Whoa! Washington Post "40 Best Eats in Washington 2015" includes DCity Smokehouse, Red Hen, Meats & Foods and Thai X-ing

Click on the link to read the entire Washington Post article.

Great to see four local restaurants make this "40 Best Eats in Washington" list!

D.C.’s most essential dishes of 2015

Story by Lavanya Ramanathan

Illustration by Studio MUTI

Published on March 12, 2015

The Brisket Champ at DCity Smokehouse

At the tiny-but-mighty Florida Avenue smokery DCity, the Brisket Champ sandwich starts with what The Post’s Tim Carman has called “master’s level brisket” — beef, smoked for hours with cherrywood and hickory, good enough to stand on its own. But when it comes to essential eats, Washingtonians love overkill, so this meaty masterpiece is stacked onto buttery, fat Texas toast and topped with vinegar-loaded house-made pickles and crispy buttermilk-battered onions. “The sandwich,” wrote Matthew Adinolfi of the District, “is just a great flavor combination of smoke from the meat, crunchy and salty from the fried onions and tart from the pickles.”
8 Florida Ave. NW. www.dcitysmokehouse.com. $9.25.

Mezze rigatoni with fennel sausage ragu at Red Hen

In New York and New Jersey, where chef Mike Friedman was raised, “rigatoni is the major staple pasta in every red-sauce joint in town.” At Red Hen, the house-made dry pasta is the vehicle for a slow-roasted tomato sauce, which Friedman spikes with garlic, butter and sausage that he makes with local pork, toasted fennel seed, pepper and floral fennel pollen. The appeal of this popular dish, which also can be ordered without sausage, is that it’s both familiar and unfussy, Friedman said. “There’s, like, this great simple, harmonious thing going on.”
1822 First St. NW. www.theredhendc.com. $17.

Frito pie at Meats & Foods

Yes, drizzling chili over corn chips and smothering it all in cheddar is elementary-level cooking, a skill you pick up to endure the dorm cafeteria or to lessen the repercussions of drinking one too many beers. In the South and in Mexico, however, chili and chips are serious culinary business. (See: Mexico’s obsession with Dorilocos.) At Meats & Foods, the lowly Frito pie is among the nostalgic junk-food basics given the gourmet treatment with chili that’s made with love — and rich, fatty beef. The Florida Avenue shop unveiled its Frito pie for New Year’s and people have been requesting it, off-the-menu, ever since.

247 Florida Ave. NW. www.meatsandfoods.com. $5. 

Pumpkin curry at Thai X-ing

40 Eats Classic / On the menu since: 2008.
Orders sold in a typical weekend: 200.

Taw Vigsittaboot first served his sweet and fiery pumpkin curry on Halloween in 2008, he recalled, as a fun one-off to mark the season. After that, he’d offer it as part of his prix-fixe, multicourse meal only when the mood took him. Slowly, however, word got out about the addictive, buttery-textured gourd, and diners began booking their reservations, waiting politely through all the other courses, solely to taste it. So now every meal includes the red curry, made with sweet kabocha squash, coconut milk and a kick of chilies, lime leaves and lemongrass. There also are now two Thai X-ing locations; both developments have made it far easier to get your fix.
515 Florida Ave. NW; 2020 Ninth St. NW. www.thaix-ing.com. Fixed price, $30-$40per person.