Taryn Thiele-Sardina
You are What You Eat.
Taryn Thiele-Sardina
Spring 2016
Let’s be honest, DC knows its food. For a city whose flavor profile used to be tied to the South and all of its culinary comforts, DC is quickly turning into a place known for innovative and fresh tastes. Restaurants have shifted towards a “farm to table” focus and for those of you who are not up to date on all of those fun, food buzzwords: ‘farm to table’ is essentially the use of delivering locally grown food directly to local consumers. As DC makes a transition from a town with only two types of restaurants (white tablecloth hotel and private dining rooms or cheap ethnic restaurants), consumers are inundated with more interested and affordable options for excellent food.
Here are some tips on eating around DC and, more importantly, documenting your food adventures to share on your social media platform of choice.
Eat local
DC has access to so many local producers from vegetables to sea food. You don’t have to hop around farmer’s market to find fresh ingredients and chefs take the farm to table concept seriously to create menus featuring seasonal ingredients. When you are ordering, ask what is in season and take a look at their specials because those usually feature some of the freshest elements.
Neopol Savory Smokery serves responsibility sourced ingredients in partnership with local farms and small businesses. Their famous smoked salmon BLT includes fish that has been traditionally cured and locally made sunflower flax bread.
#FollowFriday
These days anyone can be a food blogger. All you need is an iPhone and some natural lighting and you could be Instagram famous in the food community. But you can use other foodies as your own personal Yelpers. They are usually young and hip food lovers and their pictures are serious #FoodPorn (that’s a thing now, look it up). They give great restaurant recommendations, recipe ideas and sometimes they even have discounts or promo codes.
Here are some of my favorite food instagrammers (for DC and in general):
@thrillist * @dcfoodporn * @NYCdining * @dcdining * @food52 * @fomofood
My food Instagram (or #Foodstagram) tip: just get over the embarrassment and stand up to take the picture from above. Oh and natural lighting is a MUST!
Mobile cuisine
(Disclaimer: this is also a shameless plug for my internship at the DMV Food Truck Association but good advice nevertheless!!!!!!!) Let the food come to you and take advantage of the amazing food trucks that DC has to offer.
DC was on the forefront of the food truck movement and some of the trucks are even tastier than their brick and mortar (industry term for restaurants inside of buildings) counterparts. I can’t play favorites but food truck operators in DC have created some innovative ways to serve different cuisines in what is basically an 18-foot box. If you are craving something, chances are one of the almost 200 food trucks on the road is serving it for lunch.
A must-try food truck: Astros Doughnuts and Fried Chicken. They keep it simple and serve exactly what their name suggests: gourmet doughnuts and fried chicken sandwiches.
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Hopefully these tips where helpful. Really there is no wrong way to eat your way through DC. Ask some locals, read some blogs and, above all, TAKE THAT INSTAGRAM. Eat well and prosper!
Taryn Thiele-Sardina is determined to try every egg benedict that DC has to offer and will report back on the best one. When she is not scrolling through Instagram looking for more ways to include sweet potatoes in her diet, she interns at the DMV Food Truck Association.
