Category Archives: Food and Drink

Essential DC, Food and Drink, The District
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Best Picnic Spots in DC

Lincoln Memorial Picnic Mr. T in DC

It’s getting to be the perfect weather in DC. You know, that fine balance we get maybe a few glorious weeks a year where the thermometer is perfectly positioned between chilly and OVERWHELMINGLY-HUMID-TAKE-ME-TO-ALASKA-WHAT-IS-THIS-PLACE-WE-LIVE-IN hot.

So we must embrace this time, and one of my favorite ways is by putting together a picnic and heading outdoors with the people I love. Here are some of my top picks for picnic spots, along with good places to grab picnic supplies.

Picnic spot: Yards Park. If you haven’t been by now, embrace the season and head on over and soak up the southwest waterfront.
Grab your supplies: If it’s the weekend, try and grab something from one of the vendors at Eastern Market before heading out. If not, I’d recommend either Cornercopia or Spring Mill Bread Company for fresh sandwiches.

Picnic Spot: Founders Park in Old Town, Alexandria
Grab your supplies: Perfect for a brunch picnic, Society Fair offers up plenty of baked goods (try the croissant) housemade yogurt and coffee to go.

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Food and Drink, We Love Drinks
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Meanwhile, in Another City

Not Grapefruit Samer Farha

While this site is about and for DC and the surrounding areas, sometimes there are worthwhile events worth traveling for, such as the Manhattan Cocktail Classic. The opening gala on May 17 takes DC’s annual Repeal Day Ball and turns the dials up to about 35:  it takes over the main branch of the New York Public Library, with space for a few thousand guests and multiple bars, bands, speakeasies, and hidden delights scattered around four floors of the building. It ain’t cheap though.  This year the organizers have announced a new Uber VIP package, which includes VIP admission to the gala, transportation from Uber, and access to the MCC’s parallel Industry Invitational event, which runs from May 18-20.

What’s the Industry Invitational? It’s an inside look at all sides of the business, with sessions on history, operations, trends, best practices, and, oh, free spirits tastings all day long.  For three days. If you’ve ever wondered what really goes into your cocktail glass – the who, the what, the how, and the how much – there’s no better way to learn than by spending three days attending professional seminars. Last year (on a press pass) I attended talks on the economics of production, the effects of filtration, the importance of ice, and a demonstration on how to use a rotovap or an iSi siphon to infuse spirits with flavors like habañero pepper or coffee.  Plus countless others I’ve forgotten, since I had a cocktail in my hand by noon every day.

The gala is worth attending (if you can afford it, that is), and the public events are a blast, but if you’re a cocktail nerd the Industry Invitational might just be worth the cost of the ticket and the trip to New York.

Disclosures: we have received no compensation for this post but the Social Chair and I attended last year’s event on a press pass, and due to a misunderstanding, inadvertently crashed the opening Gala (and were let in with VIP passes once all was said and done). I wouldn’t recommend it if we hadn’t enjoyed and learned from it.

DC Victory Gardens, Food and Drink, Fun & Games, Life in the Capital, We Green DC
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How Does Your DC Garden Grow? According to Manchester landscape

an organic presidency philliefan99

It’s already that time, you guys! That’s how you know spring is almost here…. it’s seed sowing time. I’m so excited to start in on my vegetable garden, I’ve got my grow light out, I’ve got all my books (this and this) on my coffee table and I’ve been madly perusing the Seed Savers Exchange website. Finally, all those tools that I bought from OccupyTheFarm paid off. It only shows that you don’t really need the expensive machineries and tools to get your garden started. But I got a little overwhelmed with where and when, exactly, to start, so last weekend I sat down  to talk a little bit with Meredith Shepherd of the DC-based organic home gardening service Love & Carrots and get her advice for starting your own small home garden.

Here are a few of her tips according to Manchester landscape you ca read more about at https://didsburydriveways.co.uk/blog/manchester-landscape/.

