Silver Spring Independent Restaurants vs. Soulless Corporate Invaders: The Rematch

On December 4, 2003, I published on this here website an article comparing some of Silver Spring’s independent dining establishments with the chains that were about to enter the downtown S-Dub agora, with the completely noninflammatory title “Silver Spring Independent Restaurants vs.  Soulless Corporate Invaders.” This article has gotten more criticism than anything else I’ve posted to this site, in part because the Silver Spring Voice published an editorially mangled version of it and people came looking for me on the Internet, and in part because someone posted it on Chowhound, a pack of food hounds with which I am not really attempting to run. This criticism fell mostly into the following categories:

• Chains aren’t bad. You’re just part of that reflexively anti-corporate Silver Spring/Takoma Park establishment. I believe I addressed this in the actual article when I said, “Not that soulless corporatism is bad! That's how we got Chipotle, the McDonald's Corporation's act of supreme gastonomic atonement, which is coming to City Place in March! But I think we can all agree that given a choice between a soulless national chain and a similar but clearly superior local alternative, we'd choose the local alternative.” If that’s not clear, read it again. And I’ve spent at least $100 at Chipotle since it opened.
• Your taste in food sucks. I am not a professional food critic, nor do I represent myself as one. However, I do pay attention to what I’m eating, and I know what I like.
• You made factual errors. Mea culpa, there were some of those. This article will correct them. I appreciate the interlocutors who were kind enough to point these out.
• You didn’t even go to some of these restaurants. Well, of course — they hadn’t opened yet! Like I’m going to drive to the Macaroni Grill in Fairfax and eat mall Italian food and not get paid for it. Do I look like some kind of sucker? (Don’t answer that.)

But now that more than half a year has passed, I have been to (most of) these restaurants. (It’ll be a cold day in hell before my shadow darkens the doorway of Red Lobster.) Plus there is a new matchup to be contested. So Don King and I decided that it’s time for a rematch between the Silver Spring independents and the soulless corporate invaders. This time — it’s for all the marbles. And definitely not for the Silver Spring Voice.

Austin Grill vs. Mi Rancho: Correspondent Ken Norkin correctly points out that I missed a couple things in my earlier discussion of this matchup. For one, Austin Grill is a local chain, rather than a national chain, kind of like the Olsson’s of Tex-Mexery. I did miss that. Perhaps it’s because Austin Grill pretends it’s from Texas with its name and beer selection, gives its menu items cutesy-poo names of the type that apparently reassure the casual diner given their relative ubiquity, and serves food with the kind of universalist accent that sells at any mall, redeveloped downtown, or upscale strip shopping center in the country. (Spinach and mushrooms do not belong in my freaking quesadilla!)

Mr. Norkin also points out that the Silver Spring Austin Grill has, in fact, done something for somebody other than serving beer on draft: It features live music. At the time I wrote the original article, the Silver Spring location had not opened yet, and thus I was unaware of the plans to let bands play there. I am glad to correct this error. It’s good that there is another live music venue in downtown, even if I would never want to hear any of the bands that play there beyond what I hear as I walk past Austin Grill on my way to Mi Rancho.

But Mi Rancho still gives out calendars and stuff like that occasionally, still has a more laid-back atmosphere and servers whose friendliness seems less studied, and, most importantly, still has better food. True, the restaurants’ respective menus are quite similar, although Mi Rancho is not striving for upscaleability enough to put spinach and mushrooms where they manifestly do not belong and is authentic enough to serve actual chorizo in a few dishes. But the meat in Mi Rancho’s fajitas is seasoned with a little more savor, its guac has been in my experience a little more flavorful, and its chips and salsa are head and shoulders above Austin Grill. These chips are light as air, coming straight to you from the tortilla machine and a bath in oil to convert them to chip form, and their taste and texture is absolutely addictive. The salsa that accompanies them has a bright tomato flavor, but with a subtle lime-and-roasted pepper tang backing it up that is a world apart from Austin Grill’s pleasant but simple tomato-jalapeno stew.

So we have to call off the matchup this time, given that both combatants are local. Still, only one got to plop itself in the county-subsidized redevelopment area, and it’s not the one with the best food. And that ain’t fair.

Macaroni Grill vs. Sergio’s: I had probably the worst Italian meal I ever have had in my life at Macaroni Grill, featuring rubber-band calamari and a cannelloni with a shell dried out from baking and reheating, flavorless marinara, and barely seasoned meat. Macaroni Grill gets props from parents I know for being kid-friendly, but you have to be friendly to your kids, too, and paying your hard-earned money for your kids to eat crap like this is tantamount to child abuse in my book. Sergio’s, meanwhile, remains actually good.

Red Lobster vs. Crisfield: I still don’t like seafood. (I keep trying it to make sure, and I keep being reminded that I don’t like it.) So I have to judge this one on peripheral indices of quality:

• National television commercials: Red Lobster runs five zillion a day, all focusing on the vast volume of seafood you can shovel into your gullet for some ridiculously modest price, a price so modest it makes one wonder about the quality of the seafood, or it would if all this stuff didn’t appear to be deep-fried seven times over. Crisfield doesn’t advertise, so it wins.
• Mentions in George Pelecanos novels as exemplar of local seafood retailing: Red Lobster has none becausse it is not local. Crisfield has at least two. Winner: Crisfield.
• Lines to get into restaurant: I had no idea there was such a pent-up demand for discount bulk seafood in the greater Silver Spring area, but Red Lobster is always bulging with people, sometimes to the point where people are waiting to be seated. I have never seen this occur at Crisfield. True, Crisfield is a pricier place, but you have to give this one to Red Lobster.
• Number of protests by Humane Society against restaurant: Apparently our local Red Lobster serves Canadian seafood, and the Humane Society has declared a boycott of places that do so in an effort to pressure the Canadian government into outlawing seal hunting. This led a bunch of people to stand at the corner of Colesville and Georgia a couple weeks ago, soliciting honks from passing motorists and handing out pamphlets stating that you could learn more about this issue at www.protectseals.org. That hasn’t happend outside of Crisfield, I can tell you that much.

