Yearly Archives: 2010

The Daily Feed
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Estadio Opens Today

Photo courtesy of
‘Spanish Wines’
courtesy of ‘biskuit’

In case you’re upset now that the World Cup celebrations are coming to an end and the running of the bulls is over–don’t worry. The Spain-a-palooza continues with the grand opening of a new Spanish restaurant in Logan Circle tonight. From the folks behind Proof comes Estadio, which will focus on modern interpretations of Northern Spanish cuisine. The menu will predominately be filled with small plates and tapas, with some small entrees thrown in for those of us looking for something with a little more to it.

A great meal is not built on food alone, and luckily Estadio is serious about their booze. Not only is the vast majority of their wine list sourced from Spain, Estadio’s bar menu features the wildly intriguing “slushito“. Conceptualized by bar manager and uber-mixologist Adam Bernbach, they are in fact, frozen alcoholic slushees. 7-11 won’t know what hit ’em.

The restaurant also has a cool, old school vibe. I half expect to see Frank Sinatra lounging at the bar. And with the 19th-century Spanish tiles, Spanish marble and reclaimed timber I think he would feel right at home. On the walls they’ve got murals of flamenco dancers and bullfighters to make sure all who dine know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a Spanish restaurant.

Estadio is currently only open for dinner, but hopes to be open for weekend brunch by the fall.

The Daily Feed
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Checking In On The Most Popular D.C. Foursquare Venues

Photo courtesy of
‘Fantastic’
courtesy of ‘dcbprime’

Since launching last year, location-based social network foursquare has encouraged Facebook and Twitter users to use locations as context for their status updates. Over time, as it increased to more than two million global users, the data around where users check-in can actually give a cool sense of the landscape of where . There are also some cool search tools that plug into the network, and Nick Barron over at Examiner pulled in the data to identify the most popular venues around the District. The top 15 places he found in and around the D.C. area (excluding transportation stations):

  1. Nationals Park – 5,024 check-ins
  2. JR’s Bar & Grill – 3,059 check-ins
  3. The White House – 2,940 check-ins
  4. Verizon Center – 2,614 check-ins
  5. Whole Foods (P St NW) – 2,505 check-ins
  6. Washington Monument – 2,475 check-ins
  7. Nellie’s Sports Bar – 2,420 check-ins
  8. U.S. Capitol – 2,320 check-ins
  9. Lincoln Memorial – 2,125 check-ins
  10. 9:30 Club – 2,053 check-ins
  11. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – 1,903 check-ins
  12. The National Mall – 1,821 check-ins
  13. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum – 1,744 check-ins
  14. Tysons Corner Center – 1,706 check-ins
  15. Smithsonian National Museum of American History – 1,701 check-ins

I am a bit of a data geek, so I love looking at stuff like this to see what can be gathered. I see some interesting trends in here, specifically involving tourist locations, sports venues, and then a bulk of check-ins around the U. St. area (a more plugged in demographic, maybe?).  Nothing overly surprising – and if I was a guessing person, every Strasburg start will only help Nationals Park increase its lead.

Food and Drink, The Hill, We Love Food
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We Love Food: Market Lunch

Photo courtesy of
‘Market Lunch’
courtesy of ‘katmere’

Whenever I mention Market Lunch to people, and I do often, I always get the same response: “Oh, I’ve heard that place is so great–but I’ve never been.” I don’t know if it’s the lines that scare folks away, or the Soup Nazi-esque ordering system, but don’t be afraid! It’s a quintessential Washington experience that no one should miss, and a great meal to boot. My trips to Eastern Market are almost always wrapped around meal time to make sure I can take advantage of all that Market Lunch has to offer. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Baseball in D.C.? George Steinbrenner Approved.

Photo courtesy of
‘Nats, Yanks fight for my love’
courtesy of ‘wfyurasko’

There’s no doubt that the Yankees late owner George Steinbrenner, 80, who died early Tuesday morning after suffering from a heart attack last night in his Tampa, Fl. home will go down in baseball history as a ruthless, hard-nosed owner dedicated to one sole cause — winning.