  • Grow herbs. The landscapers Melbourne crew advises the best way to get started gardening is to design and grow a small herb garden, especially if you’re a renter. Her favorites are lavender, sweet woodruff, lemon verbena and chives.
  • Don’t over water or under water. Read up on what you plant and what kind of soil and water level it needs so you don’t waste your time or drown your plants. (She told me I should be keeping my rosemary separate from the rest of my herbs because it likes it a bit drier.)
  • Salad greens can grow in the shade, especially the “cut and come again” varieties. This is handy if you live on a narrow street and don’t have much sunlight.
  • The District proper is a plant hardiness zone warmer than the rest of the surrounding DMV area. This is handy to know when you’re trying to figure out when and what to plant.
  • Get a hose reel. A hose reel can be a great useful garden tool to keep your garden or lawn looking clean and tidy as well as making hose use more convenient. BestofMachinery’s Bob Robinson made a list of the best hose reels on the market today. Visit his reviews on https://BestOfMachinery.com

Overwhelmed? Love & Carrots can help. Meredith’s service offers everything from consulting (a one-time service where she helps you think it all through) to coaching (you set up regular appointments where they teach you everything you need to know, complete with syllabus and notes emailed to you after), or full plant-and-care service done by her staff.

After confessing the way growing a garden makes me feel like I’m sticking it to big agriculture (Monsanto, I’m looking right at you), Meredith agreed. “I feel like I’m bringing back a part of culture,” she said about Love & Carrots. “All our grandparents had gardens, it just makes sense.” If you are interested in doing the same thing, check out this mini rotatory hoe to start giving shape to yourgarden.

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Food and Drink, Life in the Capital
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Prepped Meals Delivered to Your Door

The worst thing about cooking for one (or even two) is that if you’re trying to cook something original and interesting, you wind up with a ton of leftover ingredients. Right now, for example, in my fridge (and I just went to look, I promise) I have: half a red onion, half a lemon, a bunch of cilantro, the end of a bag of arugula and some tahini-lemon dressing. All of this is leftover from a week’s worth of cooking. All of which I have no plans to do anything with between now and when they go bad.

So when I heard about Scratch DC, I thought it was a very awesome solution to all my very first world problems: ingredient overload, very little time to grocery shop, and my need for fresh and local food.

Scratch DC is a cooking delivery service that will drive prepped-but-not-yet-cooked meals straight to your door. They do all the prep, include all the wacky ingredients (or your basics: even salt and pepper!), and then provide friendly detailed instructions on preparing it. It’s kind of the best thing ever. And if the two meals I tried (enchiladas in a jalapeno cream sauce and feta/basil tilapia) were any indication of the daily quality, they have my sad whole wheat pasta in marinara sauce trumped any day.

Go to their website. Order the meals you want. They source most of the ingredients organically and locally. They’ll prep it and bring it to you at the time of your choice. You will cook it and look like the hero, and you didn’t even have to go to the grocery store. Prices stay in the range of about $30 or less for two servings, depending on the meal.

It’s easy as pie. Actually, it’s way, way easier than pie.

Food and Drink, We Love Drinks, WTF?!
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Brooklyn Is the New Black

The Passenger: God Save the District Kevin H.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of copying. At least somebody said that. I said it on my tumblr a while back and I didn’t think I was being original at the time, anyway. It should thus come as little surprise that there is now another bar called Passenger. What does come as a surprise is that it’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, whose hipsters are known for dismissing anything remotely unoriginal. Brooklyn’s Passenger is train-themed (obviously) although it substitutes a small upstairs space for the DC original’s narrow railcar.

The Back Room at the Passenger Kevin H.

The Brown brothers reacted on Twitter, with Derek tweeting, merely, “Ahem” and Tom asking, “Have you ever heard of this thing called ‘Google’?” Tom added the #FakePassenger hashtag, which I think sums the whole thing up rather well.

Hey, Brooklyn? We knew the Passenger before it was cool.

Food and Drink, The District, We Love Drinks
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We Love Drinks: Hogo Preview

Food This Way Fedward Potz

The info sheet handed out at Hogo’s media preview reads, “Hogo is part of a project called Temporary Works that hopes to bring new late-night dining options to Washington, D.C. by giving talented chefs a platform to cook bar food with their own twists. Located inside Hogo, Temporary Works has a dine-in kitchen that will be helmed by a cast of rotating chefs from Washington, D.C. and other nearby cities.” If you read recent City Paper coverage you might be asking, “would they really open a bar knowing that it would have to close in a year?” Your answer is thus completely out in the open, proudly announcing itself with the name Temporary Works. Hell, that’s even the name that appeared on the ABRA notice.

This cannot in any way be an impartial report. Regular readers of this site — especially the weekend posts — might by now have the idea that the Social Chair and I spend a lot of time at the Passenger, two doors north of Hogo. It should thus come as little surprise that we’ve come to be friends with brothers Tom and Derek Brown (and in the interest of the fullest disclosure possible, we have known their landlords and partners the Rupperts for even longer than we have known the Browns). We first met Tom in the company of the Rupperts after a “garage sale” at the Warehouse Theater, in the Passenger’s early days. Presented with the horrible beach cocktail book we’d bought at the sale, he admitted that what he really wanted to open was a rum bar with tiki drinks. Several years and uncounted Tiki Tuesdays later, he has realized that dream with Hogo. Not only have we known the new bar was coming, though, we helped paint the place and move the furniture.

