In case you’re out and about in Rossyln, Va. today eating lunch, beware. The restaurant where you’re eating may have pasta sauce with a pencil dropped into it.
Was just at an unnamed restaurant where I saw a pencil get dropped into a thing of sauce. They didn’t replace the sauce.
— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) June 10, 2014
While Tau, a keen observer of a Politico reporter, refused to name the restaurant even though he could probably save lives by reporting it, he did offer hints.
“For those curious, the restaurant is a.) In Rosslyn very close to my office b.) Uses pencils. You figure it out,” he wrote.
Many begged for him to name the restaurant. Others questioned why pencil in sauce was such a bad thing.
“How do you know it wasn’t part of the recipe?” asked Daily Beast‘s Olivia Nuzzi.
Kendall Breitman, a Politico breaking news reporter who clearly knows the name of the eatery, wasn’t dissuaded by Tau’s alarm bell. “Heartbreaking to hear, planned to go to unnamed restaurant after I saw you walk by with the bag,” she wrote. “Still planning. Don’t judge.”
Added Politico senior copy editor Kelsey Hayes, “Bearing in mind that lunch options are so limited here that a pencil-in-sauce incident isn’t the worst thing.”
Turns out Tau didn’t even eat the sauce in question.
“And also: My dish today required dressing but not sauce,” he wrote.
Huge sigh of relief.