I voted!

Doing my DC-area patriotic duty, I voted in that all-important election: the annual Washington Post Best Bets. And, like every year, I find myself getting a little riled up about how many of the choices are large chains. Now, I know I've gone off on the nationwide chains before, so you dear readers may remember that it's not the capitalist aspect (which makes perfect logical sense) or the quality (I love a lot of these places), but rather that it homogenizes life, minimizing the places that make one city unique from another.

Best Bets takes it even further, mixing in the national chains with the local places. And while I can see a certain appeal in watching the big guys go up against the locals (and the locals occasionally winning), it mostly takes out the entire appeal of a contest like this, which is that it's supposed to recommend new things to me. What good would it do me to know that people's favorite ice cream is Ben and Jerry's? Or that Chipotle or Potbelly are really good? Or, the worst offender of all, why is Papa John's in the running for best pizza? We all already know these places and know whether we love them or hate them. Make this competition about what's the best of this area, period, leaving out any store that has more than, say, 5 locations outside the WDCMA, which will not only give the local places a much-needed boost, but also will do exactly what this poll is supposed to: point us to places we've never heard of.

I guess there's also a case to be made that the chains act as a measurement in this case, that you have something familiar in there to know how a local place that you've never heard of stacks up. But the chains are going to have a huge advantage just in being better known, regardless of whether they have better quality.

In short: like, tell us something we don't know.