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Food and Drink, The Features
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First Look: Trademark Drink + Eat


Courtesy of Three Lockharts PR

I have to imagine being the first restaurant to land in a neighborhood you’re trying to beef up is no easy task. Will the locals end up coming back? If you’re off the beaten path, can you still draw a crowd? How do you bring any foot traffic off the sidewalk and into a seat at the bar? When I visited Trademark Drink + Eat a little more than a week after their opening in November, their boisterous, mostly full bar and high-top tables on a week night seems to indicate they’ve figured it out.

Named after the neighboring U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark the pub is located just beyond Old Town in the Carlyle District. Google maps says it’s an eight minute walk from the King Street metro, which isn’t far if you’re looking to head somewhere different for drinks and a bite to eat in Alexandria.

Trademark has both casual bar fare like warm pretzel bites or deep-fried pickles, and more sophisticated, hearty dishes such as the Chesapeake pot pie with piping hot crab, rockfish, shrimp, roasted corn, peas and potatoes wrapped in a buttery dough. Sit at the bar for a short while and you’ll find yourself devouring the restaurant’s version of corn nuts, a pleasant reminder that the little bowls of bar snacks do not have to be stale or overly salty. While you’re at it, don’t pass up the bacon candy, which is a thick slice of bacon on a stick with a sweet yet light, sugary coating. I should have had you at bacon. On a stick.
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Food and Drink, The Features
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Bryan Voltaggio’s Range Set to Open in Friendship Heights

Range by Bryan Voltaggio bonappetitfoodie

Get ready, DC—Bryan Voltaggio is coming to town. And he’s making a bold entrance with a 14,000 square foot, 300 seat, multi-station restaurant complete with tatted up, Converse-sporting staff in Friendship Heights. RANGE is set to open to the public on December 18th.

The open and airy RANGE (yep, in all caps) is built around the concept of an open kitchen with individual stations dedicated to specific foods–a charcuterie station, raw bar, rotisserie, wood fired hearth, baker, dessert and candy and coffee bar. However, the entire menus is available wherever you decide to sit.

Much like the restaurant space itself, the menu is expansive, ranging in dishes such as a smoked trout roe with potato-shallot tots, to headcheese with a sunchoke relish, to roasted pork cheeks with celeriac and moustarda. If our taste of kimchi linguini with briny uni and bay scallops was any indication, there’s going to be a very long wait for a table here. Other highlights included a refreshing kampachi (similar to a yellowtail tuna) tartare with pine nuts, lemon and coriander, and a creamy ricotta ravioli with braised meat ragu. The added bonus was extremely thin crust pizza topped with bacon and charred onions.

Prices don’t appear to put you over the edge. Entrees hover around the $15-$30 range, though there are the obvious ones that are more pricey, such as the 36-day-aged new york strip, wagyu beef tenderloin or rotisserie lamb neck. Sides and smaller plates go from $3 for dishes like cornbread with bacon marmalade up to $13 for specific charcuterie.

Cocktails on the menu run the gamut from simple, “the name says it all” drink is just a vodka with soda, to more complex punches like the “serpentine overtone” with tequila, cranberry, hum liqueur, lime and black pepper. Draft beers and wine are also available by the glass. If you’re going for non-alcoholic drinks, there are some house sodas that we can’t wait to get our hands on, like grapefuit and ginger beer.

After the jump, you’ll find a photo slideshow of RANGE that We Love DC caught a sneak peek at. Make sure you check out the retail space on the side of the restaurant, where you’ll find kitchen tools that Voltaggio has worked with Williams Sonoma to pick out, a rotating selection of goodies from the chef’s purveyors and more.

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Food and Drink, The Features
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Matchbox Arrives on 14th Street NW

Matchbox on 14th Street NW bonappetitfoodie

Good things come in threes at the new Matchbox on 14th street—three levels of seating, mini burgers in multiples of three—chances are you’ve been to one of their other locations before, so you get the idea. The newest addition to the matchboxfoodgroup’s restaurants is their location over on 14th and T streets, NW.

