Miss Ann’s is not any extra. It died years in the past and has since been changed by Membership 3710, an upscale jazz lounge that sits on Emancipation Avenue, which is the title conferred upon the previous Dowling Road as soon as civic leaders could no longer stomach the concept of a Accomplice officer together with his personal thoroughfare within the coronary heart of the Third Ward. My buddy Roger Wooden, writer of the good “Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues,” tells me the neighborhood has been well balancing city growth with cultural preservation within the historic Black ward, with the assistance of teams reminiscent of Project Row Houses.
I’ve been considering quite a bit about Miss Ann’s whereas visiting the brand new DCity Smokehouse in Anacostia. The smokehouse is a good-looking house, constructed of wooden and brick and steel, supplies that by no means exit of trend, very similar to barbecue itself. DCity made a reputation for itself in Northwest Washington almost a decade in the past, and with the assistance from a D.C. government grant, the smokehouse has opened a second location on Good Hope Street SE, the place a Sunny’s Carry-Out was a supply of stir-fried sustenance.
The Southeast location of DCity is a part of a larger revitalization of historic Anacostia, and as with most initiatives like this, you may count on loss and displacement. Maybe a few of these losses would have been inevitable, even with out the inflow of builders, as was the case with Miss Ann’s Playpen. Some issues will not be casualties of gentrification, however casualties of generational tastes, as youthful folks yearn for one thing totally different than what their elders desired. They’re into Kendrick Lamar, not Lightnin’ Hopkins. It’s not cultural displacement as a lot as cultural development.
As Roger instructed me concerning the lack of blues golf equipment in Houston’s Third Ward: “This subsequent technology isn’t actually inquisitive about listening to somebody play 12-bar blues. They’re into a distinct scene.”
For years, Anacostia struggled to draw the form of high-quality, sit-down eating places that residents on the opposite facet of the river simply took with no consideration. However nowadays, the identical outdated Sysco-grade carryouts don’t lower it in Anacostia, and we’ve already been witness to the progress with the addition of Open Crumb, Busboys and Poets, and Kitchen Savages. Like these different newcomers, DCity Smokehouse represents a distinct class of restaurant for Anacostia, but the barbecue joint isn’t separate from its setting. DCity just isn’t an outsider, naive to neighborhood’s historical past or exploitative of its wants. It already feels a part of the group.
The smokehouse’s seamless integration into Anacostia is due largely, I think, to Melvin Hines, the founding father of SouthEast Restaurant Group, the corporate that owns DCity. Hines can be a resident of Anacostia. He lives simply down the highway. He is aware of Anacostia and its tradition.
In case you want proof, simply stroll over to the cubbyhole subsequent to the pit room at DCity. On this cramped house, you’ll discover framed pictures, press clippings, and CDs and data linked to Uncommon Essence, the go-go pioneers who bought their begin a couple of miles away in a distinct Southeast neighborhood. The memorabilia is on mortgage from Charles “Shorty Corleone” Garris, the onetime Uncommon Essence frontman who can be working up an idea with SouthEast Restaurant Group. It will likely be dubbed DCity Wings and Shorty’s.
“The early days of Uncommon Essence, the expertise of all of it, got here from Southeast,” Hines tells me. “We paid some respect to the place it got here from.”
Hines and his enterprise companion, Charese John, are additionally paying respect to the craft barbecue motion they helped launch in Washington again after they employed Rob Sonderman, now at Federalist Pig, to open the unique DCity in a sliver of a storefront on Florida Avenue NW. Hines and John have since ditched the head-pitmaster strategy in favor of a collective mannequin, by which a variety of people now have a hand within the barbecue. It’s most likely a smart transfer for an organization that doesn’t wish to reset its recipes each time a pitmaster will get a notion to start out his or her personal factor.
The menu is identical as on the Florida Avenue location, and the pit crew in Anacostia depends on the identical J&R stick burners to cook dinner their meats, although within the case of the meat rib, the bone goes from the smoker to the pot for a closing braise to interrupt down that sizable muscle. The meat rib could be discovered on the “secret” mini-chalkboard menu, which sits on the counter for all to see. The rib could also be bought beneath the banner of barbecue, nevertheless it eats extra like a long-simmered stew, its collected juices including spice and sweetness to the fork-tender beef. Order it with out hesitation, even when traditionalists could not acknowledge it as barbecue.
Ordering meats by the pound could be extra of a bet right here. I’ve had slices of brisket that nearly melted in my mouth, adopted by that acquainted rush of salt, pepper and smoke. However I’ve additionally had slices that crumbled in my arms, their moisture surrendered to the gods properly earlier than they reached my plate. Two different meats I sampled had a sure tightness to them: virtually leathery slices of pork stomach, and a half slab of spare ribs whose meat — sprinkled with DCity’s irresistible rub, which begins candy and resolves to a critical tickle of spice — was nonetheless clinging exhausting to the bone.
Hines tells me that DCity has developed its personal proprietary methods, which mix new expertise with conventional smoking strategies. He prefers to maintain all of it a secret, aside from to say he and his staff are working to create a signature “D.C. type” of barbecue. I don’t have sufficient insights on the method to know why some meats don’t (but) hit the mark for me, apart from one factor I noticed when Hines gave me a tour of DCity lately: The smokehouse’s holding cupboard was set to 200 levels, properly above trade common for such items. I think that cupboard was doing as a lot cooking as holding.
However when DCity is working on all cylinders, there are few joints that may match it. The pit crew’s turkey, injected with a customized marinade, is smoky and deeply satisfying in a approach that breast meat not often is. The rib ideas, sliced skinny like dry-cured saucisson sec, could also be one of the best factor on the menu — tantalizing nibbles of pork, cartilage, smoke and spice. I’m additionally keen on the edges by which the kitchen conceals thick dices of jalapeño, which all however ignite customary bearers reminiscent of potato salad and mac and cheese.
Sandwiches stay DCity’s robust swimsuit, significantly the Smokehouse Soften, by which chopped brisket luxuriates beneath blankets of cheddar and Jack cheeses. However the restaurant’s actual showstopper is the DCity Half Smoke, a deep-fried Manger hyperlink smothered in a brisket chili that actually perfumes the sausage with wooden smoke. Let’s go forward and name it a Full Smoke.
There’s but extra to come back from this location of DCity. John, a professionally educated cook dinner herself, tells me the Anacostia location will host a daily chef’s desk dinner in its sizable kitchen. She despatched me a pattern menu, which featured a smoky corn soup with butter-poached shrimp and a smokehouse twist on surf and turf: a Maryland jumbo-lump crab cake paired with low-and-slow barbecue brisket. When it debuts later this month, the multicourse menu will instantly set DCity aside, to not point out the group east of the river which this smokehouse now calls residence.
1301 Good Hope Rd. SE, 202-222-0201. dcitysmokehouse.com.
Hours: Midday to eight p.m. Tuesday by Saturday.
Nearest Metro: Anacostia, with lower than a mile journey to the restaurant.
Costs: $7 to $36 for all objects on the menu, not together with household platters.
