Why do I love London?

During the recent campaign for mayor, then-candidate Boris Johnson pledged that if elected, he would ban open containers from the London Underground (aka: the Tube). He won. And he did. So effective last night at midnight, consumption of alcoholic beverages on board any Transport for London service became a criminal offense.

What did Londoners do about it? They threw a massive party on the Tube, of course. So massive, in fact, that it made this morning’s Washington Post.

The party was largely organized via Facebook, and the police were out in force. There was some trouble, but not a massive amount, given the number of people and amount of booze involved. Needless to say, not everyone had a good time, and, this being London, there was a bit of hooliganism thrown in.

But coming from Washington, DC, where one can literally be arrested for eating a french fry on board a train, the never-hesitate-just-do-it spirit behind this mass action was darned impressive.

I’ve been in Warsaw for a couple of days visiting with colleagues.

Last night, one of them suggested dinner at U Kucharzy (”The Chefs”), and then told us, with what we suspected was more than an ounce of hyperbole, that it might be the best restaurant in Poland.

Obviously, I’m in no place to evaluate that question. But I can now declare that U Kucharzy is a world-class restaurant that would distinguish itself just as well if it were in London, Paris or New York.

We entered through a non-descript door that only a local would know to look for, and we found ourselves in a shabby hallway with a bench along one wall and a worn red carpet that looks like a holdover from the communist era. After a moment, we were greeted by a well-dressed gentleman whose long beard was a throw-back to a different era of Polish history. He led us through a maze of tables and counters and directed us to two seats at a raised platform.

It was only when we sat down that we discovered our seats in the rather ordinary dining room gave us a complete view of the Chefs at work.

The view from our table.

The meal that followed was extraordinary. I started with pate, while my colleague Wolfgang began with pork aspic. Both were amazing. Dinner for me was “deer” served with braised beets and local potato dumplings similar to gnocchi. Wolfgang’s main course was “roast beef.” (You can see Wolfgang’s review via Seesmic here.)

Needless to say, the descriptions don’t do justice to the food. Nor do they do justice to the method of service. Rather than being plated in the kitchen, all of our dishes were prepared and served at table side.

Between courses, the appetizers arrived for the table next to us, and we watched as a chef prepared steak tartare from scratch, completely by hand. We discovered, while we watched, that the table in question was occupied by the restaurant’s owner and his friends. After they passed around the tartare, they shared it with us. It was a wonder. Absolutely delicious.

All in all, it was a superb dinner. For my money, the best of Poland. Were in Warsaw again tonight, you can be sure that I would be headed back for more.

Oh. And the bill? About £75.

Here’s more on U Kacharzy from the Daily Telegraph and the Warsaw Voice.

Padraig Harrington takes the Gold Medal and the designation “Champion Golfer of the Year” at the Open Championship in Carnoustie, Scotland. Rory McIlroy, the 17 year old Irish amateur, takes the Silver Medal for Low Amateur. It’s hard to imagine a better day, ever, for Irish golf. There’s only been one other Open Champion from Ireland, and that was generations ago in 1947. I suspect that tonight, there are more than a few pints of Guiness being raised in pubs across Ireland and around the world to the great champion, Harrington, and the young amateur who holds so much promise.

• Shortly after you are seated, the waiter hands you his “cheat sheet” on which he has scrawled the evening specials so that you can review it while he gets your water.
• Later, the waiter asks your dining companion, “How would you like your chicken cooked?” Without missing a beat, your companion responds, “All the way, please.”
• As your table orders a second round of drinks, the waiter looks at one of your female companions and intones sincerely, “I’m so glad someone at this table is drinking beer.”

But then some jackass threw a pizza at him?! I mean, come on. WTF?

Net result of this play: two beers and one slice, wasted.

HT: Mike & Mike

The headline screams crisis, but the story tells a different story:

Taste for Guinness wanes in changing Ireland

But in the story, we learn, the Irish are still drinking (uh, not quite shocking news there) but they’re diversifying their palette - trying other beers and ciders, and drinking more wine. Look, I like Guinness, it’s my drink of choice when it’s on tap, but the fact that the Irish are trying beers besides Guinness is not the death-knell for this iconic brand and national symbol.

I was also unsurprised by this comment:

“You might find your ladies drinking wine, but only the odd male — and then with food,” said Keith O’Brien, 25, barman at a pub near Dublin’s River Liffey.

