‘Hops (Day 296)’
courtesy of ‘ewilfong’

Are you so over fancy meals paired with wine? How about a great meal paired with…beer? Sounds much more my style. On Monday, September 27th at 7pm, Birch & Barley is holding a beer dinner featuring exclusive beers from Sly Fox Brewery. And diners can learn a little something about the Pennsylvania brewery while they eat, since Sly Fox Brewmaster Brian O’Reilly will be in attendance.

Executive Chef Kyle Bailey and Pastry Chef Tiffany Maclsaac have whipped up a five-course tasting menu designed to complement each brew. Highlights of the dinner include an acorn squash tortellini, a pan-seared wreckfish, a beef striploin, and a gianduji panna cotta.

Tickets are $76, and reservations can by made by calling Birch & Barley (202-567-2576). If you can’t make it to the dinner, ChurchKey will feature five different Sly Fox cask ales that night.

‘IMG_5217’
courtesy of ‘techsports’

We Love DC’s Sports Fix runs every other Monday. To keep you in the loop on the odd week, here’s a quick ticker on what’s going on around DC, Maryland and Virginia Sports. Continue reading →

‘Baltimore Rock Opera Society’
courtesy of ‘mediaslave’

On Saturday, the H Street Festival introduced me to, as a friend put it, “the greatest thing since things became good.” What is this wonder of awesomeness you ask? The Baltimore Rock Opera Society, my friends. They write and perform original rock operas in venues around the Baltimore area. Yes, they are in Baltimore and thus outside the usual geographic focus for our DC-lovin’ website, but can you seriously tell me you wouldn’t travel to see kitschy homemade valkyrie costumes and fake guitars shaped like giant meat cleavers featured in an original rock opera?

Their “booth” at the festival was right next to Joy of Motion’s , which meant they had to take turns with the dance studio’s cha-cha demonstrations to blast their pounding speakers of rock doom while playing air-er, cleaver guitar and posting for photo-ops with festival attendees around their skull-adorned metalmobile.

But really, don’t rely on my inadequate descriptions. View some photos of the BROS taken at the Festival this weekend.

‘District Taco Truck’
courtesy of ‘foodtruckapp’

Food truck time!

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

It wouldn’t be so unfair if Men’s Health called their list “The Worst Foods in America to Overeat” but they left off the last bit. Instead they call the Five Guys large fries a bad choice without ever admitting that their “eat this instead” is exactly the same recommendation that Five Guys makes on their nutrition information[pdf].

That doesn’t give Five Guys a total pass, mind you, since their small exceeds the small size at competitor restaurants and can contribute to over-eating via the large plate problem. However Men’s Health calls them “worst fries” not “worst portion” and does this despite the fact that, gram for gram, Five Guys’ fries are lower in fat than competitors like McDonalds[pdf].

So you should consider limiting your overall fry intake no matter where you go – there’s not any way to make a deep-fried piece of potato good for you – but you could do worse to pick the Five Guys fry for your weekly indulgence.

In moderation, of course.

”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

The full schedule for the 2010-2011 Big East basketball season has yet to be released, but Hoya fans can count on having the national spotlight at least a few times as a part of ESPN’s Big Monday series. Georgetown will head to Madison Square Garden on the first Monday in January to square off with St. John’s (albeit unfortunately matched against the Orange Bowl for TV coverage) and then host its own primetime game at the Verizon Center later that month when Louisville comes to town on January 31st.

You can read more about ESPN’s Big Monday and check out the other featured match-ups in the conference’s release from yesterday.

‘Log Frame House (Tarentum, PA)’
courtesy of ‘takomabibelot’

The Log Cabin Republicans have put out a press release with their list of candidates who they say support their important causes. “A free market economy, a strong defense, smart tax policies, sound fiscal discipline, and without question– value equal treatment for all Americans,” according to their Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper. If you’re a Marylander or Virginian waiting for this to determine how to vote, however, you’re flat out of luck: they weighed in on none of the races in VA or MD.

