Category Archives: Food and Drink

Adams Morgan, Food and Drink, The Features, We Love Drinks
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Drinks Special: Cocktails at Jack Rose

Photo courtesy of
‘Mai Tai at Jack Rose’s Tiki bar’
courtesy of ‘Jenn Larsen’

Jack Rose Dining Saloon has been opening in stages, overlooking the seemingly interminable construction at the intersection of 18th Street and Florida Avenue NW. Now that the dust is finally clearing from the brand new sidewalk outside, its long-awaited dinner menu has debuted as well and is being served seven nights a week in the downstairs dining room and bar. The upstairs patio has been in full swing for most of the summer and is due to continue the grilling and swilling through the fall, including a Tiki bar on the back porch that served me up some killer classics two weeks ago when I visited for the official debut of the downstairs menu.

The key visual of Jack Rose is certainly its downstairs dining room’s wall of scotches, bourbons and spirits – 1400 bottles lining the bar in bookcases of booze. Between liquor, wine and beer the catalog of offerings can be a bit staggering, but the elegant room invites relaxed sifting through the menu while sipping some Ardbeg at the long bar, watching bartenders climb up ladders library-style to fetch bottles. Turn a corner at Jack Rose and the atmosphere can instantly change – every space here has its own feel, so give yourself some wandering time before deciding where you’d like to perch for a while.

Upstairs is divided into several sections, including a front balcony overlooking 18th Street off a small lounge bar complete with fireplace, the main open-air deck with a wood-fire grill and bar, and the small back bar that’s slowly turning into a Tiki spot. I started back there and almost never left, as a friend sipped a perfect Painkiller. After watching the moon rise off the back porch with a classic Mai Tai (orgeat syrup? yes please!) it was time to head downstairs and sample some whiskey cocktails from the excellent selection crafted by Rachel Sergi. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Friday Happy Hour: Maple Derby at Black Jack

After what seemed like an extended “coming soon” period, followed by a week or so of soft-opening, 14th Street’s new Pearl Dive Oyster Bar is officially open, as is the upstairs bar, Black Jack.

Black Jack is designed to be a fun, casual spot – complete with that buzzed-about indoor bocce pitch. They have a nice selection of whiskeys behind the bar and a short list of signature cocktails, two of which come out of a slushie machine. There are colorful lights strung from the ceiling to give a suggestion of being outdoors on a cool patio.

If you are getting the impression that they just crammed every bar trend into one place, you might be on to something. However, the staff are nice, the crowd seemed fine and surprisingly, not-crowded – and based on what I have sampled, the drinks are tasty.
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Food and Drink, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Veggies Take Over at This Saturday’s DC VegFest

On September 24, from 11am to 6pm, DC VegFest will showcase ease, fun, and advantages of a plant-based lifestyle at GWU’s University Yard. This annual event, now in its third year, has grown significantly in size – it is the area’s largest vegetarian event with thousands of attendees expected.

Those attendees will have the opportunity to purchase foods from nineteen local restaurants and food trucks, shop from animal-friendly vendors, and take in talks from speakers like chef and cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Wayne Pacelle of The Humane Society. There will be free food to sample from national brands and Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats has organized a cupcake-eating contest.
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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Mid City Caffe to Close

Photo courtesy of
‘Strut’
courtesy of ‘lorigoldberg’

Charming Logan Circle coffee spot Mid City Caffé is set to close for business effective October 1st.

While a victim in part of its location – on a second floor and away from the kind of office-based foot traffic that supports a bustling coffee shop five of seven days a week – the owner and management still made the difficult decision to close rather than relocate when faced with a lease expiring and ambiguous future for the building they occupy (a situation which, unfortunately, may also impact the street-level tenant, vintage shop Miss Pixie’s in the coming months.)

Until the recent arrival of Peregrine Espresso’s second location only about one block away, Mid City was the only serious coffee shop in the Logan Circle/14th/U St region and, in addition to serving great coffee, it served as a valuable daytime spot to work or socialize in a neighborhood more focused on nightlife. Regulars seeking a spot to open the laptop and drink a tasty beverage will now most likely have to head over to Filter in Dupont.

Mid City’s current general manager and head barista, Jeffrey Lamoureux (previously with Chinatown Coffee Co), brought in to run the struggling shop just a few months ago, will be moving on to open a new espresso bar concept within the renovated AKA White House hotel. That cafe is expected to open later this autumn.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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First Look: TruOrleans

graffiato 001

TruOrleans Restaurant & Gallery sits on the early part of H St NE, before all the hustle and bustle you’ll find closer to Sticky Rice, Toki Underground and Granville Moore’s. If you stand across from it (by Ethiopic), TruOrleans really seems to command the entire block.

