Category Archives: Food and Drink

Entertainment, Food and Drink, People, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Drinks Smackdown! Norton vs. Colbert

Word on the Truthiness Beat is that Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton has challenged Stephen Colbert to down a shot of the lethal Norton’s Revenge, to be served to those truly courageous enough to knock back its brutal liquid force at The Passenger’s official happy hour event for the March to Keep Fear Alive.

From 3pm-7pm this Saturday, not only can you enjoy some seriously fun cocktails like the Tea Bagger (Kilbaggan whiskey, dry vermouth, and olive juice) or the Fear Monger (Kraken rum, lime and ginger beer) with 10% of sales going charity, you also just might witness the epic endgame between Norton and Colbert, whose battle royale has been waged not only in the name of comedy but also to help educate the country on the lack of voting representation for District residents.

So can you down a Norton’s Revenge, Colbert? Let’s see you sneer at DC now, huh? Take your medicine!

Adams Morgan, Food and Drink, Interviews, People, The Features, We Love Drinks
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We Love Drinks: David Fritzler

David Fritzler pours up a Blue Blazer cocktail at Tryst. Photo credit: Samer Farha.

We Love Drinks continues our series where we look behind the bar, profiling the many people – from mixologists to bartenders, sommeliers to publicans – who make your drinks experience happen.

I first met David Fritzler back in January when fellow WLDC author Samer and I watched him pour up an impressive flaming Blue Blazer at Tryst. You might think such pyrotechnics indicate a showy brash personality, but that’s far from the case. As I saw this summer when he served up his Rickey Contest entry, he’s a thoughtful crafter of cocktails. It was that Smokin’ Joe Rickey, somehow reminiscent of Lapsang Souchang tea, that made me want to learn more.

“The drink is never more important than the people enjoying it,” David says, “It’s not all about the cappuccino or the cocktail. It’s about the moment and memories that the drink facilitates.”

David was kind to sit down with me at Tryst this past weekend and let me sample a few of their new warming cocktails while discussing his drinks philosophy. Tryst has been an Adams Morgan neighborhood favorite since it opened in 1998, and it’s still going strong, recently winning Best Local Coffeehouse of 2010 in Express Night Out. For many of my friends it’s their “third place” – office, studyhall, living room – and it inspires a great deal of local love. David’s been there almost since the beginning, ten years of dedication.

As beverage director, it’s not all flash – at the end of our chat he was off to Open City to take apart the espresso machine. Continue reading →

Adventures, Entertainment, Essential DC, Food and Drink, Fun & Games, Life in the Capital, Music, Night Life, People, Special Events, The Daily Feed, The District
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Local Band Scythian Takes Over The 9:30 Club

Photo courtesy of
‘Group Shot’
courtesy of ‘DDFic’

Washington DC’s very own Celtic punk-rock band Scythian, pronounced (sith-ee-yin), which usually haunts Fado’s in Chinatown, will take their high-energy, adrenaline-peddling, interactive brand of music to the 9:30 Club on December 4th. The $15 general admission show will also feature Canadian world Celtic rock band, Enter The Haggis (I love the name and I love me some haggis).

The Washington Post says, “Scythian’s enthusiasm is contagious, and shows seem to end with everyone dancing, jumping around, or hoisting glasses.” And with the 9:30 Club’s draft list which includes Bass, Guiness, Newcastle and Smithwick’s, this sounds like a ripe ‘ol good time to me. Cheers!

Food and Drink, The Features
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First Look: Rustico Ballston

Photo courtesy of
‘Rustico: Coming Soon’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

The paper is still up at Rustico in Ballston when I arrive just a few minutes early for the evening’s events.  The block of Wilson Boulevard is mostly in transition and Rustico sits in the center of the restaurant cocoons, looking like it will be first to arrive.  Across the plaza is the next NRG project, the second location of Buzz Bakery, and next door to Rustico is an early-in-build-out Sweetgreen slated for the end of the year.  Our guide for the evening opens up the side door, and a few workers follow her out, showing that this is still a restaurant in the final phases of being constructed.