So Crisfield wins the peripheral indicies of quality, 3-1, and remains the undefeated local legend, even if I don’t eat there.

T.G.I. Friday’s vs. Parkway Deli and Tastee Diner: T.G.I. Friday’s never showed up, so they lose. I swear they were originally cited as a coming attraction, even on the building itself. (On a semi-related note, have you seen these ads for Ruby Tuesday’s burgers? Those actually look appetizing, unlike the burger I actually ate at the Ruby Tuesday in City Place many years ago, which made me sick. Don’t go to the City Place Ruby Tuesday. Just a suggestion.)

Potbelly Sandwich Works vs. Adega Wine Cellars & Cafe: Someone who wrote in to the Silver Spring Voice suggested that Adega should have matched up with Potbelly rather than Polonez, the Polish deli whose virtues I extolled in the previous article. I think this was a good suggestion. (Sorry I don’t have the newspaper around, so that I could properly credit you.)

Now then: I’m completely in love with Potbelly. Their sandwiches are pretty good, but not great; however, they cost $3.79, so they only have to be pretty good to be worth the dough. The toasting process they all go through helps to mask the pedestrian quality of certain ingredients (vegetables, mostly), and the meats themselves are generally reasonable. They also serve those cute little 12-ounce Orangina bottles, which always warm my heart.

But the best thing about Potbelly is their oatmeal-chocolate chunk cookie, which used to be 89 cents and now has been cruelly raised to 99. It’s still a bargain. Baked in-store and wrapped in wax paper for maximum freshness (my heart sinks whenever I see a cookie being choked by plastic wrap), the cookie is almost always still slightly crisp from the oven yet also invitingly tender to the tooth, with just the right balance of hearty whole-oat goodness and decadent chocolate chunkiness. And it’s huge!

However, Adega can boast many advantages over its chain competitor. For one thing, though its sandwiches cost more, they come with chips, which at Potbelly are a separate expenditure. More importantly, they are made with actual quality ingredients, and as such taste genuinely good, rather than acceptable for the price. If you are with a party who does not have any great enthusiasm for sandwiches, you can get wraps (which I’ve never tried) or real live entrees, which are pretty good as well, even if they are served on plastic with plastic utensils. As its name indicates, Adega also will sell you some wine if you are so inclined, which tends to trump Orangina for a lot of people. And if you don’t want wine with your meal, you can buy a bottle and take it home for those late-night self-remonstrance festivals. (Is there another reason people drink?)

And yet: Adega has no cookie. You’d think service could be the deciding factor, but both staffs are notably cheerful and efficient. So let’s call it a tie with honor (which in the NHL will not get you any extra points). Both get my dining dollars with fair regularity.

Panera vs. Mayorga Coffee Factory: (Most of this was in the Voice but not on my website; my apologies to y’all.)

Panera’s danish, as reported earlier, are awful, as are their pastries in general. Their bread is pretty good, but not better than Fresh Fields (aka Whole Foods), which is just a block and a half away, and their sandwiches are excelled by both Potbelly and Adega. So why are there so many people in there so often? Because Panera provides a nice space to lounge around and sip a cuppa joe. Good for them — except Mayorga does it better. The coffee, as you might expect, completely skunks Panera's: roasted on the premises with a gourmet's touch and fresh as you could possibly wish, its pleasures sing out even to those of us who are not java junkies. But the pastries, too, beat Panera both on taste (perfectly fine) and value (much more reasonably priced). And if you have friends who are unmoved by both coffee and pastries, you can nevertheless lounge around with them, as Mayorga always has a couple beers on tap as well. Throw in live music on Fridays and Saturdays (with bands I actually want to hear!), and predictable corporate mediocrity never looked so unappealing.

Ben & Jerry’s and Cold Stone Creamery vs. York Castle: The new matchup. The City Place Ben & Jerry’s has absolutely horrible service, every time I’ve been in there. At least it has good ice cream, though; the Cold Stone Creamery ice cream serves primarily as a lightly flavored delivery vehicle for its many toppings. Want all-around ice cream satisfaction — and, as a bonus, delectable, exotic flavors you can’t get at either of the two franchise outposts? Head up Georgia Avenue a bit to York Castle. Here you can find not only fine renditions of the standard flavors but also ice cream derived from tropical fruits like mango, litchi, banana, guava, and others. (The management is Jamaican, which also explains why you can get beef patties there.) If you eat mango ice cream at a restaurant and they didn’t make it in-house, they probably got it from York Castle — that’s how good this stuff is. I personally melt for the banana, but they’re all worth trying.

So we find, upon further examination, that the soulless corporate invaders, ensconcing themselves in artificially cheapened real estate and reaping the benefits of a publicity campaign that seems designed to convince people that there was no commercial activity in Silver Spring prior to the erection of this specific development, got one game called, one tie, and an additional loss. That puts independent restautants at 5-0-1. And may water once again enter my apartment from above and cause an electrical fire if I do not soon have available the listing of Silver Spring restaurants I like that no one dares step up to challenge because they would get beat down even more severely than these chump chains did. Well, all the chump chains except Potbelly. Man, I wish I had one of those cookies right now.

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