Category Archives: The Daily Feed

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Porc it Out People

Photo courtesy of pablo.raw
PTL! courtesy of pablo.raw

By now, you are probably familiar with my absolute love of all things Pork. I just can’t quit the bacon, man. So when I saw that Bourbon Steak, the upscale Georgetown meat haven, was having a PORC OUT I obviously had to share, so you and I can bond over the piggy together. On Sunday, August 19, 2012 from 12 – 3 PM, Bourbon Steak will host a pig roast on the restaurant’s patio, featuring a range of pig-centric dishes, including slow-roasted pork shoulder tacos, assorted pork sausages from Red Apron and crispy Thai style pork ribs. The side dishes are worth the trip alone: think grilled corn on the cob with lime butter, baked beans, jalapeno-cheddar cornbread, and seasonal salads. In case you don’t go pig (I don’t know you) there is also an entire oyster bar courtesy of the War Shore Oyster Company you can indulge in. No good pig roast goes without some sugar. The restaurant will also be featuring a dessert table that will include housemade soft serve sundaes, cookies and spiked watermelon (ah, for the love of booze).

Tickets to this lardy affair are priced at $50 for food, $60 for food and drink and $40 for children 12 and under, inclusive of tax and gratuity. Get your Pork on here.

Oh, and one more thing. Because you can never have enough pork, or beer, or patios, Bourbon Steak will be again debuting their “Dog Days of Summer” special — an off-menu Red Apron Butchery hot dog and pint of Port City beer for just $9 bucks. This Dog Day offer is available at the bar and lounge Monday-Thursday from 11:30 AM – 11:00 PM and Sunday from 5:30 PM – 11:00 throughout the month of August.

Now, get with the pork-gram.

Music, The Daily Feed
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Hot Ticket: The Zombies @ The Howard Theatre, 8/9/12

The Zombies in the 1960s (Photo courtesy The Zombies)

Cruising the radio dial on any road trip or drive around the Beltway is going to yield a classic rock station and inevitably great familiar songs like, “Time of the Season.” You might pause and think, wow, that song always sounds better than I give it credit for. Who’s it by? Oh, yes, The Zombies. They had another big hit didn’t they? “She’s Not There?” Right, right. Good stuff.

Well, The Zombies were big in the 1960s and got together again a few times over the following decades finally to reform in 2004 as an ongoing concern. They put out a new album, Breathe Out, Breathe In, in 2011 and they are touring again now, landing at The Howard Theatre this Thursday. What better time this season to catch up with the UK trendsetters?

The Zombies are best remembered for their collaborations in baroque pop, a subgenre of rock championed by The Beatles. Yesterday’s baroque pop paved the way for today’s chamber pop — consisting of bands that use orchestral instrumentation to produce modern rock songs. Acts ranging from Belle and Sebastian to Florence + The Machine have benefited from the groundwork laid by The Zombies.

Tickets to this all-ages show are available online for $39.50 plus fees or at the door for $45. Newly reformed 60s baroque pop brethren The Left Banke opens. Doors open at 6pm; showtime is 8pm.

The Daily Feed
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Strasburg’s Sharp, Nats Beat Marlins 4-1

Photo courtesy of Mylar Bono
The Smoking Gun(ner)
courtesy of Mylar Bono

The plain and simple story of Sunday’s Nationals game versus Ozzie Guillen’s Miami Marlins is that right-handed starter Stephen Strasburg posted six innings of shutout baseball, allowing just three hits, in Washington’s eventual 4-1 victory.

Not only that, but Strasburg aided his effort by adding run-support. Strasburg’s single off Miami right-hander Rick Nolasco in the second inning drove in Jayson Werth for the Nats first run of the day.  Washington continued to score, having all nine batters in the line-up face Nolasco at the plate, by way of small ball. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Cardiac Nats Comeback on Marlins with Six Run Eighth

Photo courtesy of Keith Allison
Danny Espinosa
courtesy of Keith Allison

There are many things that good teams do well, and one of them is to make costly errors into minor mistakes. To turn a missed call that led to a run into a footnote. It looked as if the story of this game was going to be how Espinosa and Lombardozzi struggled with defense up the middle and how homeplate umpire, Mike Muchlinski, called a strike three swinging a foul ball when even Reyes was heading back to the dugout.

