Moving to NOVA; tell me about the food (Fairfax: sales, sex offenders)

[Hal Roach]

Originally Posted by Old Guard

This is an unfair and irrelevant comparison.

So NoVa cannot compete globally? Land here is 6 million per acre, likely more than that King St., location, which is a bit ghetto.

[Hal Roach]

Originally Posted by chazas

Lots of good information here. My views on a few things:

Yes, the produce at big chains (Safeway, Giant, Harris Teeter) is not-so-great. But you can get fabulous cheap produce at the local Asian/ethnic markets - Fresh World, Grand Mart, H Mart, etc.

I'm from Texas and there is very little good Mexican food here, Tex-Mex or otherwise.

DC as a "foodie" town thinks much more highly of itself than is justified. Yes, it's better than it was a decade or two ago. But still mostly uninspired and priced very high.

Agreed, just the plain truth. I am sure both of us would be more than willing to give the Mex a great rating, if it were true, but the people cooking it (Central Americans) are from the armpit of North America...Things are much better than the days of the Giant monopoly, thankfully. It has caught up a little bit...Trader Joes was a big first step, nearly 20 years ago. It is just too far from the source in most cases, and the traffic is horrible. Very little is picked ripe. In Bangkok, some things are dismal, but there are plenty of things that are sensational. Nothing is sensational in DC..not the pizza, not the Thai, not the soul, not the Southern, not the Italian. There are no real ethnic neighborhoods in DMV...Chinatown is a bad joke, there is no Little Italy like Baltimore...there is no Thaitown, like LA. Must have something to do with the excess of bureaucrats....bland and boring...

[chazas]

Thanks for the shout out! Some of what you add I agree with, but not everything

The "armpit of North America" comment isn't really called for. I view different Central American foods in their own right, they just aren't Mexican (regional true Mexican, TexMex, California Mexican or otherwise). We have the same problem with American-style Chinese food, which is often cooked by Korean (or even Latino) immigrants - American-style Chinese is already not really Chinese, but it becomes unrecognizable (and often terrible).

But there are some great ethnic restaurants in and (mostly) around DC - we have world-class Vietnamese, Korean, Ethoipian, Chinese, etc.

No comment on bureaucrat comment. :-)

Originally Posted by Hal Roach

Agreed, just the plain truth. I am sure both of us would be more than willing to give the Mex a great rating, if it were true, but the people cooking it (Central Americans) are from the armpit of North America...Things are much better than the days of the Giant monopoly, thankfully. It has caught up a little bit...Trader Joes was a big first step, nearly 20 years ago. It is just too far from the source in most cases, and the traffic is horrible. Very little is picked ripe. In Bangkok, some things are dismal, but there are plenty of things that are sensational. Nothing is sensational in DC..not the pizza, not the Thai, not the soul, not the Southern, not the Italian. There are no real ethnic neighborhoods in DMV...Chinatown is a bad joke, there is no Little Italy like Baltimore...there is no Thaitown, like LA. Must have something to do with the excess of bureaucrats....bland and boring...

[Hal Roach]

But it seems like most novans make the false assumption that every Spanish speaker is Mexican, and they don't realize it is more likely that they were from some dirt poor country where they would eat iquanas and gila monsters. Add overly strict zoning, Obamacare, and bloated wages...and you get a lot of overpriced Shiite off the Sysco truck.

[Old Guard]

Originally Posted by Hal Roach

So NoVa cannot compete globally? Land here is 6 million per acre, likely more than that King St., location, which is a bit ghetto.

Well maybe not globally with the likes of Paris, London, NYC but I am interested in the average wage in Thailand. I assume they are buying food with money and not land.

Also you cherry picked a couple of things that were cheap. I can go into a store here in NOVA and get a large variety of food for reasonable prices, even if it is not in season here. You tend to make wild statements that do not pack much merit.

[Hal Roach]

Yes, Superwalmart has good prices on sugar water, but that doesn't mean there are fresh, local ingredients, or quality family restaurants. I bought a package of five baby Romaine heads for 57 cents today. Brought in from the field in a refrigerated truck. Better than the Berkeley Farmer's Market, better than my friends 500 acre farm in Gilroy. 99.5% of Novans have never experienced any salad that fresh and good. Limes were less than three cents each. Wages are low, about 400 USD per month, but unemployment is well under 1%, and homelessness is almost nonexistent. Thailand is known as the "Kitchen to the World." Of course, there are some leftists, who are obstacles, same as DMV, crazy taxes on imports....but my city of residence has a 700 year history of great food, and another plus is I can go months without having to watch all the commercials about "your diabetes," and all the hypochondriacs rambling on about their numerous taxpayer paid doctors visits. I still won't be selling my Glaxo shares, but it is a far cry from Manassas.

[Old Guard]

I can get good produce from a lot of places around where I live. I rarely go to a Walmart and never to shop for food.

I never knew that Thailand was known as the supermarket to the world, I thought it was known as the place old western pedophiles go.

[Hal Roach]

Kitchen to the world. There are more paedophiles in your local Diocese than in my city of a million. The card carrying feminazis writing for the Washington Post have an axe to grind because the only thing they hate more than looking in the mirror is knowing that a older guy can fairly easily find a nice girl half his age, who doesn't have a Fred Flintstone haircut. Therefore they have to mention the sex trade, whenever SE Asia is in the news, even though it is limited to about four small streets in a metro of 18 million, and the girls have to be at least 19.

[piperdiva]

Originally Posted by Hal Roach

Kitchen to the world. There are more paedophiles in your local Diocese than in my city of a million. The card carrying feminazis writing for the Washington Post have an axe to grind because the only thing they hate more than looking in the mirror is knowing that a older guy can fairly easily find a nice girl half his age, who doesn't have a Fred Flintstone haircut. Therefore they have to mention the sex trade, whenever SE Asia is in the news, even though it is limited to about four small streets in a metro of 18 million, and the girls have to be at least 19.

Your posts never fail to entertain.

Thanks everyone for your input. When it comes to seafood, i love crab and fried clams, both of which suck in San Diego. And no decent Jewish style delis anywhere within a reasonable driving distance. I'm hoping that will be different in NOVA.

[Hal Roach]

Genova Deli in Oakland did well for 90 years....now only in Napa. Dungeness crab rank way up there, but that is more northern, too. Fried clams? Popeye's, perhaps? I thought Anthony's in SD was excellent, the three times I ate there, but only the lunch menu offered good value. Better than Spenger's in Berkeley, which has lasted 122 years. Looks like they sold to McCormick and schmick in 1998...oh,well. Guess the 1.99 shrimp burger fries and slaw is history.