Yearly Archives: 2009

The Daily Feed
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Ants Hit the Big Time

Photo courtesy of
‘P1060302’
courtesy of ‘pondman2’

The National Museum of Natural History is going macro with its new exhibit, The Hidden Life of Ants. Natural History is already one of the bigger draws on the Mall, especially with the recent release of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (which they are playing on their IMAX, btw), but this exhibit adds just one more reason to stop by. There’s a live ant colony, a 6-ft cast of an underground colony, and tons of pictures just in case the real ones aren’t up to anything interesting. It opened last weekend and runs through October 10.

Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Moojoo Ken Closing

Photo courtesy of
‘orangepurse001’
courtesy of ‘zipmartin’
You may have already heard the news, fashionista, but one of my favorite DC clothing boutiques, Moojoo Ken is closing. Moojoo is selling virtually everything in their store, including appliances, at up to 80% off, now until, well “closing”.

Moojoo Ken’s twitter account has something slightly fortelling, “closing up the U Street brick-and-mortar. We will keep you posted on our next set of plans for lady moojoo ken…after she has a sweet nap!” so hopefully this isn’t the last DC will see of Moojoo.

Moojoo Ken is located at 1512 U Street, NW 20009

Food and Drink, The DC 100, The Features
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DC Omnivore 100: #55 Big Mac

Photo courtesy of
‘Big Mac and fries for lunch’ courtesy of ‘slworking2’

Frankly, I’m surprised it took us this long to gobble this entry right up on the Omnivore’s list.

Ok, I’ll admit it right off – I love comfort food. I don’t like the massive amount of exercise I need to conduct to burn off one of these babies (540 kcals in the burger alone), but sometimes? Totally worth it.

With me having extra time at home lately, I decided recently I needed some alone time with one of my favorite lunchtime pleasures. Don’t dis me – it’s not as expensive as a Ray’s Hell Burger and more convenient for me than a Five Guys. It’s a childhood thing, I think.

Continue reading →

Food and Drink, News, The Daily Feed
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Blue Ridge Opens Today

blue ridge logo

Good news for Glover Park residents, as they’ve all got a new eat place in the ‘hood as of today. Blue Ridge, which seats 185 guests inside and in its unique rear garden and deck, is housed in a carefully restored century-old row house in Glover Park, and will showcase a menu that embraces seasonal, sustainable, and locally sourced ingredients from the Mid-Atlantic. Blue Ridge will offer guests lunch and dinner daily, with weekend brunch both Saturday and Sunday. (Three cheers for SATURDAY brunch, love it.)

“Barton’s approach to the Blue Ridge menu – straightforward, unfussy, and ingredient-driven – fits perfectly with the mission of creating a restaurant that could have existed 100 years ago,” says Owner and Managing Partner Eli Hengst. “There are no ‘essences’ or superfluous explorations on the Blue Ridge menu, just honest food and cocktails rooted in American tradition with a simple, rustic design as the canvas for good food and conversation.”

Uniquely down home in both food and decor, Blue Ridge is a welcome addition to the DC dining scene. The dining room incorporates reclaimed church pews, as well as custom dining and farm tables made by Ken Hoffman, a local vendor at the historic Eastern Market in Washington, DC. I’ll have a first look for you soon, I’m sure, but until then, let me know what you think in the comments.

The Daily Feed
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Come for the beer. Stay for the drawing of a dick on the menu.


Come for the beer. Stay for the drawing of a dick on the menu.
Originally uploaded by carlweaver

Thanks, RFD, for the hilarity that ensued when I grabbed a menu to order a mug of suds last night while on a date with my lovely wife. I think RFD only puts out new menus when they are dog-eared and falling apart. Some may think that’s a drawback but I think the menus, which double as doodle pads, give the place a little character.

Good beer, good food and a dick on the menu. Who could ask for anything more?

The Daily Feed, WMATA
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Monday Morning Metrofail: Orange and Blue Lines

No Passengers

Orange and Blue Line riders had a hellish commute this morning thanks to a train down due to mechanical difficulties at Foggy Bottom station, causing single-tracking and trains held at stations up and down both lines in both directions. I waited on a Vienna-bound Orange Line train at Metro Center for about twenty minutes before wising up and getting on a taxi. You know it’s bad when the train operator doesn’t even use the word “momentarily.”

