It's time once again for Walking Town DC. Once again we'll have the Florida Market Tour. This is a great chance to explore the Market a bit. You can buy all kinds of food there. I actually do the majority of my shopping at the market right now, and it is WAY cheaper than the grocery store. Those of you reading last night, or early this morning caught a strange draft version of this post that I published by mistake last night (sorry!). And now everybody know that I type stupid crap while I'm trying to think. But back to the blog, check out this recent meal I made for a friend:
1. cold tomato soup including cucumber, chilies, tomato, egg;
2. fried locally produced tofu, with a homemade blackberry honey sauce, served on a bed of micro greens;
3. celery and pear salad with parmesan cheese and pepper.
4. giant oyster mushrooms with leeks sauteed and served over while rice with ginger and soy sauce.
5. brats sauteed with peppers and onions.
The brats came from the H Street FreshFarm Market. The greens came from my backyard. Everything else came from the Florida Market, except maybe an herb or two that probably could have come from the Market. You can make so many amazing meals with stuff from there.
It's from 9am to 10:30am on Saturday, staring across from the north entrance of the New York Avenue-Florida Avenue Metro Station, at 2nd and N Streets NE.
8 comments:
Inked: where in the market did you get the tofu from?
Will the tour focus on tofu or redevelopment?
Mose,
there are two places that sell tofu in the Market. The place I went today is next door to Sam Wang. There is also a place that sells fresh rice noodles.
Rayful,
the tour will focus on what's there right now, because there's still a lot left to figure out about the redevelopment.
Florida Market really looks underutilized and blighted. It would be amazing if someone redeveloped this area. I simply don't understand why the current landowners won't buy into the redevelopment proposal. They'd be able keep their storefront in a much nicer looking area. In addition, they'd have even more patrons. It could actually be a destination, like Pike Place Market. PPM has the highest density of affordable housing in Seattle, meanwhile it is the most sought after in terms of vibrant living.
I think because the development proposal doesn't keep it as a commercial wholesale market. It adds condos, a movie theater, etc. The plan is to keep a few of the 'nicer' places (Literri's) and to get rid of the others that cater mostly to restaurants. The actual plans don't involve cleaning up what's there, but bulldozing and rebuilding it as a new Gallery Place with a few hand picked foodie places brought back after construction, as I understand it.
to Anon 12:22,
I see nothing wrong with that.
75% of the places are so disgusting that I won't enter. Those places that cater to restaurants can be provided just compensation for being relocated east of the river. There is no need for them to be located in a prime TOD area. Trucks are still delivering to restaurants. Distributors can travel another 10 miles to restaurants downtown.
Being centrally located is paramount to these business staying afloat; the margins on restaurant supplies, goat, and bulk tofu are pretty thin. If a small restaurant has to start going to Brandywine every morning for supplies they're likely to start losing money or raising prices to compensate.
I took the tour a while back, if you're interested in the market and want to know the history and see which stores have items you're interested in versus smells you're not, it's worthwhile, it's also good for figuring out which stores even sell to individuals versus business license only. I found out about Mexican Fruits and the mercado next door from the tour. My feeling from the tour was that Richard Layman is not a fan of the redevelopment plans, I think it should be given historical status for being the drop point for government secrets in the beginning of Spies Like Us.
Which places have fresh noodles? I'm intrigued....
I would go here more if it was more pedestrian friendly but the layout is definitely more conducive to vehicular traffic. I agree there are some great deals to be had...generally I am looking for more local, organic stuff though. Not to mention it's a trek from upper Eckington....
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