Monthly Archives: August 2011

Featured Photo
By

Featured Photo

Flamingos at the zoo
Flamingos at the zoo by martha_jean

A regular party of flamingos can’t seem to decide which way to go at the National Zoo. The placement of the birds keeps your eyes moving around the photo, while three birds facing both let and right, respectively, provide an interesting balance in the shot. The composition is further strengthened by the triangular shape the birds keep in relation to one another, as well as the focus being on the single bird looking towards the photographer. Heat and humidity can’t keep these birds from being awesome.

Food and Drink, The Features
By

We Love Food: August 2011 Restaurant Week

Photo courtesy of
‘Watershed- Washington, DC’
courtesy of ‘Plantains & Kimchi’

It’s that time of year again: restaurant week. For those in need of a quick refresher, restaurant week this summer runs from August 15 to 21, and at restaurants across the city, you get three-course lunches for $20.11 per person and three-course dinners for $35.11 per person. So dial-up that OpenTable app, expand your stomach and click through for some tips on what to do and where to eat for summer 2011’s restaurant week.
Continue reading →

Food and Drink
By

First Look: Station 4

pool1 001
This swanky restaurant right across from the Waterfront metro station in Southwest comes to us from the team behind Bullfeathers and Tunnicliffs on Capitol Hill. It’s a much welcome addition to a neighborhood that is still short on great places to eat.

Station 4 doesn’t stick out as you walk by it, with its name written on the door in small cursive. The inside is beautiful and chic with a modern design. Sitting at the long bar you’ll have at least two friendly bartenders and a row of drinks to look at, plus a picture of a woman’s lips (you’ll find those throughout the establishment).
Continue reading →

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
By

Strasburg looks good in rehab debut

Intensity

It was a festival atmosphere in Hagerstown on Sunday afternoon as Stephen Strasburg took the mound at Municipal Stadium, with the sold-out crowd of more than 6,000 on their feet. The phenom was slated for around 2 innings on the steamy afternoon game, and threw 1 2/3 innings and 31 pitches, giving up 3 hits and a run.

The lone run came on a fastball that Jacob Realmuto, a 20-year old from Midwest City, Oklahoma, launched well over the right-center field wall at Municipal Stadium.  It was Strasburg’s only mistake of the day, in the shortened start. He recorded four strikeouts and no walks against Greensboro.

After the game, Strasburg took questions from a limited number of reporters, but fortunately it was caught by MASN Sports, who’ve embedded it on Ben Goessling’s blog. Strasburg’s velocity was reported to be around his average for last season around 97mph, and he seemed to be comfortable mixing his two-seam and four-seam fastballs and his change up, and we saw at least one K due to his curve ball, which made an appearance or two.  It looked like he was getting some late motion on his change up, as well, which fanned two more.

It’s not yet clear where Strasburg’s next start will be, but Friday is likely to be the day. Possible places include High A Potomac who are home against Myrtle Beach, or AA Harrisburg home against Trenton.

It’s likely Strasburg will return to the Nationals by the first week of September, completing his year-long recovery from Tommy John surgery.

More photos in our Flickr Set: Two Innings in Hagerstown

The Daily Feed
By

Friday Happy Hour: Pickle Back

I was at the 9:30 Club on Wednesday night for Gilt’s private Yeasayer show, which was totally great but ended really early – right around 10:15 or so. As it wrapped up, my friend and I walked the half-block over to American Ice Co. and settled in at the bar for some post-show drinking and carrying-on.

While the staff there are well-prepared to make elaborate, creative cocktails (and, indeed, bartender/manager Patrick started my friend and I off with a riff on a blood and sand that was pretty delicious), when they get slammed after a concert, it just makes sense to stick to simpler things. Things like beer, whiskey, and pickle juice.
Continue reading →

Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
By

Capital Chefs: Haidar Karoum of Estadio & Proof (Part 2)

Photo courtesy of
‘Haidar Karoum’s Spice-Grilled Chicken’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

Everybody needs a good chicken recipe now and then. And chef Haidar Karoum has just the recipe for his spice-grilled chicken with salsa loca. It involves a straight-forward but powerfully tasty marinade and the salsa adds another level to the dish. You might have even had it at Estadio before. So roll up your sleeves and fire up the grill; the full recipe is after the jump.
Continue reading →

Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
By

Capital Chefs: Haidar Karoum of Estadio & Proof (Part 1)

Photo courtesy of
‘Haidar Karoum of Proof and Estadio’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

Haidar Karoum, executive chef of Estadio and Proof, is a breed of chef who always knew he belonged in the kitchen. Looking back on his childhood, he can remember being in awe of the produce and meat aisles of grocery stores and one time getting purposely lost in Harrod’s food hall when he was 9 years old. He remembers being “obsessed” with cooking shows such as Great Chefs of the West and rushing home to catch them on TV when he was 12. “I’m constantly immersed in food. My condo is littered with cookbooks. You can’t go into any room without there being a stack of them,” Haidar laughs.