Housed in a building that was once a bowling alley and pool hall in 1907, an automobile showroom, the former Club Bali jazz club and rehearsal space for Arena Stage Theatre Company, the restaurant is giving the space new life while paying homage to some of its previous iterations. For example, you’ll notice the counter top at the bar is designed to look like a bowling lane, as it stretches out and morphs into a semi-open kitchen. Look up and you’ll notice the restaurant group kept the original ceiling and steel girders; look to the side and you’ll see the building’s original, exposed brick bring a warmth to the atmosphere.
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Foggy Bottom, Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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PAUL Opens in Foggy Bottom, Offers Free Pumpkin Tartlets


Pumpkin Tartlet from PAUL
Photo by Jason Colston

Heads up, Foggy Bottom folks: PAUL is opening its fourth DC location today in your neighborhood. That means more baguettes, croissants and other French fare.

To celebrate their opening at 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, the first 2,000 patrons at the new location will receive a free pumpkin tartlet with their purchase. So grab a coffee, maybe some baked goods to share with your coworkers and get an early taste of Thanksgiving with a free pumpkin tartlet.

Food and Drink, The Features
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We Love Food: Vinoteca


Courtesy of ThreeLockharts Communications

I can’t say U street is the first neighborhood that comes to mind when I’m deciding where to eat dinner. Sure, there are a few choice spots and classic haunts; however, if you ask what word comes to mind first, it’s “drinks,” not “dinner.” But now, I’ve got the right place up my sleeve that delivers on both the drinks and the dinner fronts: Vinoteca.

Having previously thought of Vinoteca as the place where I could satisfy a craving to play bocce while having a good glass of wine (what? Sometimes those things coincide), I somehow forgot that the five-year-old wine bar also served dinner. There’s a mix of small plates for sharing, as well as larger entrees that could even be split if you’re not starving. There are the appetizers you might have seen before, such as pan con tomate topped with jamon Serrano and manchego cheese, or an Appalachian cheese paired with green apples and candied onions. But then there are more unusual bites like the petite, pickled kiwiberry with onion or more jamon layered over a housemade, salty fish cracker.

I know you might not think to opt for liquor over wine at a wine bar, but start off with a cocktail–the kind with interesting ingredients that you’re unlikely to stock in your own home bar but wish you could. For example, the light and refreshing “Bonal sparkling cocktail” combines aperol, grapefruit juice, St. Germain, Bonal Gentiane-Quina, Toso Blanc de Blancs and a dry sparkling wine. Or the “Spanish Spirit” that combines gin with two types of sherry, a French aperitif called quinquina and a housemade thyme syrup.
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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Urbana Hosts November Lamb Feast

Photo courtesy of bonappetitfoodie
Border Springs leg of lamb
courtesy of bonappetitfoodie

Move over poultry, beef and pork. Lamb is taking over.

Following his victory at the Lamb Jam Finale this past September, chef John Critchley and Urbana are hosting a Lamb Feast. On Sunday, November 11th from 5 to 8 PM, you can get your fill of lamb dishes including Critchley’s 2012 winning dish, a lamb leg pupusa with queso blanco and lamb tongue curtido. Other dishes at the event include leg of lamb nachos with welsh rarebit sauce, slow roasted leg of lamb with white polenta and gypsy peppers, lamb pizzas and bruschettas, meatballs, tartare, as well as various sheep’s milk cheeses. Your ticket also gets you some sips of bourbon, beer and wine.

Tickets are $40 per person and can be purchased here.

Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
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Capital Chefs: Rebecca Albright of Ted’s Bulletin (Part 2)


Montgomery Pie
Courtesy of Rebecca Albright/Linda Roth Associates

As that chill in the air grows, there’s one thing I’m always up for baking: pie. It’s comforting, rarely complicated and the smell of spiced fillings permeates my apartment with a delightfully sweet scent.

And what better recipe to have as we near the holidays than a recipe for a gingerbread pie. Pastry chef Rebecca Albright of Ted’s Bulletin shares her recipe for Montgomery Pie. Check out the recipe after the jump.
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Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
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Capital Chefs: Rebecca Albright of Ted’s Bulletin (Part 1)

Rebecca Albright of Ted's Bulletin bonappetitfoodie

Pastry chef Rebecca Albright is swiftly, and perfectly, crimping a pie crust while people pack into Ted’s Bulletin for a post-brunch wave of service on a busy Saturday. While waiting for a table, the pastry station serves as a source of entertainment for patrons who get to peer over the short glass wall at the assembly line of pop tarts, pie crusts being rolled out, and more desserts taking form. For Albright, the bakery window is one of her favorite parts of the job. “You get to interact with guests and get feedback, see their reactions,” she says.

