Washingtonian- Cheese Discussion

[Baccala]

Interesting artice and worth a read. There article mentions a number of resturants and their cheese selection, however they missed the best on in my opinion, Dino. Clearly the author does not get out enough.

[treznor]

Link?

[DanielK]

Link?

Magazine articles go up a month after the paper copy, so you'll have to either go grab a copy from the newsstand, or wait a month!

[treznor]

Didn't realize that. I actually still have a subscription even though I don't live in DC anymore so I guess I'll check it out when I get home later this week.

[cjsadler]

I disagree with his comment about Whole Food's cheeses being of "consistent quality", at least based on my P Street experiences. Came home with badly ammoniated cheeses from there one too many times.

[chickenlover]

I disagree with his comment about Whole Food's cheeses being of "consistent quality", at least based on my P Street experiences. Came home with badly ammoniated cheeses from there one too many times.

I've found the cheese counter at their Georgetown/Glover Park location to be a lot better than P Street. The folks working the counter are very friendly and happy to cut pieces to order.

[ol_ironstomach]

Clearly the author does not get out enough.

Tongue-in-cheek, or harsh indictment?

I thought the article was pretty good, even if I have some quibbles with the recommendations. That particular WF might have a good cheese counter, but my experience has been more like cjsadler's: most of the ones in MoCo don't. Too much rote cutting-and-wrapping, and then the pieces sit, sometimes for weeks, spoiling in their plastic, with no apparent attention to condition much less affinage. I sometimes end up buying bigger pieces simply because it's the only way to get them to cut a fresh piece off a wheel. Similarly, Balducci's counter at the Georgetown Square (Bethesda) location took a dive right around the time of the SPG renaming. I used to reliably find glorious piles of Montgomery's cheddar there, and then *zip*.

It's a risk for Shoffner to generalize recommendations to an entire chain, but you almost have to name them location-by-location. I wonder how much of that reflects each chain's regional management, and how much of that is attributable to the buying habits of each store's neighborhood.