasting menus at CityZen, Restaurant Eve, and 2941 as well as Vegetate and Viridian are included in the piece. Except for 2941, I was underwhelmed.

Anyway, I'm eager to know what you think I got right and what I missed, and whether veggies should have a place at the big table (instead of the kids'). I doubt that you could top Gillian Clark's contempt for my kind, but I'm ready for that, too.

Thanks,

Bob Lalasz