Before she became a pastry whiz, Albright had studied broadcast journalism, though she found herself jumping at the chance to do different catering events and baking wedding cakes for friends during and after college. Towards the end of undergrad, she picked up a minor in food science, knowing that’s where her real passion was. Combine all of that with a natural affinity for baking and memories of growing up baking with her grandmother, it’s no surprise that a career in pastry was on the horizon. For a while, Albright entertained the idea of being a wedding cake designer before ultimately deciding to enroll at L’Academie de Cuisine.
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Food and Drink, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Get Out The Vote (and appetite) – Election Day Specials

Photo courtesy of Pianoman75
Vote by cookie! courtesy of Pianoman75

Nothing screams democracy quite like election-day food specials. In true Capital fashion, DC restaurants are getting in the swing of things and offering a host of President-worthy deals, giving you further incentive to get up and get heard. Shake Shack in Dupont Circle has partnered with Rock the Vote to offer “Shack the Vote”. On November 2nd, the burger mecca will be setting up a Pledge to Vote table, where you can pledge to rock it while also receiving a coupon for a free Presidential Caramel Custard, redeemable on Election Day. #brainfreezefordemocracy anyone?

One of my favorite wine bar’s, Vinoteca, if offering an all-day Happy Hour Party, featuring $5 wine and food specials, if you have the “I Voted” sticker. Vinoteca’s 7-day-a-week happy hour usually runs from 5-7pm, but will be extended on November 6th to celebrate all those who voted.

The Park Hyatt Lounge (also home to Blue Duck Tavern) is offering Presidential cheese, literally. Two blue cheeses representing the Democratic candidate and two red cheeses, representing the Republican candidate will be available nightly, nothing gets better than being political over cheese.

Photo courtesy Heather Freeman PR

Capitol City Brewing Company will host a thirteen-hour All Day Election Day Happy Hour from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight on Tuesday, November 6, at both their downtown and Arlington locations.

701 is offering a special three-course fixed price Bipartisan lunch until Monday, January 21, Inaugural 2013, with a special lunch menu consists of an appetizer, entree and dessert priced at $25 per person, tax and gratuity not included.

Over in Old Town, Jackson 20 Chef Brian McPherson has created an Andrew Jackson-inspired prix fixe menu, available for $20 on Election Day for those wearing an “I Voted” sticker. The three-course, colonial-inspired menu pays homage to the restaurant’s namesake, President Andrew Jackson, and the foods he enjoyed.

There is nothing more patriotic than coming together to exercise your right to vote, demand your voice be heard, and party (and eat) together with your closest law-abiding citizens… Enjoy!

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Food & Friends Hosts Annual Slice of Life Thanksgiving Pie Sale

Photo courtesy of ekelly80
327/365
courtesy of ekelly80

The turkey’s not cooked through, you’re scrambling to mash extra potatoes for the in-laws who RSVP’d last minute for dinner, and you could have sworn you had ground nutmeg in your cart when you checked out at the grocery store, but now it’s nowhere to be found. Does this Thanksgiving nightmare sound like a familiar scenario to you? Let Food & Friends cover dessert for you this year.

The DC nonprofit has a goal of delivering more than 3,500 turkeys this year to residents in DC and parts of Maryland and Virginia who are living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other critical illnesses. To raise funds, Food & Friends is hosting their annual Thanksgiving Pie Day sale and is aiming to sell 7,600 pies total.

Pies start at $25 each and this year’s selection includes homemade apple pies, spiced pumpkin pies, pecan pies and US Airways Almond Maretto brownies. For those of you that opt for the brownies, you receive a chance to win a $1,200 US Airways gift card. Each pie purchase provides one full day of meals to a Food & Friends client.

Pie sales end on November 15th and pre-purchased pies can be picked up on Tuesday, November 20th at Food & Friends or at one of 28 CVS locations throughout the area.

For more information on buying or selling pies or to purchase one online, go to www.foodandfriends.org/pie.