He will be remembered in New York for numerous reasons whether it’s his treatment of Yankees Hall of Famer Yogi Berra in 1985 after revoking his role as team manager for going 6-10 to open the season or the 11 pennants and 7 World Championships he brought to a franchise who was struggling to stay afloat when he purchased the Yanks from CBS in 1973.

“Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing,” Steinbrenner was fond of saying. “Breathing first, winning next.”

But what did this man so concerned with winning have to do with baseball in D.C.? Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Secret Safeway in Dupont Circle to close

Photo courtesy of
‘Blah Entrance’
courtesy of ‘M.V. Jantzen’
The “Secret” Safeway, also known as Townhouse Safeway, will be closing for good on August 7. The store, located at 1800 20th St. NW was tucked away and unknown to many. The “Town House” branding was a trial concept by Safeway to target apartment dwellers in urban areas. It’s unknown at this point what will replace the grocer.

Yelp reviews on the 20th Street location were mixed, reviewers noting that prices were often higher that at other Safeway stores. The “Soviet” Safeway at 17th and Corcoran, NW remains open.

The Daily Feed
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DCRA hosting home improvement seminar Saturday

Photo courtesy of
‘work zone’
courtesy of ‘volcanojw’

It’s amazing to me that as the owner now of a house instead of a condo, how many trips to Home Depot I’m making.  I swear in the last two months, I’ve been there at least once a week.  It’s not that our house has problems, it’s just that the little things stack up.  I tell you, though, there’s no better feeling than coming out of a hardware store with a project to accomplish.  You just feel, holding the pipe wrench, teflon tape and float valve kit, like you could construct an entire bathroom with nothing but sweat, tools and expertise.  It’s a totally beguiling process, wherein you decide that if Joe the Plumber can make a living doing this, you could totally do it yourself, but keep in mind that a plumbing service is essential in any home. You can visit https://kellieplumbing.com/plumbing/ for more information.

This Saturday, DCRA’s here to help with a four-hour workshop for homeowners on working on your home.  Looking to make things a bit more energy efficient?  This one’s for you.  “The event will include clinics offering practical tips and demonstrations to homeowners on how to make their dwellings more weather-proof and how to complete some projects without having to call a professional.” Adding rain barrels, solar panels, and doing weatherstripping and sealing will be covered, and the event is free of charge. It’ll be at the Home Depot on Rhode Island Avenue this Saturday from 9am to 1pm. DPW will have compost for your garden, and DDOE will have winterization kits for District residents. See you there!

News, The Daily Feed
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OCTO Report Reveals High Reliance on Contractors

Photo courtesy of
‘DSCN0179 – Privacy in Digital Public Spaces’
courtesy of ‘Planetrussell’

This morning’s piece by Michael Neibauer in the Business Journal pores over the report to the Council on OCTO, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer for the District.  OCTO is a wide-reaching organization that handle’s the city’s IT infrastructure in both the schools and in the DC Government.  The report suggests that a high reliance (50-70% of the department!) on contracting organizations to do the work has lead to fraud and abuse being built into the culture, including awarding of contracts to local businesses that are underprepared to do the work. According to Neibauer, OCTO agrees with much of the findings and has said that most of the recommended remedies are already in place or soon to be in place.

The report also contains allegations that the local businesses that are not certified to sell certain solutions to the District are using gray market solutions for District offices, meaning that they’re selling solutions they cannot necessarily support. Working in the technology field, I’m not sure that I buy the hullaballoo over the grey market solutions. Some vendors make it extraordinarily difficult to join their partner programs, or require such high premiums on the businesses that unless you’re going to sell a large number of the very expensive devices, it doesn’t make sense to join. So yes, this happens all the time in the technology field, but it doesn’t mean that the vendors are incompetent, merely that they don’t want to pay for either a certification or for a partner program that will cost them money instead of making them money.