Reyes would end up drawing the walk and coming around to score after a Lombardozzi error and Donovan Solano sac bunt. The Nats were down though not due to a bad call, but because of their up the middle defense. In the second inning Jordan Zimmermann did the uncharacteristic and gave the Marlins two free baserunners on a hit by pitch and a walk. With one out Gorkys Hernandez hit a tailor made double play ball to Lombardozzi who tossed the ball to Espinosa at short who then tossed the ball into the seats. It was the first of two errors on Espinosa, and in total the errors by Lombardozzi and Espinosa would lead to three unearned run and one extra earned run due to the missed double play.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Detwiler’s Consistency and LaRoche’s Bat Win It For The Nats

Photo courtesy of Matthew Straubmuller
Nationals Pitcher – Ross Detwiler
courtesy of Matthew Straubmuller

The Washington Nationals avoided a sweep against the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday night in a battle of the southpaws between left-handed pitcher Cole Hamels and Ross Detwiler. Long Story Short: It was most certainly Detwiler’s night.

Manager Davey Johnson was acting like a proud papa in the post-game press conference while explaining how proud he is of young Detwiler, who went on to pitch seven innings of three hit ball in the 3-0 Washington win. Detwiler’s seven innings of three hit ball combined with a line of two walks and three strike outs over 88 pitches (54 strikes) proved to be an efficient outing for the lefty.

But it woudn’t be a win without some run support, right?

First baseman Adam LaRoche went 3-for-4 against Hamels with a leadoff, first pitch homerun – his twentieth of the season – to right field to put the Nats on the board early in the second inning. According to Johnson, LaRoche has been the glue of the team this season and this game most certainly proved that to be true. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Nats Fall 3-2 To Phillies

Photo courtesy of Matthew Straubmuller
Phillies vs Nationals 8/1/12
courtesy of Matthew Straubmuller

The Phillies beat Washington 3-2 Wednesday night due to a lack of run support. What Philadelphia did was take advantage of right-handed starter Edwin Jackson at the right times.

This was Jackson’s third career start against the Phillies, and while he has beaten them once before earlier this year, Wednesday was a different story. Jackson threw five and two-thirds innings and gave up eight hits, three earned runs, four walks (one intentional), three homeruns, and struck out six over 108 pitches (63 for strikes).

Wednesday wasn’t a complete failure though. Jackson managed to strikeout Ryan Howard in all four of his plate appearances. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the Phillies leadoff man and shortstop Jimmy Rollins from going long twice — once in the third inning to put his team on the board and once in the fifth to tie the game up. It was the eighth career multi-homerun game of his career. Continue reading →

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Nationals can’t touch Phillies, lose 8-0

Photo courtesy of philliefan99
before the warmup
courtesy of philliefan99

Baseball’s a funny game. You can face a team that you’re 16.5 games behind you in the standings and have a complete offensive meltdown, a disastrous night on the mound, and still sneak out sharing the best record in baseball.  On a night when they were short five of their starters due to injury (Ramos, Desmond, Werth, LaRoche and Zimmerman), even facing a team as hapless and gutted as the Phillies, the Nationals were playing far below their weight.

In the third inning, already trailing by 4, Bryce Harper went to make an athletic catch instead of playing a Jimmy Rollins double off the wall, and gave up the first inside-the-park home run at Nationals Park this season, putting the lead out to six.  Stephen Strasburg came up with a dud of an outing on the night, going just 4 IP, and surrendering 6 earned runs on 8 hits. He had just 3 strikeouts and allowed only one walk, but not once did we see the fireballer who was indomitable early in the year. At times, Strasburg looked frustrated, and since the All-Star Break, he has been: since the All-Star Break, he’s put up a 4.43 ERA in four starts, each time looking less and less in control.