Unsuck DC Metro has collected TWITTER RAAAGE from the delays.

Update: From Get There blog, Orange Line problems explained. A combination of brake problems and communications dead zones led to a fifty-one minute delay on the failed Orange Line train before a Blue Line train could come within range to pick up communications. Both trains had to be offloaded before one could push the other to a rail yard.

The Features, Weekend Flashback
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Weekend Flashback: 5/29 – 5/31/2009

Photo courtesy of
” courtesy of ‘erin m’

This weekend’s take in the WLDC Flickr pool was dominated by photos of Artomatic, many by our frequent contributors.

If you’d like to see your photos in Flashback, there’s really only one guideline we use: it has to be a shot taken between the Friday and Sunday prior. When we have extended weekends or a holiday, we’ll stretch the ‘eligibility’ period through that holiday. So there you go – now you know!

If you’re a visitor or a local to our fair area, please feel free to drop your photos – no matter when you take them – into our Flickr pool. We’d love to have them! And if you have a moment, visit the photographer’s Flickr page (by clicking on the photo) and let them know you liked their shot!

Continue reading →

Entertainment, Food and Drink, Life in the Capital, Night Life, Penn Quarter, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Savor In Review

Photo courtesy of
‘savor’
courtesy of ‘needlessspaces’

The buzz inside the National Building Museum Saturday night was near deafening. Glasses clanked, people’s discussions echoed through the great hall, and music floated through the air. From jeans and tee shirts to high heels and cocktail dresses, the crowd at the American Craft Beer & Food Experience known as Savor was in full swing when I arrived around 8 p.m.

With 136 craft beers from 68 breweries, plus food pairings, I have to admit, it was a bit overwhelming. But in the best possible sense of the word. Continue reading →

The Features
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On The Water: American History’s Latest

Model Tradeship 2
Model Tradeship 2 courtesy of Me

Right next to the exhibit on the first floor dedicated to America’s transportation systems is the National Museum of American History‘s latest exhibit: On the Water. As much as transportation over land has changed the United States, the maritime elements of our economy has done the same. Divided into seven slices of time, some of which overlap, the exhibit focuses on the coastal and riverfront parts of the United States from 1450 through to the present. Read on for a preview.

Continue reading →

The Features, We Love Arts
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Artomatic 2009 Opens!

Photo courtesy of
‘Twirling Fire at Artomatic’
courtesy of ‘starbuck77’

The building at 55 M St SE, right above the Nationals Park entrance of Navy Yard Metro still hasn’t become much. With area development on hold due to the economy, the completed, but unoccupied, monolith along the Capitol Riverfront is a perfect host for this year’s Artomatic. This the tenth anniversary of the roving art show that takes place in the District’s most ad-hoc gallery. This year, it covers 8 floors of the building, with several performance artist spaces, as well as the traditional art-mounted-on-plywood.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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The Art of Stampeding

artomatic by Tracy Lee

In case you’ve been in a coma, haven’t checked your e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, or RSS feeds for the past few months, let me be the first to tell you that there’s this little thing called Artomatic opening tonight.  This year they’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of one of DC’s biggest art events, a place where professional artists and wannabe professional artists or otherwise creative people hang their work on painted plywood, set it on the floor, or perform it for you on stage.

Continue reading →

Eat Like Me, Food and Drink, The Features
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Eat Like Me: May’s Best Dishes

Photo courtesy of
‘Cotton Candy Mojito’
courtesy of ‘needlessspaces’

Months and months ago, I stumbled upon this post on local foodie blog The Arugula Files. In the post, Mary  reviews New York’s Blue Hill at Stone Creek restaurant, describing the highlights of her meal. She writes, “Because of the drive (five hours from DC), I probably won’t go back to Blue Hill, but I’ll food dream® about that egg forever.” And then it clicked, food dream was the perfect name for the feeling I get about certain food dishes that I eat and then look back on wistfully.