Full Disclosure: my business has one client that interacts with OCTO for technology support, but I do not speak for my business or my clients in this case.

Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Hey, did you go to Screen on the Green last night?

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

Screen on the Green came back last night! I was there for a while with a camera, and I know a bunch of you were too, despite the wacky weather. I’d love it if you’d share your photos from the party with the We Love DC Flickr pool, so I can collect the bestest, wackiest, funnest, summeriest of them all and share them with our readers. Get ’em in there by the end of today, and check back tomorrow to see everyone’s great work.

The Daily Feed
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Update: DC photographer vs. MPD, take 2

Photo courtesy of
‘DC Police’
courtesy of ‘Chris DiGiamo’

We told you this weekend about the DC photographer who says he was detained by MPD officers while shooting a traffic stop in Georgetown. My initial complaint about the account was that the photographer, Jerome Vorus, hadn’t gotten names of the officers who stopped him or apparently followed up with a complaint to the MPD. Turns out, I was wrong. Continue reading →

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo


They’re growing pink toenails by MudflapDC

There are hundreds of things that I’d like to do and places I’d like to see in the surrounding area, but I always seem to forget about them or put them off for another day, another year.  Well, you know how the rest of that story goes.  Soon another year has passed and my list has gotten even longer.

One place on my list is the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Maryland.  Known for the sea of sunflowers that bloom every year, it’s a photographer’s dream.  However like other photogenic scenes, the sunflower fields have been shot to death which makes it challenging to come up with a unique view.  Despite the lack of sunflowers in this photo, the addition of (shut up, brain) shiny pink toenails moves this place even higher on my list of places to visit.

A unique view?  I’d say MudflapDC has succeeded here.

The Daily Feed
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Smoke at Dupont Circle Metro

DC Fire/EMS on Twitter reports smoke at the Q Street NW entrance to Dupont Circle Metro on the Red Line — also site of this morning’s Escalator Fail. That entrance to the station is now closed and emergency responders are on the scene.

Update: Update from DC Fire/EMS: Dupont Circle Metro – Metro Mechanics on scene – situation under control – Station Open – DC F&EMS clearing scene – no injuries

In the attached video, courtesy Twitterer jaredev (view it larger after the jump) we have people being evacuated from the south station entrance, vaulting over the handrail due to a barricade in the way.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Kelly Clarkson is a class act

Photo courtesy of
‘Kelly Clarkson’
courtesy of ‘vagueonthehow’

A group of us got together on Saturday to celebrate our friend Jaimie’s birthday and decided to start with dinner at Gordon Biersch – not least because they were okay with us bringing in an ice cream cake.

They’ve also got an open-door policy on celebrity as well, it seems. After the fourth or fifth pair of young girls walked up to a neighboring table we figured out that Kelly Clarkson was dining there with a few friends.

As it turned out, Clarkson was on her way out the door just after our waiter brought out Jaimie’s cake. As she walked by one of us said “Hey Kelly, want to help us sing happy birthday?” She said “sure!” and asked whose birthday it was. Then she started singing, though she stopped after the first line to say one thing.

“The rest of you can join in anytime.”

So sue us – we were a little gobsmacked by the moment. We recovered and finished up our collaborative piece with the grammy winner.

It was a nice and genuinely warm moment from someone who could have just as politely said “can’t – gotta go!” and kept on moving. Kudos, Kelly Clarkson, for being nice to random strangers.

Entertainment, Special Events, The Daily Feed, We Love Arts
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Fringe 2010: Darfur The Greatest Show on Earth!

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

I’m reviewing eight plays over eight days for the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival, in collaboration with DC Theatre Scene. Get your button and join me!

One of the challenges of reviewing Fringe theater is determining how much weight to give earnest performance over clumsy material. But with so many productions to choose from, with your time and money on the line, I’d rather be blunt than kind.