The entryway floor is covered in paper to protect the surface from the boots and construction dust, and some of the interior work is in progress, including a beautiful beer bottle and mirror mosaic.  A fireplace sits dormant on a night that would otherwise call for it.  Shepherded past the construction and into the bar, beer sommelier par none Greg Engert is waiting for us, and hands me a small glass of a California Imperial IPA that has notes of just about every possible hop and floral.  While Greg will continue his focus on Church Key, it’s impossible to separate the man from his first home, at Alexandria’s Rustico, and he’s been integrally involved in training the Arlington staff.  Neighborhood Restaurant Group believes strongly that passionate people make the best employees, and have continued that trend forward in the new Rustico.  Andy Carlson will be helming the bar for Rustico Ballston, which will feature 400 bottled beers, 40 taps and 3 cask-conditioned ales, making it a formidable presence in DC’s already expansive beer scene.  Last night’s dinner was certainly a festival of great beer paired with great food that left me thinking that we’re in for a real treat.

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Food and Drink, The Features
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We Love Vegan: Part 3, Question and Answer Session

Photo courtesy of
‘mini peppers’
courtesy of ‘ekelly80’

So talk more about your decision to be vegan – aside from curiosity, why did you do this?
Katie: I recently read The Kind Diet and have been interested in veganism ever since. After The Kind Diet, I read Clean Food, a vegan cookbook that doesn’t make a big deal about being vegan, but focuses more on eating locally and seasonally. After those two, I was convinced I needed to try it, and thought eating this way was something easier done being held accountable by a) Ashley and b) you, our readers. I’d totally do it again, and if I wasn’t a food writer whose career depends on eating meat and dairy, I’d probably take Silverstone’s challenge of going for a month or two and seeing how it felt.
Ashley: I have always been interested in juice fasts, more specifically in the people who are willing to put themselves through that, but I knew that would never happen for me. I thought of trying veganism for a little bit as a way to see if the high of clean eating really exists, as a lot of juice fasters have explained it to me, without quitting solid food altogether.

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Entertainment, Food and Drink, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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“Tiki. Tacos. Terror.”

Photo courtesy of
‘Zombies!’
courtesy of ‘spiggycat’

Trust my favorite bar The Passenger to come up with a terrifyingly terrific way to spend the night before All Hallow’s Eve. Saturday, October 30 from 7pm to close, the bar will toy with the occult by serving up the infamous El Zombie cocktail, a concoction so potent it’s rumoured to turn the living into the undead!

Regular Zombie cocktails are deadly enough – with their origins in the 1930’s Tiki craze, the deceptive fruit content of these rum-based drinks mask the alcohol, resulting in the inbiber’s doooooooooom. From a haunted laboratory within the bar, test your fortitude against the El Zombie’s “evil combination of Mezcal, overproof rum, and infierno” resurrected from a secret recipe. Shudder. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Dangerously Delicious Pie Truck May Roll Tomorrow

Dangerously Delicious Pie Truck

Dangerously Delicious Pie Truck, via facebook.com/dangerouspiesdc

Creating a flurry of pie-frenzy since they announced their new truck last night, the fantastic Dangerously Delicious Pies may be mobile as soon as tomorrow, according to a staff person at the H Street storefront, though the route and which of the sweet and savory pies might be aboard are all yet to be made public. The truck has a separate Twitter to follow – @dcpietruck – where details are likely to be posted. Details are also said to be updated on the Facebook as they emerge.

Update: Tomorrow’s launch is now confirmed.

Food and Drink, The Features
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We Love Vegan: Part 2

Photo courtesy of
‘Go Vegan Be Green Save the Planet’
courtesy of ‘bunnicula’

Yesterday, we began a three-part series in which our food writing team, Ashley and Katie, went vegan for a week. This is the second installment of the series. Catch up on Part 1 here.

