Shiitake Fritti con Salvia at Eataly New York's birreria. Image: Amy Loeffler

As franchise operations go it’s tempting to paraphrase Seinfeld’s classically uncouth, eight-ball-jacket-wearing David Puddy regarding Eataly’s expansion into Washington, DC. His comments about Elaine’s obsession with another Italian chain, Benetton, might go something like this: “Elaine, the Eataly on 5th Avenue is just like the Eataly in DC.”  But those who’ve been fortunate enough to make the sojourn to the franchise’s only other U.S. outpost in the Big Apple will notice a slightly different stamp to Lady Columbia’s gustatory rendering of the high-end Italian grocer.

Exquisite pasta at Eataly NYC. Image insatiablecritic.com

I spent inordinate amounts of time at Eataly NYC last summer, a lot of it at the birreria.  It is much more than a three-ring circus. It’s more of a stationary traveling roadshow that remains contained like a box of chaos off 5th Avenue just above Union Square. I actually overheard one of the brewers at the beer garden comment to some friends that he didn’t need to go to shows or see live music.”Dude, I work in a concert,” he mused.

Video: Youtube, Eataly Torino

While Eataly NYC is an origiastic bumper car tour of food stuffs with throngs of international tourists and natives alike jostling for positions at the artisanal pasta counter, or a smidge of bar space at the rooftop beer garden, Eataly DC is more of a controlled and steady buzz of activity. Nestled in three floors of the formerly just-barely-breathing Georgetown Park Mall, it retains the same high-rent appeal as a destination for tourists and Washingtonians, just like Eataly New York’s 5^th Avenue locale, but the sheer massiveness of the New York establishment is traded for smaller pockets of space and multiple levels at the revamped Georgetown shopping center (unexpected as proprietors were hoping to outsize the 50,000 sq. foot facility in New York according to reports from Eater DC).

Fashion culture probably means you can get the same Merino wool sweater in Georgetown that you can in New York. Not so with gastronomy. Image: Angela Fazio

The smaller size keeps the mayhem to a steady roar versus the unbridled consummania that seems to permeate Manhattan, and is welcome for the owners of a shopping mall that was rotting like so much spoiled fruit. No doubt the controlled consumerism will be chalked up to DC conservatism, but in truth, Eataly DC feels more like a temple where Italo-philes can worship food history along with food as fetish. This is primarily due to the store’s dedicated teaching space (similar to the original Torino location) where everyone from school children to retirees can come to shop and also educate themselves about the food supply chain and food production, as well as indulge in cured meats, pastas and vegetables of ottima qualità. Eataly DC’s appearance is timely and should be a nice complement to other culinary efforts from area chefs like José Andrés who have successfully melded food and food policy in this town.

Desserts at Eataly NYC: Image: Thisisgonnabegood.blogspot.com

First off, whatever anyone thinks about Herr Changers, you have to give him props for not only culinary creativity, but being self-aware enough to embrace the impish, childish impulses to name his baked goods after not only illegal, but low class, drugs. I am referring to none other than the Crack Pie. (For the record I also ordered two pork buns, which for nutritional purposes were probably turned straight into glucose upon inhaling; just like the pie. In my defense I had walked pretty much the length of Broadway from the UWS to the LES, so I figured I was safe from auto-inducing a diabetic coma.)

Anyways, back to the pie. Eating this pie was the same high I experienced in sixth grade while consuming Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting fresh from the plastic white can on graham crackers.  So smooth, so creamy. Can I get a Homer Simpson salivating sound effect, please?

Of course Chang’s Crack Pie does not taste like cream cheese. Or crack. (Not that I would know what crack rock tastes like). It’s actually comprised mostly of the building blocks that those of us with a sweet tooth crave obsessively: a super simple concoction of butter, brown sugar and heavy cream, and tastes, not surprisingly, akin to a burnt brown-sugar pie. A crispy crust holds this sinful mess together, and I could have eaten another piece, but I had gotten large slice of chocolate chip cake as a chaser. Did I mention the pork buns already? I admit, it’s kind of gimmicky, but I am all for food as entertainment if it’s done with enough snark.

After the sugar high had subsided I moseyed back to my hotel on the bleak UWS. I did manage to stop for a slice of spinach pizza.

Going for a slice.

The  next day I was on to more serious endeavors at Tom Colicchio’s Craftbar. Unfortunately my visit there was really just a mad dash, but I figured a mad dash is better than no dash at all. Started with a winter time classic: a beet salad of bitter greens, beautifully dark-rouge beets, and bright, meyer lemon-colored squash under the gaze of a study of Warhol-esque chickens in an alcove of the  main dining room. The salad was much like a great hair cut. Good hair cuts are good even after they grow out, and even when I was finished with my salad, the red stains on the white bowl that had housed the greens looked like a piece of modern art, or a child’s finger painting project.

I have to admit, I love D.C., but New York has given me a fevah for crack. Pie that is.