The Fast Food Connoisseur Reviews Horace & Dickie’s

I never got into much of cable television’s original programming. I know of Iron Chef through references to it on King of the Hill. The words “Orangutan Island” are only in my head because an astoundingly hot girl I know talks about the show all the time and a beautiful woman could pitch me the idea of murdering me for a snuff film and I’d hang on her every syllable. For a while, however, there was one show that did manage to stand out and earn my viewership: Man v. Food.



The show was recorded on the TiVo of one of my best friends, former neighbor and my partner in fast food crime, Rich Harmon (pictured to the right shaking a pair of brownies like maracas). I’d check it out whenever I visited his place. For those unfamiliar, the show pits gluttonous host Adam Richman against various super-sized meals offered in eateries across the country in various eating challenges. One episode sent Adam to my home, Washington DC, where he toured Ben’s Chili Bowl (reviewed by yours truly here), as well as Horace & Dickie’s (video from the segment here). I was a veteran of dining at Ben’s, but Horace & Dickie’s, which prided itself in serving a pile of fried fish the size of a baby elephant’s turd between two slices of bread, sounded intriguing. Better yet, they were located only a few blocks from my underpaying job at XM Radio, meaning I could drop by after work, pick up a few sandwiches to share with Rich and be on my way. I decided that I’d pull the trigger that Saturday and go pick up a sandwich, which was a smart choice given how dangerously underweight I am.


For those of you unfamiliar with Horace and Dickie’s location in DC, it’s not exactly the best part of town. Not the worst by any stretch of the imagination (some areas around here make Mad Max look like Richard Scarry’s Busytown), but definitely not the best. Still, I’m a glutton, and I figured “Fuck it. Even if I get out of work after midnight, how bad can it be?” Well, read on for the answer to that one.

It was about 12:45 am when I pulled up to Horace & Dickie’s. The first thing I noticed was a few pre-teens standing on the corner outside the place. My initial thought was “Oh, precious youth, our majestic country’s most precious natural resource, what could coax you forth from your late night studies at the library to this street of ill repute?” Then I noticed them handing off various tiny, bundled objects to people in exchange for money. I didn’t need to rely on my vast street knowledge (gained entirely from viewing The Wire) to quickly identify these young ruffians as drug dealers. A little piece of me died seeing that, but I hoped that little piece, along with the entirety of my stomach, would be filled by my fish sandwich, so on I went.

Upon entering the establishment, my eyes immediately gravitated toward the only other white person in the place (just call it “Dr. Livingstone Syndrome”). She was blonde and blue and there with what at first appeared to be her boyfriend. Then I paid slightly closer attention to her appearance: Tight purple dress that barely covered her ass. Titanic leather boots. Makeup that would have made Tammy Faye Baker exclaim, “Forgive me, but that’s just too much.” Yep, someone had brought a hooker to Horace & Dickie’s on a “date.” If a bunch of 11-year-old drug dealers weren’t depressing enough, now I had to contend with the fact that some poor bastard haggled $10 off his banging tab by saying something along the lines of “M’lady, if thou whilst only lower the fair charged for thine exquisite services, I will present ye gustatory delights the likes of which ye have never before supped upon! Will a rimjob cost extra?”


At this point, I was ready to get my food and get the fuck out, but I began to notice the line was not moving. Oh, the help was jawing with the line and having a gay old time of it, but no one was actually frying any goddamn fish to serve us. What was worse, a non-stop stream of hobos began to filter in and out of the place, haranguing everyone caught in line for cigarettes and loose change. After about 45 minutes (no exaggeration) my sandwiches were ready and I was on my merry way back home to pig out with Rich. And the verdict? I’m going to use Woody Allen’s opening monologue in Annie Hall for this one:


There’s an old joke – um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’


She should have been thankful about those portions.

Tagged as: Fast Food Connoisseur, review.