DAY THREE

Katie: By now you know I eat fruit and a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. Nothing to see here, move along.

Ashley: I was a sad vegan this morning. I woke up and didn’t have it in me to leave the house, and much to my dismay had no food (vegan or otherwise) in the kitchen. I briefly considered wandering to Starbucks in hopes they would have something, but laziness prevailed and I had two cups of coffee instead.

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Food and Drink, The Features, We Green DC, We Love Food
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We Love Vegan: Part 1

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

Over an especially gluttonous meal one night, filled with lamb chops and veal, we had a thought: What would life be like without all this meaty goodness? But not only without meat, what about life without this cheesy, eggy goodness? That crazy night (after maybe a few too many glasses of wine) the idea of Vegan Week was born. We, your loyal food writers here at We Love DC, decided to tried are very best to eat completely, 100% vegan for one week.

Well…one work week. Ashley ate most of her meals out of the house, for no other reason than everything she knew how to cook had bacon in it, while Katie had to make her decidedly unveg work location work for her. What follows is the sometimes humorous, sometimes surprising, sometimes depressing account of Vegan Week 2010. (For more on our decision to go vegan, check back here Thursday at 11 a.m. for the wrap-up post in this series, We Love Vegan: The Question and Answer Session.)

Dun-duh-duuuuuuuh.

A disclaimer: Through plenty of Plant Alternative research and polling our friends who know a little bit about living a meat-free lifestyle, we came to our conclusions about how to attack Vegan Week. We tried, to the best of our abilities to eat vegan, and to our knowledge we did. If we screwed something up along the way, it was on account of our own stupidity more than anything else. We are not vegans, not even vegetarians, but we tried our best. Also, just a reminder, we here at We Love DC respect all lifestyles, from the meatful to the plantful, and expect that you do too. Take your haterade elsewhere, thanks. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, Penn Quarter
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First Look: Cuba Libre

Photo courtesy of
‘cuba libre’
courtesy of ‘amarino17’

Although I’ve never been to Cuba, I am fairly certain that Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar doesn’t scream authenticity. The restaurant’s interior, styled as an open air piazza, feels like the Epcot version of Havana. The plaster is artfully peeling in all the right places. At any moment, a mechanized figure from “It’s A Small World After All” could pop up from behind the false windows and burst into song. But like all things Disney, Cuba Libre is a happy, cheerful place. Maybe it’s the Latin music wafting from the background. Maybe it’s the rum. Either way, the restaurant has a lively, summery atmosphere that should be welcome as winter sets in.

With locations in Atlantic City, Orlando and Philadelphia, Cuba Libre’s recent opening marks the chain’s first foray into Washington. The restaurant has made its name on “nuevo Cubano” cuisine, and dishes borrow heavily from Asia, South America and the Caribbean. More than half the menu is devoted to small plates (ranging from $5 to $13), though classic and contemporary entrées ($16 to $32) are available for those who are morally opposed to tapas.

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Food and Drink, News, The Daily Feed
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Exclusive: Post launches new Restaurant Deal email list

Capitol Dish email logo
The Capitol Dish logo, used with permission.

The trend of 2010 has to be the perennial “deal” sites that have popped up in town.  You’ve got Living Social, Groupon, Cornerdish, So What’s the Deal, and others.

Enter the Washington Post, who thinks that you’ve got room for one more in your life. They’re starting tomorrow with The Capitol Dish, a weekly newsletter email that goes out each Friday. You’ll get three special deals for restaurants, each at least half off. The inaugural deals are Kaz Sushi Bistro ($15 gets you $30 in credit), PS 7’s ($15 gets you $30 in credit) and Napoleon Bistro & Lounge ($25 gets you $50 in credit). Each week there will be three new deals, and you get until Monday to decide if you’d like one (or more), and then each deal lasts for 6 months after you buy.