Food and Drink, The Features
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Surviving Sandy: Foodie Style

We all know what happens when the imminent threat of a natural disaster is on its way. First we panic, turn on every weather channel known to cable, open multiple tabs on our browsers to follow copious storm trackers, have flashbacks of all those natural disaster movies (I’m looking at you Helen Hunt in Twister), and then… well, we hit the grocery store. If you are anything like me, my over-preparedness resulted in two glorious days of browsing recipes, cooking, and baking. I am a cynic by nature (no pun intended) but somehow found myself following the crowd and stalking up on so much food I could have had a neighborhood block party (or four). I felt a need to make- and eat – everything, as if the world actually was going to end tomorrow…

But alas, Sandy spared us some monumental destruction (thank you), except for the few pounds we may have added to the scale (white girl problems), but the forced hibernation was a welcome moment of peace amidst the madness. Something about the sound of heavy wind and rain inspired unplugging and putting hands, and minds, to use elsewhere.

I for one am a huge breakfast person. So staying indoors meant staying in pajamas a little longer, making more breakfast than usual, and planning that night’s lunch or dinner before I even finished my last sip of coffee. One of my favorite comfort foods, which brings me back home to Colombia, is the arepa. For those of you who have never had one, it is a corn-flour tortilla of sorts, similar to a Salvadorean pupusa, which is a vehicle for anything and everything you wish. From avocado and cheese (I go for mozarella or queso fresco), to bacon and other forms of cooked pork (shredded always best), an arepa is a versatile, delicious, comforting staple of Colombian cuisine. Using just cornmeal flour and water, the dough becomes dense and easy to mold, rounded out and grilled on a stovetop. My favorite toppings include butter, melted mozzarella, avocado, and a generous pinch of salt and pepper.

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Food and Drink, Special Events, The Features
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America’s Test Kitchen & a Preview of the FOOD exhibit at the Museum of American History

Chris Kimball and Guy Crosby of America's Test Kitchen at the Smithsonian bonappetitfoodie

The bespectacled and beloved Chris Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen, along with the show’s science editor, Guy Crosby, gave a little chat last week in conjunction with the Smithsonian’s preview of an upcoming exhibit, “FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000.”

Among the highlights, Kimball explained that unlike other cooking shows, he embraces showing failure on America’s Test Kitchen in order to remove any fears about cooking. “You never see food shows go, ‘This sucks!'” he said. The mission is often to find out why bad things happen to good recipes, he added. Throughout the presentation, Kimball made the case for why recipes should be tested scientifically and why he chooses to use his head rather than his heart when cooking. Additionally, the duo answered the audience’s cooking questions and dispelled various cooking myths such as searing the meat locks in juices and marinating meat makes it more tender.

After the presentation, we caught a sneak preview of the FOOD exhibit (see a few photos after the jump) that is currently being installed at the National Museum of American History and set to open to the public on November 20th. The 3,800-square-foot exhibit will examine major changes in food production, distribution, preparation and consumption in America from 1950 to 2000.

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Adventures, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Fun & Games, Life in the Capital, Penn Quarter, Special Events, The Daily Feed, The District
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Start Halloween Early With “A Spooky Adventure” at 901 Restaurant

If you’re looking to make your Halloween costume go beyond the 31st, then Penn Quarter’s 901 Restaurant is your place to make that happen, because this Wednesday, October 17th at 9pm, they’ll be hosting a sultry Halloween soiree with trick-o-treat inspired sips.

Show up in your Halloween-inspired attire and you’ll get a complimentary drink ticket for either a Bloody Bang, a mixture of Emperor Imperial, homemade raspberry puree and champagne, served up on the rocks topped with fresh raspberries and a lemon peel, or a Midnight Aura, a savory mix of Belvedere, lemon, home spiced Asian pear puree, ginger and lemon bitters served in a martini glass.

Tunes will be provided by DJ Steve Starks of Nouveau Riche and 901’s marble tabletops, lounge couches, veiled curtains and candle lit ambiance should make for the ideal setting to get in the Halloween mood.

 

Adventures, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Life in the Capital, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Happy Hour + Food Trucks @ Capitale

Last Friday I swung by Capitale, located in the former K Street Lounge location, to check out their weekly food truck-nightclub partnership happy hour. Here’s how it works: Every week two different food trucks will park in the club’s valet parking space and will be there to serve only Capitale patrons –  this week it was Basilthyme and Popped Republic. Patrons will be able to grab food from the trucks, bring it inside the club, pair it with beer, cocktails, etc. and experience the club’s eccentric decor.

As for Capitale, I have to admit that I found the decor very perplexing.  The entire place looks and feels like a theatrical setting with fake columns, bookshelves, official seals, chandeliers, books, statues, etc. I’d put the experience on par with going on Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride and I definitely kept expecting the Phantom of the Opera to creep out from around a corner. Regardless, it’s a very comfortable scene with solid drink offerings which when paired with food trucks makes it a one-of-a-kind  happy hour offering.