To qualify as a dish that makes me food dream, I actually have to, at some point, look back on that dish and sigh, wishing I had it. It’s a combination of longing + craving, I think. I realize not a whole lot of people feel this strongly about food, but those who do, know this exact feeling. And with my busy eating schedule (hey, at least three times a day!) I run into a reasonable amount of dishes each month that make me food dream. So I thought it would be fun to share all the dishes I’ve had this month that I’m currently food dreaming about, from start to finish, opening cocktail to dessert.  So, for what it’s worth, here is the month of May in Katie’s food dreams. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, News, The Daily Feed
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Burger Beat: Obama at Five Guys

Photo courtesy of
‘When life gives you lemons…’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

First it was Ray’s Hell Burger, now it’s the Five Guys over by Nats Park, according to Mark Knoller of CBS:

“Obama’s lunch order: one cheeseburger and one fries for me. lemme get the jalapenos and tomatoes and mustard. “thats it for me.””

He bought lunch for some of his entourage, and Brian Williams of NBC paid his own way. So, Michelle Obama’s been to Good Stuff, The President has been to Ray’s Hell Burger and now to Five Guys. Can we suggest Palena in Cleveland Park, Mr. President, for date night?

(Seriously though, no one gave a shit what President Bush ate, and we’re all suddenly fawning all over ourselves because the President likes a good hamburger. Has news gone too far? Are we really just that obsessed with the guy? It’s kinda like stalking in some weird, peculiar and yet somehow completely awesome way. I just like that the President’s leaving the White House once in a while to engage with the city around him. That’s pretty awesome in and of itself.)

All Politics is Local, News, The Daily Feed
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Referendum Hearing Set

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

As a follow-up to Tom’s Daily Feed and my Feature:  WaPo reports that the DC Board of Elections has set a June 10 date for a hearing on the proposed marriage referendum that was filed earlier this week.  The Board is said to be expediting the application process in order to give pro-referendum groups enough time to collect signatures, if the item is approved.  They will  have only until early July to get the requisite 21,000 signatures for their item to be put on the ballot.

We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Design for Living

Design for Living

Robert Sella as Leo, Gretchen Egolf as Gilda and Tom Story as Otto in Noel Coward’s Design for Living, directed by Michael Kahn. Photo by Scott Suchman.

I postponed this review (sometimes being “new media” is convenient) because I wanted to make a 100% confident statement about the Shakespeare Theatre’s production of Design for Living: you should go.

The only problem I experienced with the production was a few noticeable hiccups with forgotten or flubbed lines. They were minor but sufficiently distracting to reduce some of my enjoyment of the production. With another week and a few days under their belt I have no doubt they’ve put that problem behind them.

Beyond that, this play was a delight.There’s a lot to recommend it, but maybe the best reason to go is so that when Tom Story wins the Helen Hayes award for lead performance next year you’ll have seen why for yourself. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, Foodie Roundup, The Daily Feed
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Foodie Round-Up (May 25-29)

Photo courtesy of
‘Heirlooms’
courtesy of ‘lorigoldberg’

I don’t know about you, but Fridays are fast becoming my “I need caffeine STAT” days. So, all the news fit to eat in the District, your-author-is-hopped-up-on-chai-tea edition. We’ve got Chef Ripert, new salad choices at Chop’t, the 9:30 cupcake, and paella! Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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The Real World: DC, It’s Real

Photo courtesy of
‘Hawk ‘n’ Dove’
courtesy of ‘InspirationDC’

Oh it’s coming! That’s right, it is now said to be likely that DC will be home to the latest and possibly greatest season of The Real World. (I mean, come on, Brooklyn was a bit of a bust. ) The production company of the show, Bunim-Murray, is seeking a number of production assistants in DC who must “be willing to get releases signed by people appearing on camera and locations.” This long-clamored for arrival of the original reality TV show, now in its 23rd season, comes shortly after Bravos announcement that its next installment of the “Real”  Housewives will take place in DC as well. Where will The Real World: DC inhabitants reside? Thoughts?

News, People, The Daily Feed
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Blago’s Condo

Photo courtesy of
‘Gov. “Hot Rod” Blagojevich @ Illinois State University’
courtesy of ‘soundfromwayout’

After failing to sell Obama’s vacant senate seat, Rod Blago is trying his hand at real estate in the DC area.  He and his wife have listed their DuPoint Circle condo for $570,000.  So, if anyone is looking for a “spacious 2 bedroom, 2 bath” with “hardwood floors throughout, balcony [and] fireplace” and doesn’t mind the stench of scumbag, there’s an apartment out there for you!