The email newsletter is a new direction for the Post, which, like many newspapers, is working with more and more digital content and doing more digital outreach. Continue reading →

Adventures, Business and Money, Essential DC, Food and Drink, Fun & Games, Life in the Capital, People, The Daily Feed, The District
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Who’s Standing Next To Me In Line?

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Vox Populi has conducted an unofficial survey of those sad, sad people waiting in line at Georgetown Cupcake through hail, sleet, humidity, blazing heat, etc. The poll gives us an inside peak into the GC shopper political affiliations, average wait times, where GC shoppers are from, are they repeat visitors and how did they hear from GC. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of GC visitors were first timers and they had not heard of Baked & Wired :(

Arlington, Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Ganges Grill and Ice Cream A New Alternative To Crowded Clarendon Sub Scene

There’s no shortage of Sub shops in Clarendon/Courthouse. Between Earl’s and the chain options of Subway & Cosi, there’s more than enough options if you want lunch meats in between two slices of bread.

However, I became interested with the arrival of a new sub shop on Washington Blvd. The former Quizno’s location was now draped with banners reading, “Ganges Grill and Ice Cream.” I decided to walk across the street from the Subway (where I am currently mayor on foursquare) to find out more.

Continue reading →

Adventures, Arlington, Business and Money, Food and Drink, Life in the Capital, The Daily Feed
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Curious Case of the Chesapeake Cookie

chesapeake cookie

I’m all about dark chocolate. I’m all about pecans. I’m all about putting them together with cookie dough.  Therefore, I’m all about Pepperidge Farm’s Chesapeake Dark Chocolate Pecan cookies. However, I’m confused about why this cookie carries the “Chesapeake” name.

According to the National Pecan Shellers Association, most pecans are grown and shelled in the southeastern and southwestern United States, with Alabama leading the way as the state with the largest amount of pecan production; the closest the DC area gets on this list is the #12 spot occupied by North Carolina.

OK, so maybe the Chesapeake region isn’t the epicenter for pecans. What about dark chocolate? Maybe, unbeknownst to me,  the Chesapeake area is known for its dark chocolate. The answer is no. Approximately 70% of the world’s cacao, the nut that is used to make chocolate, comes from West Africa with Oceania, Asia, and Central and South America rounding out the pack. And when it comes to turning the cacao beans into chocolate, the Chesapeake region comes up pretty much empty handed, unless you’re talking about the chocolate coloring of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever.

So, I’m still pretty stumped as to why Pepperidge Farm gave this cookie its name. Perhaps there’s some secret dark chocolate, pecan Freemasons society sending secret messages through these seemingly innocuous and delicious cookies? Or perhaps maybe I’m just missing the connection? Anyone got the answer?

Food and Drink, News, The Daily Feed
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Track the Curbside Cookoff Voting!

Curbside Cookoff!

Today starts the Curbside Cookoff, a fiesta of food trucks down at the site of the old Convention Center at 11th & H Street NW, which means two things:

1) Our Food Truck Tracker is taking today & tomorrow off, because all of the trucks are in one place at the Cookoff

2) Voting!

There’s going to be SMS voting for your favorite food truck starting today after the cookoff gets going.  Check out the Live Vote Tallies thanks to DCRA, who’s cohosting the event.  Look for live dispatches from Katie and Ashley on our new Live Events Twitter Account, @welovedclive.

Adams Morgan, Arlington, Dupont Circle, Food and Drink, Penn Quarter
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Hibernation Schedule for D.C. Area Farmers Markets

Photo courtesy of
‘Late Season Harvest.’
courtesy of ‘leedav’

Now is that time of year when you wake up a little late Saturday morning and have that mental debate with yourself over whether to get up or roll over and sleep until it’s sunny again. Last year around this time I was having that very same fight, when I bribed myself to get out of bed by heading to the local farmers market…just to find out it had closed the weekend before. It’s tough to keep all the closing dates straight, so read on and find your local market and its closing date, or check out the ones that stay open even when it’s frigid outside. Everyone loves shivering in front of their veggie purveyor.