My initial assumption was that they didn’t have anybody here they could remotely support, but it looks like that may not be the case. Not endorsing Patrick Murry in VA-8 makes perfect sense after he implied he’d support DADT and “traditional marriage” and his primary opponent would not and MD-5’s Lollar is explicit with the one-man-one-woman definition. I’m a little surprised they weren’t down with Robert Broadus in MD-4, though – while he also mentions “traditional marriage” he has a statement on his website that he’d be down with getting government out of the marriage business entirely.

I would not vote to change this, unless it was to remove government completely from the institution of marriage. I believe marriage is a religious sacrament, and should therefore be decided by churches and by the people who attend them. I do not believe people should receive tax benefits or any other preferential treatment from the government because of their marital status.

More likely, though, is that they took one look at this region and said “why bother?” The Maryland House races are in the bag for the Democrats and the Virginia incumbents couldn’t be detonated out with all the fireworks in China. The only race with a (remote) shot of changing hands is VA-11, where Republican Kieth Fimian is trailing and firmly anti-gay rights.

‘Sculpture Garden – Sunshine and a Good Book – 7-30-09’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but folks, this weather isn’t going to stick around forever. Soon it’ll be cold and rainy and (eek!) snowy. By then the last thing you’ll want to do it change in to your snow boots to chase down a food truck. Ergo, take advantage of these street warriors today and soak up some Vitamin D while you’re at it.

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‘AFI Silver Theatre’
courtesy of ‘Rolenz’

For being a place that’s thoroughly awful to stage a movie in, DC is a city that absolutely loves its movies.  We’ve got the gorgeous Uptown from the heyday of movies, we’ve got AFI’s theatre in Silver Spring, and starting construction soon, we’ll have the Warner Brothers Theater at the National Museum of American History.

Warner Brothers donated $5M this week to NMAH to renovate their current theatre to a state of the art palace of film and movies.  The theatre will feature both film and digital projection technologies and will also have the capability for 3D movies to be shown, but it’s also going to have the ability to show original 35mm film, which is something everyone should be excited about.  Perhaps we can convince the Library of Congress to have showings there with films kept in their amazing archive in Culpeper?

Timeline for construction of the theater isn’t yet being discussed, but we’ve asked Smithsonian for clarification and we’ll get back to you with what we find.  If I can make a small suggestion, though, Smithsonian and Warner Brothers, go art deco with the theater. Make it big and beautiful.

From RallyToRestoreSanity.com

Fans of The Daily Show are likely already aware that Jon Stewart is coming to Washington, D.C. in late October. As you may recall, tickets for four tapings of Stewart’s popular cable news show went on sale and quickly disappeared a few times back in August, and many Stewart-ites were left out in the cold.

Didn’t get tickets? Good news. It just got interesting, and you’ll now have a chance to see Mr. Stewart anyway. Continue reading →

‘Kennedy Center Terrace’
courtesy of ‘volcanojw’

Feel like learning a little something while taking in the sweeping views atop the Kennedy Center? Might I add, learning something…about booze? Well you are in luck because on Wednesday, September 29th, the Roof Terrace Restaurant will be holding the first installment of their monthly themed wine tasting series.

This first event will focus on Spanish wines, complimented by hors d’oeuvres created by the Kennedy Center chefs, which I’m sure are designed to soak up the alcohol to ensure you don’t get a little too close to the edge. The tasting costs $40 per person and reservations are required, which can be made here.

The wine tastings run through December, with upcoming themes such as “Harvest Celebration” (10/22), “Drink Local” (11/15) and “Champagne & Everything Bubbly” (12/7).

‘Finance maze’
courtesy of ‘RambergMediaImages’

Grammy-Award winner John Legend spoke to Howard University students about education inequality today on Howard’s District campus.

According to The Washington Post, Legend’s appearance kicked off a partnership between the College Board and MTV that addresses the challenges students currently face when applying to receive financial aid.

Over two million college students a year fail to apply for the $70 billion in government financial aid made available on an annual basis. Not only that, but almost two-thirds of current students find that the process of applying for financial aid isn’t easy.

That’s not entirely true. Hence Legend’s involvement. Continue reading →