96. Founding Farmers
Last night I tried Founding Farmers, a newish restaurant in the World Bank building. I’d heard a lot about it, and about the local/organic/sustainability tilt they had on the menu, so I was anxious to give it a try. I was there for a medium to large size birthday party, and this was definitely a great place for it. They have a few large farm tables that can seat (it seemed) about 12-14 people and there are tons of appetizers that are easy to share. The other reason this is a great sharing restaurant is the fact that among the ten of us there were a couple ‘I love this’, mostly some ‘this is good, do you want some?’ and a couple ‘gross’. So by the time we had all ordered an appetizer and an entree, everyone ate something they really liked—even if it was off someone else’s plate.
The first thing you are confronted with when you sit down at Founding Farmers is the menu—a behemoth list of every possible craving a pregnant woman could have. There’s friend green tomatoes, pimento cheese puffs, skillet cornbread and deviled eggs. Those were just some of the appetizers we ordered. Aside from discovering that I don’t like deviled eggs as much as I did when I was six, all the appetizers were great. They were the appetizers that would be served at the Super Bowl party in heaven. The rest of the menu is just as overwhelming. There have to be at least seventy items on there and each is just rustic enough and simple enough to warrant an order. Luckily, the waiters have a really annoying speech prepared to pretend to explain to you how the menu works. To be perfectly honest I wasn’t listening to most of the to-do, but it was so rehearsed that he could have been auditioning for summer stock. In the end I think he was trying to tell us that all the produce and most of the protein is brought in daily by local farmers who have a stake in the restaurant. Wonderful, now bring me my cornbread!
The entrees are huge—my salad came in a full size mixing bowl. Taking in to account the fact that I was only two days away from the big show (dinner at Komi), I tried to order something on the healthier side. There are plenty of healthy options if you know what you’re looking for—grilled fish fillets prepared with salt/pepper and lemon, rotisserie chicken—though they are not quite as tempting as say, the chicken pot pie. I went with the Ahi Tuna Poke Salad, which having seen the Hawaii episodes of Top Chef a few years ago taught me was raw tuna resembling carpaccio. This one was served over a crispy cabbage salad and with a very spicy and tangy dressing. I gobbled it up so fast that I didn’t realize until I was done that there was tons of cilantro in the salad. Unfortunately I’m a tad allergic to cilantro so I didn’t really taste the next course (birthday cake). But the salad was delicious going down. The rest of the table felt mixed about their food—there was a salad that came without dressing, the pot pie was a little runny and the grilled cheese was nothing to write home about. But all in all, sharing or not, everyone enjoyed their meal.
The restaurant is loud in a good way, and was completely packed on a random windy Wednesday night—a great sign in a weird no man’s land location. The decor is sort of barn store room meets fancy pants hotel lobby. There are vegetables curing in jars right next to giant oversized cotton ball light fixtures. It’s a place where you don’t feel bad yelling to the other side of the table to pass the bacon lollypops. One of the best things about the restaurant has to be their price point. I was downright terrified when the bill came (there was much wine consumed along with the appetizers and larger menu items), but for all that I paid under $40 including tip. If I’d known it was going to be that cheap I would have ordered the lobster mac and cheese. Maybe next time.
