The mayoral election may be a referendum on D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her role in transforming the school district, but I’d like to conduct a mini-referendum on her taste in food. According to a DCist interview that I’m just catching up with, the chancellor singled out these restaurants as her favorites:

Well my new favorite restaurant is Ray’s the Steaks, where Kevin [Johnson, Rhee’s fiance] and I went, and now I’ve been a couple of times, because I had a phenomenal prime rib there. Me and the girls, our old standby is D.C. Coast, my girls love that place. We also like Zentan, because when Kevin comes to town he stays at the Donovan House, so it’s just convenient to eat there. The girls also love House of Prayer, which is this restaurant that is in the bottom of a church, at the United House of Prayer. Oh my gosh, they have the best soul food in the District. It’s at M and 7th, I want to say. They have the best food ever there. Kevin’s favorite place to go on the weekends is the breakfast place at Eastern Market, so we go there a lot too.

Based on these picks alone, I’d have to say I approve of Rhee’s taste in restaurants.

Sure, D.C. Coastis an obvious, K Street power spot and Zentanis another celebrity chef cash grab, but Ray’s the Steaksis an inspired, counterintuitive choice. It was a steakhouse created specifically to counter the power puffery and pricey-ness of the downtown meat emporiums. And the United House of Prayer? Anyone who decides to lunch at the church’s Saints Paradise Cafeteria, where “love is our main ingredient,” clearly knows something about where people eat in this town. That scores plenty of points with me.

Where do you stand on Rhee’s dining choices, Y&H Nation?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery