Category Archives: Food and Drink

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Carnaval at Café Atlántico


‘Cotton Candy Mojito’
courtesy of ‘needlessspaces’

On Tuesday I was an invited guest at Café Atlántico for the restaurant’s special Carnaval Celebration Menu. I arrived early and found myself at the bar talking to one of the bartenders about the restaurant’s cocktails, and this seemed to set the tone for the night (surprised?). I could happily have sat at the bar all night, sipping excellent cocktails and talking to the bartenders about various spirits (want to out yourself as a cocktail nerd? Ask them about that bottle of Falernum and how it compares to the one you have at home, not to mention the house-made stuff at PX).

This being a dinner and all, the Social Chair and I were eventually escorted to a table with Lisa Shapiro of Dining in DC and Rachel Tepper of The Feast, along with their guests. We ordered another round of drinks and made our selections from the special menu.   Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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2011 Tequila & Mezcal Festival at Oyamel

Photo courtesy of
‘Oyamel 3’
courtesy of ‘maxedaperture’

Oyamel will be hosting their annual Tequila & Mezcal Festival from March 14th to 27th, 2011. The restaurant holds this annual event to showcase the popular spirits of Mexico and highlight their staff’s creativity in blending them with other traditional and modern flavors of the region.

On Monday night, members of the media were invited to sample from the special cocktail and food menus that will be featured during the festival and mingle with chef José Andrés of the ThinkFoodGroup which owns Oyamel and spot chef and White House senior food policy advisor Sam Kass.

On the warm-colored walls were projections of photographs of Oaxaca taken by Oyamel’s executive chef Joe Raffa on a recent food-research trip. Raffa was so taken with some of the produce he sampled that he has even convinced a local farmer here from whom he buys tomatoes to grow a special varietal for Oyamel to put on the menu this summer and this commitment to sustainable, local agriculture shows throughout the restaurant’s offerings.
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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Free Lunch Day at Roti on Thursday

roti

Picture Courtesy Roti

What’s better than a free meal? A free meal for a good cause.

If you live/work in NoMa, or if you’re lucky enough to take lunch away from your “work neighborhood,” you should head out to Roti Mediterranean Grill this Thursday. The newly opened Roti will sponsor a Free Lunch Day from 11am to 1:30pm, where all customers will receive a free sandwich, salad or Mediterranean plate, and be able to make a voluntary donation to DC Cental Kitchen.

This year marks DC Central Kitchen’s 22nd year fighting hunger.  DCCK works to provide low-income individuals and families with nutritious food, assist local farmers, help chronically unemployed men and women and reach out to people living on the streets.

Seems like Roti is quite the do-gooder. The restaurant’s first DC location also partnered up with DCCK for Free Lunch Day just last year. Thumbs up. Oh, and look for Roti to keep expanding in DC. So head out, eat, give and enjoy!

Roti Mediterranean Grill is located at 1275 First Street NE. The closest metro station is New York Avenue (Red Line). For more information call 202-618-6969.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Save the Date for Lamb Jam

Photo courtesy of
‘Lamb at Bibiana’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

It seems these days meat is in the air, everywhere you look around. Cochon 555, charcutepalooza, and now the first annual Lamb Jam are just three of the meat-praising and braising events that come to mind.

Between 16 and 20 restaurants and chefs will serve lamb-centric dishes, and Lamb Jam will feature a chef competition between chefs for “Best in Show,” “People’s Choice,” and “Best Leg, Loin, Shank and Shoulder.” Some of the participating chefs include Ed Witt of 701, Victor Albisu of BLT Steak, Nick Stefanelli of Bibiana and more. For real lamb enthusiasts, there will also be hands-on butchering demos.

Lamb Jam will be at the Ritz Carlton on Sunday, May 22nd from 2-5 PM. Right now you can purchase three tickets for the price of two through the end of March. Tickets are $50 each and can be purchased here.

Food and Drink, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Get Ready for ARTINI!

Erik Holzherr's Absolution cocktail from ARTINI 2010. Photo credit: T. Silva.

Though the actual gala event is a month away, the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s annual mix of cocktails and art kicks-off this week. Yes, it’s time to get ready for ARTINI 2011, which combines two of my absolute favorite things in one glamorous night – Saturday, April 2 – when twelve of the top mixologists in the city will showcase their talents by crafting cocktails inspired by works of art in the Corcoran collection. I’m extremely honored to be one of the judges on the Critics Choice panel that night. Actually, honored is an understatement – I’m ridiculously excited, and can’t wait to share my wrap-up with you afterwards.

But you don’t have to wait until then to enjoy some beautiful works of liquid art! The entire month of March is dedicated to sampling these drinks, with weekly Feature Nights starting this week. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the participating restaurants and bars will showcase their entries with 20% of the proceeds supporting the Corcoran’s exhibitions.

Our crack team of WLDC lushes – Bill, Brittany and Fedward – will attempt to report on as many of these drinks as possible throughout the month. Look for them at our weekly Friday Happy Hour! And join along in the voting sponsored by the Washingtonian.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Friday Happy Hour: Eve’s Pear

It’s time for Friday Happy Hour, highlighting a drink we’ve recently enjoyed, every Friday at 4pm! Please share your favorites as well.

Sunday afternoon, I found myself fairly aimlessly going about town with someone when I happened to look at Twitter on my phone. A terrible habit, I know, but a habit nonetheless. I saw an update from The Passenger with a photo of their special cocktails for the day – and I instantly had a mission for us to accomplish. I texted one of my favorite friends, a known lover of Sunday excursions to the Passenger, to see if he wanted to join us. He replied that he was already there. I should have guessed.
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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Food Tweet of the Week: Bourbon Steak

Photo courtesy of
‘Venison, Bourbon Steak’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

Let me just start this by saying that if you haven’t tried Bourbon Steak’s fries yet, please do…but that’s a totally different story.

The restaurant, located in Georgetown’s Four Seasons, hasn’t stopped tweeting since it first logged on back in December 2009. @BourbonSteakDC currently has more than 2,100 followers and tweets about five times a day. The polite restaurant will always thank you on Twitter for coming in to dine, and recently it got be excited about an event I had somehow forgotten about. 

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Food and Drink, Penn Quarter, The Daily Feed
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Café Atlántico Celebrates Carnaval

The Caipirinha
The Caipirinha
by Samer Farha

Although chef José Andrés has yet to respond to my offer to judge a Gin and Tonic showdown (which still stands) it’s worth noting that tonight from 4-6, there’s a free cachaça tasting at Café Atlántico. It’s the first event in the restaurant’s Brazilian Carnaval, which culminates next Tuesday with a three-course, prix fixe dinner, samba performance, and dance party. If you’re looking for a different sort of Mardi Gras experience, you could do worse than Carnaval.

If you’re not familiar with it, cachaça, a spirit distilled from raw sugarcane, can be considered a cousin of Rhum Agricole, which itself is not to be confused with other types of rum distilled from molasses. Like rum, it can be light or dark depending on the process and aging. Unlike rum, cachaça has up to six grams per liter of added sugar. Confused? Afraid? Don’t be. If you like rum, you’ll probably like cachaça too. The classic cocktail featuring cachaça is a caipirinha. In its purest expression, it is a sipping cocktail consisting of little more than muddled lime and sugar, crushed ice, and cachaça, in an old fashioned glass. Some bartenders serve theirs in a Collins (tall) glass, topped with soda, which makes an excellent refresher in warm weather.

Tonight at Café Atlántico you can sample two different brands of cachaça: from Leblon, casked in Cognac barrels, and Novo Fogo, whose silver cachaça is rested in steel tanks so it is still white. Also part of its Carnaval celebration, the restaurant hosts a capoeira demonstration on Sunday and the aforementioned dinner on Tuesday. Reservations are recommended for the weekend and required for Tuesday night’s dinner.

I’ll be there Tuesday night to lean on Chef Andrés personally on the matter of his bar’s gin and tonic. Oh, and to try the food. I’ll report back on that subject next week.

Arlington, Food and Drink, The Features
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Beer Dinners at Lyon Hall

Lyon Hall's Ommegang Beer Dinner

Beer dinners have been growing in prevalence and popularity in the area as the number of beer-inspired restaurants and bars continue to build. Pizzeria Paradiso, Birch and Barley, and Meridian Pint have all played host to beer-pairing dinners, and you may now add Lyon Hall of Clarendon to the mix.

Tuesday saw their first beer dinner since opening just under a year ago, and I was lucky to attend as a guest of the restaurant’s beer director, David McGregor. He’s long planned to do the pairings, which will occur on the first Tuesday of every month, and finally had the opportunity to start this week. Talk with David and you’ll sense his sincere passion towards all things malt and mash, and a genuine excitement to share in his explorations of their interplay with deftly prepared dishes.

For the inaugural dinner, David invited in Brewery Ommegang’s local director, Steve Cardello, and together with Lyon Hall’s chef de cuisine, Andy Bennett, put on a four-course meal catered to and built around the flavors and textures of Ommegang’s classic and unique offerings.

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Business and Money, Essential DC, Food and Drink, News, The District, The Features
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Sprinkles Cupcakes Comes To DC

There is a new edition to the saturated DC cupcake scene and it comes to M Street in Georgetown in the form of a pink and brown row house. Sprinkles Cupcakes, started in 2002 by Candace Nelson and her husband Charles, opened  in 2002 in Beverly Hills, is the Magnolia Bakery of the West Coast and has been featured on Oprah, Entourage and The Today Show.

With the proximity of so many other cupcake options (Baked & Wired, Georgetown Cupcake, Scoops, etc.,) offering high quality cupcakes and all priced relatively equally at $2.50 – $4 per cupcake, the principal question is: what makes Sprinkles’ sugary treats different? Continue reading →

Food and Drink
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First Look: Pound the Hill

Photo courtesy of
‘Pound the Hill’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

Nestled within the cozy confines of a turn-of-the-century Pennsylvania Avenue row building, lovingly restored by Karl Johnson and his co-owners, lies the newest addition to the Capitol Hill neighborhood, coffee shop and world bistro, Pound the Hill. Sporting an exposed brick and timber scheme and original plaster ceilings, Pound the Hill evokes a decidedly urban feel perfectly suited to its DC environs.

In complementary contrast to its historic interior, Pound the Hill has incorporated modern decor and technology to transform their space into one uniquely tailored to its intended purpose. The rows of red and white cups and mugs and similarly-colored staff attire reflect the restaurant’s DC heritage, while sleek granite counters and exposed wood floors convey a sense of efficiency and speed, two elements that are enabled by the wireless iPad-based POS system that allows the baristas to roam the store to remotely take orders and process payments. All these elements seamlessly combine in a stunning visual chemistry that transports visitors to the store away from the bustle of busy Pennsylvania Avenue.

Much more after the jump.

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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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This Week in Food

Photo courtesy of
’15/365′
courtesy of ‘_rockinfree’
What’s coming: Fifty years ago when I was a student at University of Maryland-College Park, I fell in love with Chipotle. Only I could get myself into credit card debt by buying one vegetable burrito every day for one year. Anyway, Prince of Petworth hears that Chipotle will open up a series of Asian themed restaurants this year that could be called ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen. Long name. A source tells PoP that ShopHouse has signed a lease in Dupont Circle at 1516 Connecticut Ave next to BGR.

In openings: Tom Sietsema tweets that Penn Quarter’s Hill Country BBQ will start serving its brisket and beans on March 12th. Hello Texas! Just two weeks later on the 28th, Pizzeria da Marco will open in Bethesda. Metrocurean tells us that the 130-seat restaurant will serve traditional Neapolitan pizzas fired in a 4,500-pound wood-burning oven. In what’s prob my fave opening of the month, PoP reports that Paila Chilean Grill and Cafe has opened up at 1424 Park Rd in Columbia Heights. See the menu here.

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Food and Drink, The Features, We Love Drinks
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Drinks Special: Sake at Kushi

Photo courtesy of
‘Kushi 02’
courtesy of ‘Max Cook’

In the whole wide world of drinks, there’s nothing more intimidating to me than a sake menu. Staring at the thirty-six selections at Kushi Izakaya & Sushi, my brain usually goes blank. Add shochu and my head really spins. It may be the Japanese. At least I can bumble my way through a French wine list, but sake? Forget it. So when my WLDC partner-in-photographic-crime Max Cook and I had the chance to spend some time with their beverage director, George Young, to learn about sake, we jumped. Well, I jumped, Max loves sushi more than sake. But after just an hour reviewing the basics of production and sampling the menu, I felt much less intimidated and am now eager to explore more.

Luckily, George himself is newly converted to the joys of sake and proved the perfect host to de-mystify the nature of rice wine. Wait, let’s start with that phrase – sake isn’t actually “rice wine,” as wine implies production from fruit. Sake comes from rice, and therefore is considered its own category. But how does rice become sake? What’s the difference between those cloudy white liquids and the clear ones? And what about hot versus cold? George patiently explained it all for us. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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FREE FOOD ALERT: Chick-fil-A Free Fryday

Photo courtesy of
‘Chick-fil-A’
courtesy of ‘ Jomo’

Get ready for a little Friday pick-me-up, folks. Chick-fil-A’s throughout the metro region will be giving free fries with your order this friday, March 4th. The “Free FryDay” is in honor of the Heinz Dip & Squeeze ketchup packets. All you have to do is mention either the ketchup packets or Free FryDay between 2 and 4 pm to get yourself some free medium waffle fries. I believe this is what Charlie Sheen would refer to as “winning.”

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Chef News at Againn and Art & Soul

Photo courtesy of
‘Againn’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

Againn and Art & Soul are both getting new executive chefs. Mike Sindoni, previously the chef de cuisine at Againn, will now be heading up the kitchen as executive chef. Former executive chef at Againn, Wes Morton, has moved to Art & Soul.

For Sindoni, the change to executive chef was a natural progression. He had been working at Againn since it opened in 2009 and had already had an active role in shaping the menu. Now he’s looking forward to collaborating more with the rest of the kitchen staff and floating around new ideas in the kitchen, he says. While there won’t be any major changes to the food at the British gastropub, Sindoni’s background is heavily influenced by Italian food, he says, which could peak through more in the food.

Further downtown at Art & Soul, Wes Morton has just started as the executive chef. “I’m excited about getting back to my Southern roots. It’s the first time in my career where I’ll be able to express myself in this way,” Morton says. Similar to Againn, I don’t think the food will change drastically, though it’s always interesting to see a new chef’s ideas and talents play out on the table. “My goal is to to keep the the essence of what Southern food is while giving our dishes a lighter feel with a modern and clean presentation,” Morton says.

Eat Like Me, Food and Drink, Foodie Roundup, The Features
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Eat Like Me: February’s Best Dishes

Photo courtesy of
‘3666-33Crop’
courtesy of ‘furcafe’

Some months I go fancy, others I don’t. I definitely erred on the side of casual this month, going so far as having a grilled cheese sandwich at not one, but three restaurants. Take note, fancy restaurants, I don’t find many things more satisfying than butter, bread and cheese cooked to gooey perfection. Did I just call the new burger? Is it the grilled cheese? I sure hope it is.

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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Don’t Forget Austin Grill’s Food Truck!

AG

Photo Courtesy Austin Grill

Well, maybe…

The yellow & red Austin Grill truck was trying to hit the streets today, but that’s now changed to “by March 15.” Let us know if you see it out!

The tex-mex chain, which first opened in 1988 in Glover Park, already has six locations in the DC area — so now seven if you count the truck. I must admit that I haven’t been to Austin Grill in years, but there is something interesting about the “trend” of brick and mortars turning to mobile vending. In February, Penn Quarter’s soon-to-be-open District of Pi sent its truck out to give away 36 free pizzas to hungry fans.

Austin Grill’s set of wheels will feature dishes from the restaurant’s regular menu — so burritos, sandwiches, burgers, wings, and more. You can track the AG Truck down by following it on Twitter and Facebook.

The strange thing is that writing this is making me crave District Taco, the fixed-address establishment that actually started as a food truck. Oh, doesn’t this just sound like the perfect time for traditional restaurants and trucks to get along? Yeah, probably not.

Too bad Austin Grill can’t sell its margaritas out of its truck…

Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
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Capital Chefs: Kyle Bailey & Tiffany MacIsaac (Part 2)

Photo courtesy of
‘Birch & Barley’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

I’m practically drooling at the thought of this pasta dish. Had I been dining in the privacy of my own home, I would have picked up the bowl and proceeded to slurp down the sauce that was on it. And it was heartwarming to see Kyle and Tiffany make this dish together, each executing the part of the dish that they knew best.

Below you’ll find the recipe for homemade ricotta cavatelli with slow-roasted pork, broccoli rabe and pine nuts. Before you go running for the hills, screaming, “Make pasta from scratch?! I caaaan’t!” let me assure you that it’s really easy, will only take about 15 minutes, and will taste far better than the pre-packaged, chemical-laden crap at your local grocery store. I have faith in you, dear reader. And if you’re here, you’re probably not the type of person looking up Rachael Ray recipes for burgers with hotdog bits in them (yes, folks, that happened). Put in a little effort, and you will be rewarded with a savory, memorably delicious meal.

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Capital Chefs, Food and Drink
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Capital Chefs: Kyle Bailey and Tiffany MacIsaac (Part 1)

Photo courtesy of
‘Birch & Barley’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

It’s rare to find one person who is doing exactly what they want in life, let alone two. But chefs Kyle Bailey and Tiffany MacIsaac are doing just that: cooking food they love in a restaurant geared towards their tastes and styles. They’re all about serving homemade food, no pretensions and you can tell neither one of them is the type to cut corners in the kitchen.

The married pair came to DC in 2009 after working at the now closed, Allen & Delancey in New York City. Michael Babin, one of the co-owners of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, approached Bailey about coming to work at Birch & Barley. “He said he wanted to open a beer restaurant, and he was like, ‘I hope that’s not going to be a problem for you.’ Are you kidding? That’s like my dream,” says Bailey. “It wasn’t about dumping Miller Lite on fish. I wanted to cook my food and prepare dishes with awesome beers. I take the long way home every time. It’s about quality and cooking from scratch.”

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