Still More on the Steak N Egg Diner, Washington, DC

IMPORTANT UPDATE: As if one were needed, here’s yet another reason to go to the Steak N Egg Diner. Nancy, Liza, and I went there for breakfast this morning. We ordered, and our food was brought to the table by a robot! Remember those little carts that I’m Eddie Cano and the Broad Branch Market used to deliver food to homes in the early days of covid? The Steak N Egg robot provides table service. The robot has shelves on which the kitchen, or someone, places the plates.

The robot saunters over to the table. Okay it rolls. The robot stops, and announces in a robot-y voice, “Please take your food.” The server, who accompanies the robot on its journey, takes the plates and distributes them. The robot then says, “Enjoy!” and rolls away. It’s great fun, and I can’t wait to take Ella and Lily to Steak N Egg to see it.

The food, by the way, was up to their high standard. Liza enjoyed her egg white omelet with spinach, mushroom, and feta, hold the toast; and Nancy did justice to her one fried egg and one blueberry pancake, which turned out to be a very large blueberry pancake. I went with corned beef hash, which was nicely crisped and tasty. I put a little extra on the tip to make sure the robot was covered.

Head on down to Steak N Egg to see for yourself, and enjoy a good breakfast.

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A number of thoughtful people raised an interesting issue about my initial review of Osman’s Steak N Egg Diner. The new place is larger and brighter and, pace some commenters, cleaner than the old. Still, something precious indeed is lost.

I thought about addressing that issue in my post, but did not, largely because I hadn’t decided what to say. It’s a very real issue. Think of beloved local institutions — food-related institutions — whose passage we mourn. I’ve been around long enough to have heard the uproar over the closing of the old Chevy Chase Lounge in favor of, God help us, a 7-11. And I wish we still had Tasty Bites on Upper Connecticut. And it’s not just Chevy Chase. I bemoaned the Golden Rule Barbecue’s shift to a larger, cleaner new building down US 78 in Irondale, Alabama. And when Sadie’s in Albuquerque, the home of the absolutely positively best salsa in the universe, moved out of their bowling alley location, marked by disquieting views of large bowlers bending over, and into a huge hangar of a place, I felt a pang. I could go on and on, as could many of you. What are your favorites that I left out?

I should add that some took umbrage at my suggestion that the good old Steak N Egg Kitchen may not have been clean. I personally didn’t think it was dirty, but then I have a very high tolerance for dirt. When I come across good food in a less than spotless place, I feel that I’m building immunities. Not everyone has my genius for rationalization, though, and, after all, the air is pretty rarefied in our neck of the woods. Tolerance for a little grease is low here. Indeed, how many people in Upper Northwest and environs even save their bacon grease? (You really should.) How many happily eat at Waffle House? It’s a wonderful company, and the hash browns … (sigh). To pick just one example, I’d make a detour to go back to Big T’s in a heartbeat, despite the setting. If you read my blog posts about places outside the DC area, you’ll see that I cherish places most of us would avoid. Others call them dumps or dives, I call them future UNESCO world heritage sites. Others differ, often very strongly. A lot of people scoffed, to put it mildly, at the idea of going to the old Steak N Egg Kitchen. Their loss.

And the fact remains that Steak N Egg is still under local ownership. Osman Barrie graciously thanked me for my review, and Miss B, the General Manager, reported that “we love our big new space.” Nice people. Working in an older, cramped space has little charm for the workers, and waiting in line was an irritant for customers.

Still, the patina of age common to the Steak N Egg and the Lounge and Sadie’s was also a patina of memory, of community. I for one love the old places. I see their value, and I overlook, well, everything except bad food. New and patina-free places just aren’t the same. And, sometimes, indeed, familiar places are replaced by chains or, even worse, banks replace liquor stores. But often the old places are replaced by new locally owned restaurants and bars that, with time, become the new old places. They become the new places at which we gather and make friends, the ties that bind the community together. The 7-11 that overtook the Lounge space has given way to the Little Beast.

Someday none of my local haunts will be here. Someday, all too soon, I won’t be here. But others will follow, our children and grandchildren and theirs, and God willing they will have a community better and stronger than ours. And they will in their turn complain about the passing of their favorite spots. I too, have mixed feelings about the change. It was nice, though, for Mr. Barrie to like my post. And I’m glad that Nancy will join me there now.

Now y’all get down to the Steak N Egg Diner and start building up that patina!

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