That fits my experience in every country so far — women generally prefer wine, men generally prefer beer.

Marshall: I’ll take wine over beer almost every time, but if the choice is wine vs. Guiness, that’s another matter entirely. I’m glad to hear that the Ireland’s national beverage is still going strong. It’s the best drink in the world, bar none.

By the way, very much in keeping with the On Tap theme, over New Year’s I found the institution closest to heaven on earth - Porterhouse, a bar and microbrewery in Temple Bar in Dublin, Ireland. Their beer selection is fantastic (they don’t stock Guinness; they make their own version of just about every variety under the sun), the ingredients are all fresh, the menu is creative and innovative (smoked salmon, brie, and sweet potatoes show up in the salads), and the patrons are what I have come to expect of the Irish: So friendly and outgoing, you think there’s something wrong with them.

I hate to say it, but the organic food crowd has a point or two - when you take the preservatives out of foods and get it fresh, it often tastes a hell of a lot better. Same deal with beer.

I’ve also figured out that if I can master making a home version their Sticky Toffee Pudding, I will be able to get anything I want from Mrs. TKS for the rest of my life.

Periodically, someone will ask me what I miss about Washington, D.C., and I always have a ready answer: I miss my community of political geeks.

What I mean by that is that Washington attracts a certain type of person, and it’s not the bottom-feeding soulless SOB you so often see portrayed in movies and television. Nope. If you want to get rich, you move to New York. If you want to be famous, you move to Hollywood. If you want good weather, you go to the south or to the west coast. But the people who move to work in Washington generally care about something bigger than themselves, and are generally a little bit crazy about it, and it makes for a much more interesting and fun city than outsiders give it credit for. Sure, after a while cynicism sets in, but every year brings in a new crop of young people who are generally smart, very hard working, and driven by an intense interest in… well, you name it - abortion, the environment, taxes, foreign policy, terrorism, gay rights, traditional values, economics…

One of the ironies of this community of thousands of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings is that there’s actually less partisanship than many communities outside the Beltway. It’s very difficult to refuse to deal with people you disagree with, because chances are, they’re everywhere around you. And on a Friday night, everybody in the corner booth at the bar just wants to tell you what a pain in the neck their boss is.

I figure these young people stick around and become part of Washington’s professional class — the bureaucrats, activists, lobbyists and media who know they’ll be in Washington long after any current administration’s leaders have retired outside the Beltway. At its most cynical, the view could be, “Presidencies come and go; a slot on the Washington Post’s editorial page is real influence.”

Many of Bill Clinton’s most ardent supporters got offended when some members of Washington’s professional elites got critical during the Lewinsky mess. This Sally Quinn article defined it; some key quotes:

“He came in here and he trashed the place,” says Washington Post columnist David Broder, “and it’s not his place.” …

Bill Galston, former deputy domestic policy adviser to Clinton and now a professor at the University of Maryland, says of the scandal that “most people in Washington believe that most people in Washington are honorable and are trying to do the right thing. The basic thought is that to concede that this is normal and that everybody does it is to undermine a lifetime commitment to honorable public service.”

“We have our own set of village rules,” says David Gergen, editor at large at U.S. News & World Report, who worked for both the Reagan and Clinton White House. “Sex did not violate those rules. The deep and searing violation took place when he not only lied to the country, but co-opted his friends and lied to them. That is one on which people choke.

“We all live together, we have a sense of community, there’s a small-town quality here. We all understand we do certain things, we make certain compromises. But when you have gone over the line, you won’t bring others into it. That is a cardinal rule of the village. You don’t foul the nest.”

By the way, many of you know it galls me to approvingly quote David Gergen. But to a certain extent, he’s right; many Washingtonians believe they could be making more money if they had decided to work on Wall Street. The belief that they’re doing something noble, something that qualifies as public service, is a big part of their self-image. And there’s a respect across the partisan divide, that even though the other guy or girl is a tree-hugging kumbaya liberal or a maniacal right-wing arch-conservative, they’re a similar species: The North American Political Geek (Policius Nerdius). Sure, that dweeb has the wrong political views, but at least he or she understands that politics is important.

So when Jim Webb comes to Washington, and has his famously brusque interaction with President Bush, well… official Washington pushes back, in the form of columns by George Will and Peggy Noonan. When the President asks how your son is doing in Iraq, you grit your teeth and say, “I wish he was home, but so far he’s doing okay.” Or “I wish he was home, because it sounds like he’s having a tough time over there. But thank you for asking.” (I note that the President’s response to Webb’s response, “That’s not what I asked you,” was rude and needlessly confrontational.)

