In the AA concourse

Big Bowl - I think the intention is healthy,
nonscary, hip Chineseish food. I think it fails
in everything, especially the last part.

I was pretty hungry, so I got one of these
combo plates as relatively much food for
relatively little money. This came as a tofu dish
that bore scant resemblance to tofu or, indeed,
food of any kind. The sauce was both excessively
salty and dead-tasting at the same time: the only
real flavor came from a couple shreds of red bell
pepper that might well have been there by mistake.
Lo mein was gummy, as if of raw dough, and salty,
as if they were trying to do me in rapidly, and
chicken potstickers were deficient in flavor and
texture, like freezer-burned Trader Joe's, only
worse. Why I so frequently fall into the trap
of airport Chinese I don't know. F

Smashburger doesn't seem to be able to make a
burger without its exceedingly salty sprinkle,
and I hate that. I think the meat was originally
not too bad, but with the salt and the excessive
pressure squeezing all the juice out, you end up
with a lean and bad pucklike thing. I've tried
three times. Fool me once, shame on you; fool
me twice, shame on me. I have no reasonable
explanation for the fool me thrice. All in all
malignant stupidity that one might expect of a
chain by that name. D-/F+

Outside security

Ben's Chili Bowl is a Washington institution,
patronized by everyone from presidents to
garbagemen. I don't see why - the food down at U
Street is not bad bad, but it's dead salty and
otherwise underseasoned. Here: bad bad.

The half smoke is not awful, just salty and not
as fatty as at the original location - I suspect
an adulteration by poultry. The chili is dreadful
(it's the same tomato and green pepper laden thing
as at the real place, only I think saltier). Oddly,
a chili half smoke was the best of both worlds,
the vegetableness distracting from the deficiencies
of the sausage. Still, even with the contrast of
the two AA-concourse failures, I'd not give it
better than a C minus, despite cheery service.
D- not counting the service.

I'm a frequent visitor to Sam & Harry's, which
like United Airlines is consistently inconsistent
but also generally above average. I've had A meals
and C meals here despite always getting the same
thing - the 12-oz ribeye extra rare with onion
strings and creamed spinach. Easy, no? Well, the
steak is often a sirloin strip (not necessarily a
bad thing); it ranges from 11-odd to 15-odd ounces
and from barely colored on the outside to sort of
medium (that time it went back). The meat usually
is pretty good but once was a little off. The
spinach is once in a while tender and delicious,
sometimes stringy and tough, usually somewhere
in between. The only constant is the onion strings,
which are greasy but crisp and tasty. Service is
generally good, and the place averages out to a
solid B.

Legal Seafoods is one of those corporate concepts
that I used to hate for messing with what had been
a somewhat funky and very good thing in Inman
Square, turning it into cookie-cutter slightly
better than mediocrity. Still, when one needs a
fried clam, one needs a fried clam. I've been to
the DCA one twice - my usual is in Terminal B in
Boston (I travel enough that I have regular haunts
even among the places I dislike). On this occasion
it was hot outslde, so a glass of Mulderbosch Rose
de Cabernet Sauvignon, slightly bitter but not
unbalanced, fruity but not too cloying, suited well.
The fried clam appetizer about 30 small clams, salty
and overdone (the menu says "petite and sweet"; at
least they got the petite part right, but small and
shrivelled is not good for clams, no matter what
they say). The placemat has a timeline of the
enterprise. I was fond of George Berkowitz but not
so much a fan of his son Roger, who took over around
1990. The placemat touts something called Legal
Oysteria: I read Legal Dystopia. B-/C+
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