Good Stuff Eatery 1, WTOP 0
I just picked up some ground beef at DC’s best meat market–glorious Wagshal’s–and drove home withit in the car. Took about 10 minutes to get from point A to point B, and another 2-3 minutes to get into my fridge. Am I going to die or even get sick due to the transit? Of course not. Else we’d never be able to buy any perishable at a market, and all our food would come from a can or box.
Nevertheless, everyone from TMZ to Crispy guestblogger extraordinaire Kim has seen fit to rush to judgment against Spike Mendelsohn, the former Top Chef contestant who is the public face of the embryonic and highly regarded DC burger mecca Good Stuff Eatery on Capitol Hill.
The fracas began after WTOP, the local all-news multimedia empire here (TV, radio, online) reported that Good Stuff allegedly stored beef in the alley behind the family-owned restaurant. The same alley where (like most urban eateries) their deliveries arrive. Mendelsohn legitimately claims the food had just been dropped off.
Does it make any sense that a restaurant would store valuable food outside? Of course not.
But I want to take this opportunity not just to counter the Mendelsohn haters–and, to be sure, his hat fancy annoys the hell out of me, too–but also take on the silliness that is WTOP.
First and foremost, should we really trust a report about where a restaurant stores its food from a news station that boasts every ten minutes about its mockworthy and puzzlingly named glass-enclosed nerve center?
Who encloses a vital “nerve center” in breakable glass? What’s next for WTOP? Radio towers made of Lincoln Logs? “Hard-hitting” Muppet reporters?
But I digress.
It’s not just the G-ENC that bugs me about WTOP. I’ve heard WTOP radio reporters slant the news to their liking before, and others have criticized the station’s blind embrace of all things regulatory at the expense of business. Maybe the station is just biased because blasting business in the news business is good business.
Whatever the case, Good Stuff is good stuff in my book. And WTOP’s credibility just took another hit.
Mendelsohn, for his part, shows that he’s got a sense of humor in addition to his culinary chops. Good Stuff Eatery sent out an email to subscribers the other day advertising an apropos and scrumptious-sounding new special. Mendelsohn’s Back Alley Burger comes with bacon, sautéed mushrooms, muenster cheese, and Thousand Island dressing. Now that’s good stuff.
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B-Rizzle
