Reason.tv: Lobsters Invade D.C.!
How food trucks make lunch tastier in the nation's capital and beyond.
When the Washington D.C. City Council loosened the rules governing food trucks back in 2007, it led to a culinary explosion in the nation's capital, enabling District lunch-goers to chow down on bulgogi tacos, pork banh mi, gourmet pizza, and more.
Never known as a place for retail innovation, D.C.'s roving lunch scene is starting to compare favorably with such culinary hotspots as New York and Los Angeles, which has been cracking down on its legendary food trucks via a bevy of arbitrary regulations.
D.C.'s bricks-and-mortar restaurants have done their part to lobby for rules that would hobble the new competition, including pushing for a law that would keep food trucks out of entire neighborhoods.
In December 2010, Reason.tv grabbed lunch from the Red Hook Lobster Pound, one of the District's best-known food truck, to find out why customers were willing to stand in line for an hour in 30-degree weather and fork over $15 for lobster rolls.
Approximately 2 minutes.
Produced, Shot and Edited by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain.
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How about a roll in the kelp with Lobster Girl?
The DC liquor trucks plan was shelved following the passing of Ted Kennedy (PBUH).
With the soundtrack, I thought this was a trailer for The Flying Pink Pig!
FIFTEEN dollars?!?!ONEONE?
You got yer taxes, fees, taxfees and feetaxes.
"I think frankly there'd be a revolt if the city council was to try to crack down on lobster trucks"
Now we're merely haggling over the price.
Lobsters Invade D.C.
Is it Mogomra, the giant, country lobster?
Pardon my ignorance, but is that clip from "Glee"?
No. That is from Upright Citizens Brigade, a very funny improv group that had a sketch comedy show on Comedy Central in the late 90's.
When Prostitution trucks are rolled out, Reason will be there to cover it.
Won't happen. Congress doesn't like the competition.
$15 for lunch is nothing for Federal employees I guess. I'm having baby carrots and a yogurt, but I'm part of the exploitative capitalist elite.
Watch out for those baby carrots - they'll make you gay.
Only if you suck on them or stick them up your ass.
To be fair, not everyone in DC is a government employee. There are also lobbyists, and then there are those who actually work for a living, like prostitutes and drug dealers.
I really loved my last trip to DC where the waitress in a trendy Dupont restaurant was talking to my buddy and me about the ease of getting coke in DC, but the apparent lack of easy to find, high quality pot.
The counties in Maryland and Virginia surrounding D.C. are some of the wealthiest in the nation.
That's because, while they can keep printing money at the presses, they can't just print more land in DC. Unfortunately, they spill over the borders into our states as a result.
I'd like to have TIME to eat lunch. I usually only have time for a quick sip of the blood of aborted fetuses and then it's back to screwing the poor out of their already-meager fare and kicking widows and orphans out of their houses.
*adjusts monocle - returns to work*
There's a banh mi truck? Where?
Don't say anything or else all the other customers will want one too.
Everyone in that food line bought lobster with money they received by screwing the rest of the country.
Washington keeps the best for itself?
Leeches! Robbers!
The people on those sidewalks are obligated to eat in real restaurants!
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The sight of bureaucrats, lobbyists, and lawyers patiently queueing to eat blue-blooded bottom-dwelling scavengers that have been boiled alive is somehow very amusing. Thanks!
And after living in DC for 3 years and realizing how bad the food can be (I searched long and hard to find some decent salsa back in '97) this can only be an improvement.
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