Anyway - I’m sure that some folks who rarely if ever have to work with people with differing opinions will denounce this as inside-the-Beltway snobbishness, as dishonesty, as a sign that Washingtonians are delicate flowers who can’t handle “the truth” from a man “born fighting!” like Webb. They’ll say that Webb’s brusqueness, and his later comment that he wanted to physically assault the commander in chief constituted standing up to “Washington Elitism.”

But I like Washington. I like that the guys who run RedState and AmericaBlog get along famously. I like that half my circle of friends believed that when I was doing the Kerry Spot, I was professionally employed by Evil Incarnate. I like that most of my wife’s friends visibly shudder when I say, “My friend Rush Limbaugh.” (I’m not even going to get into my wife’s reaction.) I  know what David Broder meant when he described Washington ”not his place” and I don’t know if I like Webb’s attempt to bring outside-the-beltway manners to that city of Northern Charm and Southern Efficiency.

If that constitutes Washington Elitism, then I say “hurrah, hurrah.”

 Cam says: Jim and I have had variations of this conversation before, and it never fails to drive me batty. I’ve lived in the D.C. area for less than three years, and while I like my neighbors, co-workers, co-bloggers, and a few friends I’ve made, I have to say that there are far too many people who have an overinflated sense of self-worth. Jim says every bar on Friday night is full of people who just want to complain about their boss. I’d like to see that bar, because every time I’ve gone out it’s people who want to brag about how freakin’ important they are.

I realize this has nothing to do with Jim Webb, but frankly I find this aspect of D.C. life more annoying than Webb’s comments. And it is, after all, all about me. Don’t you know who I am? Why I host a talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio and on the internet! I’m a very important man!!!

Hello?

Jim: Okay, I admit, there’s a fine line between, “Boy, is my boss a lunatic” and “Why won’t that lunatic listen to me, if I were running things everything would be better, because I’m a genius.”

But without specifics, it’s hard to say whether the “people who have an overinflated sense of self-worth” you describe genuinely have an overinflated sense of self worth, or whether worth is in the eye of the beholder. A twentysomething press secretary may not seem like King of the World, but to a small segment of the world - Congressional correspondents - he or she is really really important, for they are the gatekeepers to the lawmakers when reporters on deadline. A small-time columnist may seem unimportant, until he mentions your name in a column and spells your name wrong.

If you’re referring to what I think you’re referring to - say, bloggers who openly state at CNN’s Election Night party that their primary priority is getting on-camera face time  — well, that’s a whole other conversation/blog posting.

Ever give any thought to OnTap turning into a sports bar?

Marshall: Great idea. We can talk about the Nats, the J-E-T-S — Jets, Jets, Jets, the Red Sox, Paul Azinger. Oh never mind. I bored already.

I’m not a big beer guy, but I confess that I’m curious to try some of these seasonal flavors.

Doesn’t look like the Chocolate Lager will be available in the East Coast however. I’ll have to try Sam Adams’ Old Fezziwig Ale instead.

Marshall: I don’t know about this stuff. Beer isn’t wine. I don’t want to be discussing crisp finishes and hints of blackberries and chocolate when I’m drinking beer. Give me the good stuff. Scottish bitters or Irish stout. But the designer beers? You can have them.

Jim: Uh, guys, the blog is called On Tap. Of course we stand foresquare behind microbrews, seasonal flavors, and experimentation. I just had a great Palmetto Pale Ale down here in Hilton Head. Sure, you’re not always going to hit a winner, but sometimes you want your standard selections, and sometimes you want something a little different. I like some raspberry, or bumbleberry, or wheat beer Hefeweizens.

I’m not above a Budweiser, but I like the fact that the average bar today has a good half-dozen tastes on tap. Sam Adams Octoberfest, Cranberry Lambic, Killian’s Irish Red, the Magic Hat I had the other night, Pete’s Wicked, the varieties of Capitol City Brewing Company…

Remember, for much of the last year and a half I’ve had the option of Efes (okay Turkish beer), Tuborg or Carlsberg on tap. That’s it.

So appreciate the variety on tap at your local drinking establishment; you never know what you have, until you lose it…