Continue reading →

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Nationals stand pat at trade deadline

Photo courtesy of Images_of_Money
Poker hand and Chips
courtesy of Images_of_Money

Looking at the Nationals public posture was all you needed to do, it turned out, in the run-up to the trade deadline. As far back as a week or so ago, manager Davey Johnson had said that the team was in good stead, and compared favorably to the 1986 Mets team that Johnson managed to a World Series trophy. It’s hard to blame the Nationals for refusing to engage in deadline brinksmanship when they’ve had such a successful season. Currently, the squad possesses the best record in baseball after 101 games, and will likely be piling on in the coming weeks as they face depleted squads from Philadelphia and Miami for a home stand.

Moreover, it’s hard to see what they were supposed to move for. Geovany Soto, a veteran catcher? Sure, that’s possible, but the Nationals don’t have the AA pitcher to spare for the Rangers to help them fill out their minor league pitching roster as it stands. Marco Scutaro, to give them another infield option? It doesn’t make sense for the Nationals to pay cash – and another infield prospect – when they’ve got some solid options available to them at the current.

As it stands, the armchair GMs of Washington may be grousing casually, but I think all you should do is point at the standings, and the return of Jayson Werth this week, as well as Chad Tracy today, as worth standing up for, especially when there was a paucity of good trade options that would benefit the Nationals in the long term as opposed to serving as a rental agreement for talent that the team just isn’t that desperate for at the time.

There are times to be buyers, and times to be sellers, but both of those depend on the time and price being right. This time, it wasn’t.

All Politics is Local, The Daily Feed
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Want to make a better DC? Run for ANC.

Photo courtesy of lightboxdc
Competitors
courtesy of lightboxdc

DC may not get a vote in the House or the Senate, or have fully autonomous control of our own budget, but what we do have is local participation up the ying yang. The ANC level is without question the most approachable elected office of which I’m aware – short of dogcatcher, naturally – and has a fairly large potential to do good in your neighborhood.  The ANCs across the city handle business which includes liquor licenses in neighborhoods, new development, and other issues that are at the heart of any small part of the city.  As an ANC, you’re an unpaid volunteer without a staff, but there is great potential to affect your neighborhood for the positive.

Not sure where your ANC district is? Not sure who’s running? Local civic-minded programmer Keith Ivey has made a website to show who’s running in your part of town.  If no one has picked up petitions yet, you’ve still got 9 days to get yours and get them signed ahead of the deadline.  You only need signatures from 25 registered voters to get on the ballot, which could be accomplished in an hour or two – less if you can line up all your neighborhood friends. 

Get involved. Leave no seat empty.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Churchkey Debuts Fried Chicken and Donuts


Courtesy of Samer Farha

There’s a new dish you might see parading around Churchkey these days. Don’t worry if you don’t see it on the menu–we don’t need those where we’re going. Besides, you’ll see it coming down the bar from a mile away: a big platter of fried chicken and donuts.

The beer-focused bar’s fried chicken dinner splits a whole chicken in three different styles: thighs and drumsticks in a classic buttermilk fried fashion, chicken tenders fried with a jerk seasoning and “General Satan’s” crispy wings (that’s executive chef Kyle Bailey’s version of General Tso’s). The family-style platter also comes with homemade biscuits with honey butter, corn on the cob topped with a spicy mayo, sesame seeds, cilantro and panko bread crumbs, as well as panzanella with heirloom tomatoes and house-made burrata.

Rounding off your meal are four donuts from executive pastry chef, Tiffany MacIsaac. They’re fried brioche donuts filled with passion fruit curd and topped with a strawberry glaze and a homemade Nilla wafer crumbling or a filled with a goat’s milk cheesecake and topped with a Cajeta glaze and pistachio dusting.

That’s all for only $42, so go ahead and don’t feel bad about ordering that second beer.

The fried chicken special is available on Wednesday nights only in limited quantities.