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Food and Drink, We Love Food
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We Love Food: Black Market Bistro

Photo courtesy of
‘Black Market Bistro’
courtesy of ‘ImaginaryGirl’
OK, I know what you’re thinking and I can already see the look on your face. But trust me, Rockville isn’t that far away. And I know you’re saying, “hey, isn’t this called We Love DC?” Yes, it’s true, but it’s also called We Love Food, and if you do, you’ll love Black Market Bistro.

Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Be Classy. Have Some Bourbon.

Photo courtesy of
‘How Much is that Bottle in the Window?’
courtesy of ‘Karon’

The finer things in life have always excited me. Among the lengthy list of luxury items I tend to fancy, bourbon is in the top five. Smoky with a slight burn, it’s delectable as much as it’s tasty.

If you find yourself thinking, “Why, I too fancy myself a fine glass of bourbon,” then I’ve found you a place to do that. The Bourbon tasting class at Acadiana is back by popular demand.

Explore southern tradition on Saturday, October 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. in a class while learning about bourbon and its history with Scott Clime, Wine & Beverage Director of DC Coast, TenPenh, Ceiba, Acadiana, and PassionFish.

Participants will try ten rare and premium bourbons which also includes a small-batch and single-barrel bourbons. Lunch is also provided.

The event is $75 per person. For reservations, contact Jillian Zins directly or call 202-408-0201.

Acadiana is located at 901 New York Avenue, N.W. near the Washington Convention Center.

Entertainment, Food and Drink, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Flower Cocktail Hour

Photo courtesy of Sam Vasfi Photography.

Sometimes you need to completely give in to your inner girl.

Kat Bangs understands. Not only is she the very talented sommelier at Komi, she’s got an eye for fun fashion that I seriously envy. Join her monthly Flower Cocktail Hour with the next gathering on Wednesday, October 6. From 6:30pm to 8:30pm you can relax at The Gibson’s upstairs marble bar enjoying delectable floral cocktails crafted by Jon Harris, while also learning how to construct wearable flower art. Email flower.cocktail.hour@gmail.com for reservations ($48).

I was lucky to attend last month’s flower hour and it was simply beautiful – the bar brimming with various flowers and greenery to choose from in stunning colors – featuring informal tutorials on how to make your own floral headbands and boutonnieres (the truly intrepid sported epaulettes!), or even just a simple handheld posy.

After Jon whips up three cocktails with a floral element, guests are invited to try their hand at crafting their own from a lovely line-up of champagne cocktail ingredients. This month will highlight some St-Germain cocktails, which is quite appropriate as Kat points out, “It’s an Elderflower Liqueur made in Burgundy from a blossom that blooms only once a year.  It has a great honeysuckle and lychee taste.”

Mmmm… the perfect antidote to midweek dreariness. Get girly.

Food and Drink, News, People, The Daily Feed
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Help John Murphy Win Money for the Homeless

Photo courtesy of
‘John Murphy Full Shot’
courtesy of ‘rabid_c’

Hello, DC.  I’m in Africa right now, so I don’t know much of what’s happening in DC.  Still, some news does trickle in to me and I received a particularly disturbing notification, today.  John Murphy, all around cool guy and evening chef at Miriam’s Kitchen (one of WLDC’s favorite charities) needs your help.  John is currently competing in the Sears Chef challenge.  He’s the only non-profit chef in the running and, until last night, he was winning.  But for some reason (nefarious, no doubt) votes poured in for other contestants and now John is 500 back from the leader. What I need you to do go and vote for John.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t know him. I doesn’t matter if you’ve never tried his food.  If he wins this round, Miriam’s Kitchen gets $5,000.  That means 5,000 meals for DC’s homeless.  Plus, if he goes on to win the competition, overall, Miriam’s gets an additional $20,000.  So please, take the time to make a few clicks and feed some homeless people.