IN AN EFFORT to encourage ice-cream eaters to broaden their flavor horizons, Haagen-Dazs is hosting its first free cone day — and it's today.

The event is not as wide-ranging as Ben & Jerry's, however. It runs only from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., and only the two newest flavors are free: Cinnamon Dulce de Leche and Sticky Toffee Pudding.

There are only a handful of Haagen-Dazs locations in the D.C. area: Click here to find the one nearest you.

Posted by Express at 4:38 PM on May 15, 2007
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Tagged in Eating Around , Free Ride , Lifestyles , Out & About , Top Stories

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING UNUSUAL for Mother's Day this year? Book a reservation at the hotel/museum/private club The Mansion on O Street, seen at right, for Sunday brunch ($55, $25 for kids) or tea ($30, $65 high tea). This Victorian labyrinth of townhouses is a mix of haute and kitsch featuring secret passages, Tiffany glass and funky tchotchkes.

If you're lucky enough to snag seats, reservations for the Mother's Day brunch and tea must be made online and prepaid. Mom can't make it? The Mansion features a gospel brunch open to the public the first Sunday of every month and a champagne brunch on all other Sundays ($40).
» The Mansion on O Street, 2020 O St. NW; 202-496-2020. (Dupont Circle)

Continue Reading "Eating Around: Sparkle Plenty for Mom" »

Posted by Melissa McCart at 12:42 PM on May 11, 2007
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HOT DOGS HAVE DOMINATED D.C.'s humble street food selections since Ben's Chili Bowl opened its doors. This spring, with the opening of Adams Morgan's M'Dawg and the start of the baseball season, Washington's lust for hot dogs is on the rise.

Chefs such as Bebo's Roberto Donna are upping the ante by making artisanal dogs from heritage, grass-fed beef and pork, which means fresher hot dogs with more higher quality, flavorful meat. Formerly at Galileo Grill and currently at Bebo on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday lunch menu, Donna's $5 dog comes with sauerkraut, broccoli rabe or provolone.

Frank Ruta's high-end hot dog ($10) at Palena Cafe is so legendary that charcuterie expert Michael Ruhlman, author of "Making of a Chef" and "Charcuterie," cited him in a hot dog article in Gourmet last summer. As he recounted, Ruta came upon his rendition of the neo-dog by accident when he was making mortadella and stuffed leftovers into hog casings. The rest is wiener history.

Chef Nathan Anda of Tallula and EatBar has recently joined the game as well, yet his house-made dog is all-beef ($8). Heads up: His dog is so popular that it often sells out, so order early.

Haute dogs at area restaurants may not inspire the same loyalties as their mass-produced siblings that tout strong regional ties. But talk to local chowhounds and they'll tell you that these variations — stuffed in natural casings with fancy meat and house-made condiments — mean that D.C.'s dog style is tough to beat.

» Bebo Trattoria, 2250-B Crystal Drive, Crystal City; 703-412-5076. (Crystal City)
» Palena, 3529 Connecticut Ave. NW; 202-537-9250. (Cleveland Park)
» EatBar, 2761 Washington Blvd., Arlington; 703-778-9951. (Clarendon)

Photo courtesy EatBar

Posted by Melissa McCart at 12:11 AM on May 10, 2007
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Map It:  Tenleytown 

WHOLE FOODS doesn't usually have trouble getting a license to sell alcohol. Although some hawk-eyed Tenleytown residents were up in arms last month when their local Whole Foods requested a permit to sell beer and wine, it appears the store will get its way.

Some locals protested the store's request because it's across the street from Woodrow Wilson Senior High School.

"Do we really want to take a chance that these teenagers might be able to buy beer and wine (illegally) at a nearby Whole Foods store?" wrote Tenleytown resident Lyla Winter in a posting at D.C. Watch's The Mail last month. "Protect Tenleytown and our neighborhood."

H. Singh Bakshi, the owner of Tenley Wine & Liquor — which sits around the corner from Whole Foods' inside-a-parking-garage location — argued against the liquor license request at a local advisory commission meeting last month, carrying a petition with more than 100 signatures, the Northwest Current reported at the time.

Continue Reading "Tenleytown Whole Foods Avoids Liquor License Fight" »

Posted by Express at 1:48 PM on May 9, 2007
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Tagged in D.C. Government , Eating Around , Free Ride , News , Tenleytown , The District

Map It:  Rosslyn 

IN THE CONCRETE JUNGLE that is Rosslyn, at the corner of Wilson Boulevard and N. Lynn Street, there's a short, squatty white-brick building called Orleans House. If you've walked or driven by, it's likely you've seen tour buses parked out front or cars packed into its tiny parking lot. The place is known for its giant salad bar and for regularly dishing out boatloads of prime rib for dinner ... and it's been doing so for decades.

