By Tricia Barba
‘Empanada Time’
courtesy of ‘yostinator’
Happy Hump Day!
You’ve made it halfway through the work week, but have you been to a truck yet? If not, maybe today is your day to stand in like for some good eats.
Click on through for our ThestrEATS-powered lunch map to find where your favorite food trucks are parked and serving now!
On Saturday night at the Black Cat, legendary Dutch post-punk group The Ex treated DC fans to an energetic run through of most of the songs off their latest album, “Catch My Shoe”, a Hungarian folk song they used to do with Tom Cora, and a cover of the Konono No.1 song “Huriyet”. The Ex have been a band for over thirty years and while their line-up has changed many times over the years (most recently with a change of lead singers) the band has always maintained core values of improvisation, collaboration, and blistering guitar action. It was this third value that was most prominently on display Saturday night.
By Tom Bridge
‘The Town Of Bray – The Ardmore Pub’
courtesy of ‘infomatique’
No, it’s not officially staying open until 1am for St. Patrick’s Day, though that is a nice little side benefit. Metro will be staying open for March Madness at Verizon Center. As the Phone Booth will play host to four games tomorrow, with the start time of the last game expected after 9:30pm, WMATA’s going to give you an extra hour after that game to get to the Metro, and get home safe. So, St. Paddy’s day revelers, enjoy your extra hour of partying, and know that the Finns are secretly pissed at you because you got an extra hour tomorrow, while revelers for St. Urho’s Day have to cash the party at midnight.
Courtesy of Bravery Corporation
The scene: you work in the no-man’s land for food trucks. You watch with envy as all your friends get to take advantage of the food that’s rolling about, tweeting up and down about the latest and greatest dish they’ve gotten from a truck, while you’re stuck with a frozen TV dinner at the office. Whine no more. This spring is your chance to try the trucks you’ve been craving during this year’s “Food Truck Thursdays.”
In a friendly showing of brick and mortar restaurant and food truck collaboration, Chinatown Coffee Co. is hosting a happy hour series from 6:30 – 8:30 PM starting at the end of March. Each week a different food truck will serve outside, and you’ll be able to take advantage of $3 beer specials, wine and absinthe from Chinatown Coffee Co. No need to scope out a park bench–patrons are welcome to bring food from the trucks into the coffee shop.
Here’s the schedule for Food Truck Thursdays, though more trucks will be added to the calendar for the summer:
March 31: Takorean
April 7: Red Hook Lobster Pound
April 14: Fojol Bros.
April 21: DC Empanadas
April 28: Big Cheese
May 5: Sabor’a Street
May 12: Eat Wonky
May 19: CapMac
May 26: DC Slices
June 2: PORC
Check this out DC. The second annual Sweetlife Festival is happening at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Sunday, May 1st. It boasts a line-up that is “sweet life” personified in the form of the following bands:
The Strokes • Girl Talk • Lupe Fiasco • Crystal Castles • Cold War Kids • Ra Ra Riot • Walk the Moon • U.S. Royalty • Modern Man
This festival and its mega-watt line-up is a far-cry from seeing Hot Chip in a tent in Dupont Circle like we did at last year’s. A festival of this size with a line-up this impressive is a major booking coup for Sweetgreen and to celebrate their victory they have given We Love DC a pair of lawn tickets to give away for this week’s ticket raffle!
Tickets for Sweetlife Fest are $55 and go on sale on Friday, March 18th at Noon through Ticketfly. But you have a chance here to win a pair of tix from us before they go on sale! Winning these will make you just about the coolest music fan in the greater DC area for at least a whole day!
The Strokes!!!! Girl Talk!!!! Lupe Fiasco!!!! Crystal Castles!!!! Ahhhh!!!!
For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts. Tickets for this concert are available on Ticketfly.
For the rules of this giveaway…
Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
Spring Training is always an optimistic time in baseball. Fresh off a cold winter, and usually full of fresh faces, it’s easiest to have hope for even the most doomed club. Look at the throngs that travel from Chicago to Mesa, Arizona to HoHoKam Park and swear that this will finally be the year for the Cubbies. Sorry Rachel, I don’t think they’ve got it this year. The Nationals probably don’t either, but you wouldn’t know it to talk to their fans.