After high school, the northern Virginia native attended the Culinary Institute of America and thus began his long and impressive cooking career. He externed with Michele Richard at Citronelle and much later he became chef de cuisine at Restaurant Nora in Dupont Circle. Straight out of culinary school, he worked at the now-closed Gerard’s Place. “He was like a God,” says Haidar, talking about french chef Gerard Panguard and his first job out of culinary school. “His philosophy of simplicity and his influence were important to me. It was an honor to work in his kitchen.”
Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
By

Help DCPS with their Salad Bar program

Eatmoresalad

The DC Public Schools are bringing back their Salad Bar program to the high schools of the District, and they’re looking for some volunteers to help them at area high schools the first week of classes from August 29th through September 2nd. They need volunteers to help man the salad bars and help kids to understand the decisions that are getting made at lunchtime and how fresher, healthier food can make a difference.

Help ’em out? It makes a huge difference in the fight for nutrition in this city.

Comedy in DC
By

Comedy in DC: Adam Ruben

Adam Ruben Scientist

I met up with Adam Ruben who is a local comic and author of the book My Stupid Decision to go to Grad School on an extremely sizzling Sunday over at Teaism in Dupont Circle. We each coincidentally ordered hot tea to drink as we chatted. At first I thought that ordering hot tea on hot day would equal a hot mess; however, my brain recalled from television that drinking hot things helps to cool the body down ironically. I don’t know if that is true. I’m not a scientist, but Adam is! His day job involves finding a cure for maleria. You want to know more about this guy? Well alright. Continue reading →

Capital Chefs, The Features
By

Capital Chefs’ Favorite Kitchen Gadgets (2nd Edition)

Photo courtesy of
‘kitchen @ America Eats, Washington DC’
courtesy of ‘Plantains & Kimchi’

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about what kitchen appliances and tools the Capital Chefs are chatting about these days. Click through to find out what kitchen gadgets DC chefs just can’t do without. But before you do, I must credit many websites like www.unclutterer.com, because this list is based off of them.

Continue reading →

The Features, We Love Weekends
By

We Love Weekends, August 5-8

Photo courtesy of
‘peaches’
courtesy of ‘ekelly80’

Rebecca J.: Friday it’s off to the Surfside roofdeck for margs, chips n’ queso and tacos. Afterwards, I’ll be sipping some bourbon at Kitchen 2404 in Glover Park. Saturday I’m headed to Annapolis for an afternoon boat ride on the bay and dinner at the waterfront, after which I’ll be hitting up the Annapolis bar scene with my lady friends. Hopefully, I’ll leave Annapolis early enough to miss the traffic back to DC and in time to grab a Rita’s Italian Ice on my way back.

Tom: Tonight we’ll kick off the weekend with a neighborhood Happy Hour at San Antonio in Brookland, getting some time to hang out with my neighbors and get to know faces to go with email addresses on the neighborhood listserve. Friday night there’s always Baseball on the Barn. Saturday I intend to enjoy the delicious weekendness of it all, with a trip to the Bloomingdale Farmers’ Market, before DJ lil’e hits the stage at 9:30 club. Sunday is (possibly) Strasburg’s first start at Hagerstown, so we’re trekking on up to see the Suns. Looks like a good weekend!


Continue reading →

Food and Drink, Foodie Roundup, The Features, We Love Food
By

We Love Food: DC Eats for August

Photo courtesy of
‘Cafe Atlantico’
courtesy of ‘needlessspaces’
Put on your elastic waistband pants, people. There’s plenty to eat and do in the city for the next few weeks. So click on through and you’ll find where you should be wining and dining this month.
Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
By

Strasmas in August?

Photo courtesy of
‘Strasburg – Coming Spring 2012’
courtesy of ‘afagen’

With the Nationals 17.5 games back in the Division, and 10 back of the Wild Card, it looks like their playoff hopes are just about done, but there’s some good news on the horizon. Yesterday, Strasburg finished his Viera stint and is headed back for the Nationals’ minor league system for 30 days of rehab before returning to the big-league club. First up? According to Ben Goessling of MASN, it’s likely Sunday’s game in Hagerstown. It seems a bit like turning a velociraptor loose on a herd of baby sheep, putting the recovering ace up against low-A hitters, but that’s where rehab starts begin.

Grandstand seats are available, as of post time, for $11 apiece. Bleacher seats are $7.70. You won’t find a better deal.

The Features
By

Why I Love DC: Jordana Merran

Raised in Potomac, where I attended private school and then a public school whose parking lot doubled as a BMW showroom (my 1990 Honda Civic fit right in), everyone I knew growing up was “going somewhere.” Something like ninety-eight percent of my classmates went on to four-year colleges—an impressive achievement, according to the Montgomery County School Board; many hoping to be doctors and lawyers like their parents, or investors like their neighbors….

And at just a thirty minute drive down the GW Parkway, DC was our “big city.” As kids, my brothers and I ate snow cones at the zoo and rode the merry-go-round on the National Mall. Older, I snuck into Fur nightclub the summer before I turned eighteen; tried hookah at the Prince Café in Georgetown over a college Spring Break; and had my first twenty-first birthday shot at Tom Tom in Adams Morgan.

So when I first moved back home after college, my thought was: capital of the free world? NBD. Continue reading →