Hot dogs, free meals, and other news. . .

1) For those of you visiting Chicago anytime soon, Hot Doug has been closed for weeks as a result of Doug’s having broken his leg.  The shop will reopen on the 12th.  Speaking of hot dogs, Washington City Paper’s Tim Carman reports on changes at M’Dawg’s Haute Dogs.  One word: uniforms?

2) Michael Bauer, critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, addresses a restauranteur’s frustration with critics– and bloggers– hitting restaurants up for free meals:

The gentleman told our manager that he was a food writer and would be coming in to check out the restaurant. I instructed our manager to get his name and credentials which we googled. Nothing of interest, so we didn’t proceed any further. This gentleman ate his meal and walked out without paying. My manager chased him down. He summitted his business card and told my manager that his “editor” would give us a call. This is where I got involved. I told him there was no way we were going to comp the meal. We did not invite him in nor did we ever indicate that we would comp his meal. Am I wrong? Should I have just comped the guy and move on?

Check out the friction in the comments. 

3) I used to drop the f’bomb like the Dude(s) on the youtube version of The Big Lebowski, but have scaled back for teaching and living in D.C., where it’s much less a part of everyone’s daily speech than it was in New York. The tone of Time Out New York’s new food blog, The Feed, is a reminder of the good ol’ cussin days, with its  bitchin’ banh mi post as well as the WTF: Wakiya, a critique of service that went horribly awry. 

In its NY chefs survey, there’s no shortage of f’bombs, courtesy the chefs. Peruse nominations for best restaurant–Daniel,  worst restaurant–Tavern, Ruby Foo’s, most overpriced–Per Se, and best values-Lupa, The Grocery, Peasant, The Little Owl. 

Other interesting answers include most tired dishes–”No question: Molten chocolate cake and tuna tartare tied for ‘Jesus, again?,’ with poor crème brûlée coming in third. Runners-up: sliders, pasta, mixed greens and ‘kobe this and kobe that,” as well as the what’s wrong with New York diners: “They all go home and write blogs instead of having sex.”

4) New York based national site, Serious Eats asks,”What’s your go-to weekday breakfast?”  in which Mimi Sheraton touts the bialy.  Forget that there are so few bagel places in D.C. where do you get a bialy aside from Cal Woods?

I loved this question. My ideal weekday breakfast is either Fage Greek yogurt with honey, golden raisins, and dates, or bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel. In reality, it’s Cheerios or a granola bar.  I’m a supremely lazy shopper and weekday morning cook.  Please tell me you’re more ambitious.

I’m especially enjoying District resident Erin Zimmer’s  bi-weekly posts on the site as well.