Nationals fans flocked by the hundreds to Space Coast Stadium in Florida this February and March to watch the Nationals take the field with unusual lineup combinations and positions, as they try to figure out what the team will look like come Opening Day on March 31st. The sunny picture in their minds may still be brought down to Earth by May, but for now, these are some happy and optimistic fans.
By Tricia Barba
As a DC native who spent one lovely year living in Wichita Falls, Texas, let me tell you that if I’m ever missing the Lone Star State, DC’s new Hill Country Barbecue will easily take me right back to Texas.
My caveat: I am super snotty and like going to a restaurant where the food comes to me — I’m not all about the cafeteria-style (hello again DCPS) lunch line…but I LOVE this place.
Continue reading
By Dave Levy
‘Washington Post box’
courtesy of ‘Joe in DC’
I know what you’re thinking since reading John’s post yesterday – since WaPo truncated all of the RSS feeds on its blogs, how could consuming local news possibly get any better?! Well, my friends, I have good news.
When the feeds first went live on Sunday evening, the new shortened posts looked a little empty. Just a single line of text with the link to the full post. Fear not, people who like colorful objects in your feed reader, now accompanying that single stanza of text is an ad some nine times the size: Continue reading
By Rebecca
‘stretching kitty’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
Live near Glover Park/American University? Own an outdoors kitty? Then volunteer your feline to participate in an upcoming research study by Smithsonian Institution’s Migratory Bird Center. Starting this summer, the center will begin studying outdoor cats’ interactions with wildlife using miniature video cameras (aka “CatCams”) that oddly look like collars with cassette tapes.
The researchers are also interested in, what is nicely termed, your cat’s “prey returns,” which they will document (assuming you can tell what it is) and compare to what they learn from the cats who wear cameras. The research aims to learn more about cats’ lives and experiences and help them (and owners) better understand the interactions of outdoor cats with wildlife. For instance, why no one has ever seen two cats having sex–just joking ;)
If you are interested in participating, contact dauphinen@si. edu or reitsmar@si. edu. Or write to:
Neighborhood Nestwatch
Attention: Bob Reitsma
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
National Zoological Park
P.O. Box 37012, MRC 5503, Washington, DC 20013-7012
By Ashley
‘Zorba’s Cafe’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
So now that it is sort of starting to get warmer (right? RIGHT?) all I can think about is eating and drinking outside. As a native Washingtonian, I know that the window of outdoor eating opportunity here in our nation’s capital is small, and I like to take advantage of it when I can. Since we’ve been friends for a while, Internet readers, I feel like it’s high time I let you in on my absolute favorite outdoor dining spot — Zorba’s. If you’ve never been here before, you have without a doubt walked by it a thousand times and never looked twice. Right by the Q St. exit of the Dupont Circle Metro stop, it doesn’t exactly scream “fancy dining experience.” And to be honest, you’re right. It may not be fancy, but they’ve got lots of patio seating, pitchers of beer and food that reminds me of sunny days nursing a hangover on the beaches of Greece. Or at least, that’s what I think they’d be like.
By Jenn Larsen
Tonight the New Ireland: Enda Walsh Festival kicks off at Studio Theatre. Who is Enda Walsh? An amazing Irish playwright responsible for (among others) a brilliant play about disgruntled youth, Disco Pigs, and the co-screenwriter behind the excruciating film Hunger, about Bobby Sands’ hunger strike to protest British rule.
This Thursday you can meet the man himself after the performance of his riff on the Ulysses myth, Penelope, produced by the Druid, Ireland company. Future performances in April include The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom, a screening of Hunger, and other conversations on the state of Irish arts, including a panel with DC’s own Linda Murray from Solas Nua. It’s all part of new artistic director David Muse’s desire to bring in international performances to Studio, and I think it’s gearing up to be a great initiative.
Being proud to be an Irish American should mean more than just wearing the green and drinking beer. Challenge yourself to explore more about the New Ireland. And anyway, who better to share St. Patrick’s Day with than the man famously quoted by the Guardian as saying, “I’ve never had to punch anyone, but I know I won’t regret it if I do.”