"The quantity-price ratio is as good as it gets at this Rosslyn mainstay," the washingtonpost.com City Guide says of the place. But its days of au jus and iceberg lettuce are numbered.

Over the weekend, Arlington County officials, in their bid to turn Rosslyn into a so-called "Manhattan on the Potomac," approved a plan to build a high-rise tower on top of Orleans House. Concerns about the impacts on the District's monumental skyline and about low-flying planes heading in and out of Reagan National Airport were dismissed by county officials who see the JBG Cos. development as crucial to making Rosslyn a more attractive, vibrant neighborhood.

The planned twin towers — one 31 stories, the other 30 stories — would be 76 feet taller than Rosslyn's other twin towers, the shiny complex that was once home to USA Today and now home to Allbritton-owned WJLA/ABC7, News Channel 8 and the Politico.

Due to the concerns about National Airport's flight path, the Federal Aviation Administration could still throw a wrench in the construction plans, as The Post's Kirstin Downey reports.

» "Tom Sarris Orleans House Restaurant" [City Guide/WaPo]
» "High-Rises Approved That Would Dwarf D.C." [WaPo]

Image courtesy JBG Cos.

Posted by Michael Grass at 9:42 AM on May 7, 2007
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Tagged in Arlington County , Eating Around , Free Ride , News , Rosslyn , Streetscapes , Top Stories , Virginia

SOFT SHELL CRABS from down South are showing up on seafood menus in the District, but not for peanuts. At $22 a plate at Hank's Oyster Bar, they're more expensive than in the past because it's early in the season and there's a crab shortage in the Chesapeake waters this year. Prices are expected to come down as the season gets under way, but don't expect the succulent crabs to come from local waters.

This week, Jamie Leeds' kitchen at Hank's is lightly dusting the crabs in flour and sauteeing them in a pan with white wine and butter. She'll play with preparations as the season progresses. Last year, for example, she paired soft shells with strawberries for a memorable seasonal combination.

Uptown at Comet Ping Pong, Carole Greenwood has been serving soft shell crabs on pizza ($18). As is the case with a clam pie, the crab brine seeps into the chewy dough and cheese, which — for shellfish fans, anyway — makes a good pizza transcendent.

» Hank's Oyster Bar, 1624 Q St. NW; 202-462-4265, hanksdc.com. (Dupont Cicrle)
» Comet Ping Pong, 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW; 202-364-0404. (Van Ness-UDC)

Posted by Melissa McCart at 1:58 PM on May 4, 2007
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ALFIO BLANGIARDO MAY NOT BE a household name among D.C. foodies yet, but if things go smoothly at Adams Morgan's Casa Oaxaca, which opened last week, Blangiardo's will at least be a name to be reckoned with.

The ambitious young chef trained at the Instituto Culinario de Mexico in Puebla and was schooled in stints in Belgium, Germany and Paris; he knows Oaxacan cuisine from his grandmother. who is from the region.

Defined by its coastline and mountains, this geographically diverse state is culinarily unified by its moles. They need not contain chocolate, the sauce's most famous ingredient, but can be made of anything from chiles to yellow tomatoes to tomatillos.

From his own menu, chef Blangiardo recommends tres moles ($19) for a quintessentially Oaxacan entree — the yellow, green and black (that is, chocolate) mole over chicken. Other menu items that nod to the region are the red snapper ceviche with pineapple ($12) and the cazuela de queso ($12), Oaxacan cheese flambeed with guajillo sauce and grasshoppers.

Continue Reading "Eating Around: Mole With an Authentic Accent" »

Posted by Melissa McCart at 2:18 PM on May 3, 2007
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Tagged in Adams Morgan , Eating Around , Free Ride , The District

FIVE MONTHS after the District's smoking ban took full effect, how are D.C.'s bars and restaurants doing? If you ask the organization that represents them, business has suffered as a result.

The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington recently surveyed D.C.'s bars and restaurants, and more than 35 percent of those responding reported a decline in revenue. One respondent even reported at 50 percent decline since the ban, approved by the D.C. Council in January 2006, was phased in last year.