It is 2 floors with an open deck. The space is great, and the staff is friendly. Every time I make my way around the place, I’m greeted by the hostess, a waiter and a bartender. This friendliness is a saving grace.

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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Cupcakes & Cocktails Benefit for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America

Photo courtesy of
‘red velvet cupcakery II’
courtesy of ‘vee*’

Get your sweet tooth ready for the 2nd Annual Cupcakes & Cocktails event benefiting the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. Six local bakeries, including Cake Love, Red Velvet, Batter Up and Georgetown Cupcake, will compete in a friendly bake-off to raise money for the foundation tomorrow night from 7 til 9 PM at One Lounge.

Tickets start at $50 and a portion of the events proceeds go to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. Besides getting to gorge yourself on cupcakes, there’s a silent auction, door prizes and an open bar.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Friday Happy Hour: Sixpoint Righteous Ale

There was a lot of buzz surrounding the recent arrival of New Belgium in the DC market, but I was not that worked up about it. My nonchalance is largely a product of having lived in California with easy access to the stuff and so there was not much novelty in it for me.

On the other hand – though my colleagues here may tease me about it – I have never lived in Brooklyn and so I have never had the opportunity to get bored by the output of Sixpoint Craft Ales and was delighted when they announced that they would be widely available in the DC, Maryland, Virginia region. Getting bored of Sixpoint would certainly take me some time. I like just about everything I have had from them and they produce a fairly long and rotating list of beers. (Not that I am unwilling to put in the time drinking their beers to find out, if pressed, of course…)
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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Only Twenty Kegs in the World. DC Gets One.

Photo courtesy of
‘Brasserie Cantillon’
courtesy of ‘mersy’

The annual release of Cantillon’s Zwanze is quite an event amongst the cult of beer nerds. The very limited edition beer, different each year, is debuted – and usually sells out almost instantly. If you see beer heads lying on the ground outside of ChurchKey this Friday night, it is (probably) not because they drank too much – but rather because they are camped out to be first in line for Saturday’s tapping.

After years of bottles being scalped for huge sums, the Cantillon folks have decided to make the 2011 Zwanze a keg-only release. All the kegs in the world – and there are only twenty of them – are to be simultaneously tapped. Then, when it sells out, it sells out. No secondary market.

The moment of the simultaneous tapping works out favorably for us in the Eastern time zone – 3pm on Saturday the 17th. For the one keg going to Japan (Beer Brasserie Dolphins Temabashi in Osaka), however, a bit less so.

ChurchKey will be open for usual Saturday brunch service starting at noon with glasses of Zwanze becoming available at 3:00. Another beer from Cantillon, Iris, will also be available on draft.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Buy Cupcakes and Support your Local Roller Derby Girls


Tiffany MacIsaac’s Roller Derby Cupcakes
Courtesy of Neighborhood Restaurant Group

While the DC Rollergirls may not be made of sugar and spice, Buzz Bakery is serving up some sweet cupcakes that are. Both Virginia locations of the bakery are selling two varieties of cupcakes until September 18th that will raise money for the to raise awareness and support the DC Rollergirl’s East Region Playoffs, “Nightmare on 95” in Baltimore on September 16-18.

The two cupcakes created by executive pastry chef Tiffany MacIsaac are the “Dorris Dayngerous,” a pink chiffon cake with raspberry jam and lemon buttercream, and the “Whiskey Houston,” a Johnny Walker-brown sugar cake with an Buffalo Trace-apple butter and a Jameson-vanilla buttercream. The two tough cupcakes are $4 each. Get ’em while their hot and support your gals on roller skates.

Correction: Buzz Bakery is offering the cupcakes in support of the DC Rollergirls team, but the proceeds from the cupcakes are not going to the roller derby team.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Friday Happy Hour: Dark Punch at Patty Boom Boom

Sometimes Patty Boom Boom feels almost a little bit “secret.” As the numerous nightspots by the Hilton Brothers go, it seems to get a little less attention than its sister bars around the corner and down the street. The upstairs is reserved for dj nights which skew towards reggae and dub, the sounds of which filter down to the small area just inside the door where one can sit, grab a patty for dinner, and enjoy a Red Stripe or one of the bar’s signature rum cocktails.
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