There is nothing quite like the experience of discovering a new band that is obviously destined for great things. For one, it is pretty rare to get in on the ground floor with a band that is this good before their secret is already out. So when you are one of the 10 or 15 people in a room who witness this new band rip open the sky with their musical brilliance for the first time, you should count yourself blessed by the gods of music. Second, while you are filled with the exhilaration of discovery and passion for the new band’s music, it can be very hard to convince people who were not there to take the time to seek the band out to give them a listen.
The reason for this is that there is no “buzz”. You’ve witnessed a band no one’s ever heard of, before they were big; no one cares. More than ever before, “buzz” is a critical element that anyone who wasn’t in that room with you requires before they’ll listen. Only then when the internet is ablaze with tales of the band’s amazing feats in far off cities will people start to take notice of the band that you have been shouting about for weeks, months, sometimes even years. So discovering a band like this; a fully formed, ass-kicking unit in their pre-buzz phase is both amazing and sometimes frustrating. I think out of that frustration is where music snobbery and “I saw them before they…” posing is born. I can see how it can make some people feel bitter and others feel elitist about their discoveries.
I’m not like that. I just want people, as many people as possible, to learn about the new music, embrace it, and support the folks making it. I don’t really care that I saw them first, but when I occasionally do, I am going to shout as loud as I can for as long as I can about this amazing discovery until the “buzz” bullshit catches up with them and people start to listen. Maybe a few of you will hear me and give Meek Is Murder a spin before waiting for them to gain the stamp of “buzz” approval.
By Tricia Barba
‘Every Food Fits – Rebel Heroes’
courtesy of ‘staceyviera’
Another day…another lunch. I wish more food trucks would hang out in the Union Station area.
Sigh.
Click on through for our ThestrEATS-powered lunch map to find where your favorite food trucks are stationed now! Maybe you’ll be luckier than I am.
Continue reading
By Dave Levy
”
courtesy of ‘Violette79’
Early last month, we shared the news that the delightful corridor surrounding Wisconsin Ave and M St was set to get its due in scripted, dramatic, television form. Somewhere along the way to creating a show about Georgetown, though, the production company decided to look outside of the narrow, one-way streets of the furthest west regions of Northwest DC.
A reader of NY blog Gothamist shared a flyer with the blog that showed up in his mail box that indicated that the company was going to run its production out of New York – and that they needed a brownstone Brooklyn house to film the pilot.
I’m sure there is logic on this – my guess is that the key point involves the proximity of studios to NY and the fact that is probably easier to get filming permits up in Park Slope than in Washington. Still, would anyone ever confuse the borough across the East River [<—NYC geography updated thanks to a commenter!] for the DC neighborhood down Pennsylvania Ave?
(ht Patrick Gavin)
By Max
Little Horse by pablo.raw
If it weren’t for the modern nylon bridle, this photo could be mistaken for one taken decades ago. It has a timeless quality to it which is hard to achieve nowadays. Is this a reenacted scene from Huckleberry Finn or at a petting zoo at the mall? It seems as though a horse will always look like a horse, and a kid will always look like a kid.
Of course there are other telltale signs that this is a modern photo. For starters, this photo belongs to the Pentax K20D Flickr group which is pretty much a dead giveaway. Also the horse’s hair is a bit on the over sharpened side, something you won’t find in any old timey photos. Lastly, the exposure and contrast are a bit too crisp and clean to pull off that worn-in, soft look of an old photograph.
Regardless, I’ve really enjoyed seeing work by pablo.raw pop up in our pool, and really enjoyed writing for We Love DC. Happy shooting fellow photogs. Keep up the good work.
By John Athayde
”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
The Washington Post has seen fit to truncate its RSS feed to only an excerpt, and that requires you to now open the story in a web browser. It’s a monetization issue; we get that. But it’s quite frustrating for those of us who have developed a reading (and saving) habit in our RSS readers. But there’s a solution: FullTextRSSFeed Dot COM! (sing “DOT COM!” it makes it more exciting). This gets your reader back with full articles and what not. You can choose your feed and run it through their tool, but we’ve provided some:
DCist Full Text Feed (without the new design)
all photos by Michael Darpino
Guest reviewer Mark Hensch is a freelance writer based in Washington DC. He has been writing about Heavy Metal since he was in High School back in Michigan. He currently contributes to the Washington Times online as Heavy Metal Hensch and is senior editor of Thrash Pit.