The city is now allowing restaurants who say the ban has hurt their business too severely to apply for hardship waivers, but they must prove to the Department of Health they've had a drop in gross revenues of at least 15 percent to qualify.

Smoking is still allowed in a few places, like cigar bars. Might it return to a bar or restaurant near you? Stay tuned ...

Posted by Clinton Yates at 10:16 AM on May 2, 2007
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Tagged in D.C. Government , Eating Around , Free Ride , News , The District , Top Stories

OVER THE WEEKEND, mangoes from India were supposed to hit U.S. produce markets for the first time since a 17-year-old trade dispute started. After a resolution ending the fight, U.S. consumers will get the tropical fruit from the subcontinent while Indians will be able to buy Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

In this weekend's Financial Times, Sarah Murray, author of the upcoming book "Moveable Feasts: The Incredible Journeys of the Things We Eat" (St. Martin's Press) explored the growing environmental concerns associated with the globalization of the local supermarket:

... [T]he "question of transportation" has become caught up in worries about the quantities of carbon dioxide being generated by an increasingly mobile food supply. The further our food travels, so the theory goes, the more damage it does to the climate through transport-related carbon dioxide emissions. In short, globetrotting food stands accused of helping destroy the planet.

Murray says the food sourcing equation is far more complicated than it might seem. And the most damaging part of the "carbon weight" chain might be tied to the average consumer who drives to the market:

Such a trip is far less fuel efficient than the one taken by the same food on its way to the supermarket in a truck packed with the assistance of load-optimasation software.

While more and more restaurants and grocers are going the route of using locally sourced produce instead of having veggies and such trucked in from California and other places farther afield, you can't necessarily be liberated from your greenhouse guilt.

But you can, in theory, reduce it by walking or using public transportation to reach a local farmers market or grocery store. That's relatively easy to do for District residents with an assortment of neighborhood markets that are transit friendly. The Post's study of local carbon dioxide emission increases certainly puts that in perspective. So will future trips out to Wegmans make you feel guilty?

» "Mangoes and Motorbikes Boost India-US Trade" [FT]
» "Planes, Brains, Automobiles" [FT]
» "Farmers Markets in Washington, DC" [About.com]
» "By the Numbers: D.C.'s Spike in CO2 Levels" [Free Ride/Express]

Photo by Tracy A. Woodward/The Washington Post

Posted by Michael Grass at 1:28 AM on May 1, 2007
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Tagged in Eating Around , Free Ride , Maryland , The District , Virginia

Map It:  Eastern Market 

Photo of Eastern Market by Greg Barber/Express

IT'S A SAD MORNING. The heart of Capitol Hill has never been the Capitol and its campus. Historic Eastern Market, which has sat on 7th Street SE for the past 134 years, has served has the neighborhood's village center, its emotional heart.

And now, the market's vibrant South Hall has been gutted, destroyed by fire.

The situation could be a lot worse — the northern half of the market escaped major damage — but there's really no way of looking at the fire in a the-glass-is-half-full kind of way. As The Post's Marc Fisher writes this morning: "... [I]t's painful to realize just how important a spot like this really is."

As the initial shock eases today, the sobering reality is setting in. It's going to take a lot of work to not only rebuild the market in the long term, but also to assist its vendors who are now homeless in the short term. One can only hope that Eastern Market doesn't meet the same fate as the O Street Market in Shaw, pictured at right, which sits as a shell, waiting to be rebuilt after sustaining damage in the 2003 President's Day snowstorm.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and community leaders have said Eastern Market will be rebuilt. Fenty told The Post this morning: "How could we not?"

Since there's nothing that can be done to bring the place back to the way it was, here's a trip down memory lane on this depressing Monday morning, courtesy of D.C.'s photoblogging community ...

» 1 » 2 » 3 » 4 » 5 » 6 » 7 » 8 » 9 » 10 » 11 » 12 ...

» "Historic Capitol Hill Marketplace Burns" [WaPo]
» "Eastern Market: What We've Lost" [Raw Fisher/WaPo]
» "Eastern Market Fire" [Erin M/Flickr]
» "Eastern Market: Tremendous Loss" [D.C. Council Member Tommy Wells]
» "Eastern Market Is Gone" [District Matters]

At right, file photo of Shaw's O Street Market's shell by Dennis Brack/The Washington Post

Posted by Michael Grass at 9:48 AM on April 30, 2007
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Tagged in Architecture , Eastern Market , Eating Around , Free Ride , News , Streetscapes , The District , Top Stories