The “Apostles of Darkness Over The Americas” tour launched their nationwide sonic assault at Jaxx Nightclub on Wednesday night. The first stop on a two-month tour, the lineup read like a roster from the embassy of evil: leading the charge were the grim ghouls of Abigail Williams, followed by the Middle Eastern heavy metal of Jerusalem’s Melechesh and the battle-ready anthems of Athens’ Rotting Christ. It was a concert of musical carnage that wasn’t just great it was global; fire-breathing proof that the heavy metal scene still thrives at home and abroad.
Thanks to Jaxx’s layout, DC-area heavy metal fans were treated to a trio of intimate performances. The crowd was small but vocal, filling the floor space in front of the raised stage with an energy that surpassed their numbers. There wasn’t much space between band and fan, letting the two collide in uproarious confrontation. Guitar necks brushed past thrown devil horns as the fans and bands became one in an extreme metal meltdown.
By Don
Landless Theater Company is putting on a stage production of Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, the one-shot mini-movie that Joss Whedon and others put together during the writer’s strike some years ago. If you’re going to ask the question about “why should this be a stage production” I can’t think of a harder test case than something that you can stream on the internet at any given moment in time. There you get the original stars – Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion – recorded and produced music, special effects etc and so on.
But you know what? I think if you love the original work you should go see this. If you previously had an interest in seeing it on stage you should certainly not miss it – Mutant Enemy has recently put a hold on licensing productions and the speculation is that this is because they’re looking into doing their own big-budget stage show.
By Jenn Larsen
Joshua Morgan and Derek Kahn Thompson in Theater J's production of "The Chosen." Photo credit: Stan Barouh.
There’s something old-fashioned about Theater J’s production of The Chosen, presented with a quiet sensitivity in the staging and the acting, echoed in the warm wood of James Kronzer’s set. To call it old-fashioned is to by no means denigrate its power. It has a sepia-toned subtlety.
Theater J first produced an adaptation of Chaim Potok’s novel ten years ago, and is returning to it now under the aegis of Arena Stage. Setting a play of such intimacy in the airy round of the Fichandler is a bit of a risk – a play about the complicated relationships between fathers and sons requires a closer access than that large theater can provide, and sometimes I longed for the smaller confines of Theater J’s usual home. But it’s thrilling to see a company I’ve long admired in the gorgeous space by the waterfront, and it expands the audience capacity to see two Washington powerhouses – Edward Gero and Rick Foucheux – command the stage regardless of its size.
“Acquire a teacher, chose a friend.” This is the advice David Malter (Edward Gero) gives his son Reuven (Derek Kahn Thompson) as essential to start becoming a man. He’s just met his unlikely friend Danny (Joshua Morgan), after a baseball game that turned into a battle between Hasidic Jews and those Jews they consider “apikorsim” – heretics. Unbeknownst to Reuven, Danny has just met his unlikely teacher, Malter himself, whose reading suggestions include Freud and Darwin. Not exactly what his father Reb Saunders (Rick Foucheux) would want his son to be reading in preparation to become a “tzaddik” – the spiritual leader of his community.
The adaptation written and directed by Aaron Posner takes its time exploring the nuances between the four men, building to a shattering moment between a father and the son he raised in silence. Continue reading
‘Pork at Cochon’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’
Sunday afternoon the smell of roasting pork bits was wafting through the Newseum as five chefs competed to win at Cochon 555. After rounds of pulled pork, pork rinds, pork infused cocktails, pork belly, pork shoulder, and every other pork concoction and confection you can think of, The Source’s executive chef, Scott Drewno, was crowned the prince of pork. Drewno will go on to compete at Grand Cochon in Aspen this June.
Competing chefs also included Tarver King of Ashby Inn and Restaurant, Jamie Leeds of Hank’s Oyster Bar, Adam Sobel of Bourbon Steak and Bryan Voltaggio of Volt. Additionally, Jason Belleau of Whole Foods Market and Pamela Ginsberg of Wagshal’s Market went head to head in a butchering competition that involved a lot of sawing and slinging of every single piece of the pig.
Five wineries from around the country were represented at Cochon, however, there were plenty of pork-inspired cocktails, including a martini with olives stuffed with pickled pig knuckle from Sobel, bourbon cider with pork pearls from Drewno and a smoked ham cream soda from Voltaggio.
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