Darfur: The Greatest Show on Earth! thinks itself mighty clever, contrasting genocides in Nazi Germany and the Sudan under the guise of a big-top circus subverting the cliches of musicals. But it’s merely a muddle of ethical issues, preferring to preach at the audience rather than to be truly brave. When Theater J’s stunning In Darfur simply broke a refugee’s legs on stage, that was theatrical power at its most subversive. But being screeched at to get out of my chair and take political action, as in this performance? Just not effective.

The faults of Darfur: The Greatest Show on Earth! are really the faults of the writer, Jonathan Fitts. The naive plot lines – in the past a Nazi Guard grapples with his bigotry in the face of an innocent child, while in the present a Janjaweed soldier fights his love for a refugee – make for an awkward, clumsy musical that would need a very strong directorial hand to make it as gutwrenching as it seems to think it is. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Support Columbia Heights Day While Eating and Drinking

Photo courtesy of
‘Wonderland Ballroom’
courtesy of ‘scottahb’
I’m not really in to car washes, dance marathons or date auctions. I am, however, in to eating. So what better way to raise money for Columbia Heights Day than by doing just that. This Thursday, July 15th, you’ll be able to do that too. From 6pm-10pm, certain Columbia Heights restaurants and bars will have specials and will be donating to the Columbia Heights Day Initiative. So get out there on Thursday and eat for a cause!

Participating restaurants include: Commonwealth Gastropub, The Heights, Looking Glass Lounge, (the very new) Meridian Pint, Panda Express, RedRocks Pizzeria, Room 11, and Wonderland Ballroom. More information is available here.

This year’s Columbia Heights Day is on Saturday, August 28th.

Capital Chefs, The Features
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Capital Chefs: Munehiro Yonemoto of Kushi (Part II)

Photo courtesy of
‘Cathy’s Japanese Chicken-Mint Skewers’
courtesy of ‘CathyLovesDC’

This is going to be the easiest post I’ve ever written.

I think writing that sentence will be longer than the ingredients for our recipe. Let’s try:

Chicken. Mint. Salt. Plum Sauce. Shichimi.

Yep. (Wait, what was that last one?) Well, finding the correct ingredients for this one might take longer than a trip to, well… Kushi. But what I can tell you is, you can do this. This recipe is really easy. Really. We promise. It’s not souffle. (Did we trick you with that one? We’re sorry.)

Salty, sweet, savory, spicy… Katie and I recently stopped by Kushi by for a breeze of a grilling lesson. Chef Muneihiro Yonemoto may have been a man of few words due to a language barrier, but like the few ingredients in his chicken kabobs, he got his point across quite clearly. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Matt Capps: An All-Around All-Star

Photo courtesy of
‘a closer’s windup’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

This is the fifth straight year the Washington Nationals have sent just one player to the All-Star Game. Other than that, they had a pair featuring Livan Hernandez and Chad Cordero that participated in the All-Star Game during the Nats inaugural 2005 season.

Matt Capps is the lone Nats All-Star in 2010.

The Nats closer is 3-3 with a 3.18 ERA and 23 saves going into the break, but there’s more to this man than his numbers. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Redskins Gear Up Promotion for 2010 Season: “R You In?”

YouTube Preview Image

With the global version of football now out of the way (congratulations to Spain, of course), it’s time to turn our attention to the fact that we are really only about six weeks away from the return of the American version. Up at FedEx field, a very different looking team will be appearing out of the tunnel come the beginning of the new season due to both addition and subtraction on the field and sidelines, and it actually is time to start thinking about the year on the horizon.

With many of the big events from earlier this summer concluded, alongside the fact that today is one of the slowest sports days of the year (as the days before and after the MLB All-Star Game often are), there was a nice hole in the sports pages to try and get in the conversation. Not surprisingly, the Redskins have used this to launch a little bit of a marketing effort to fill out the stadium come September. The slogan this year? “R You In?”

Well, are you? Check out the released video for the campaign and let us know if you think it gets you excited for the season. My opinion? Meh.

via DC Sports Bog

Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
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Capital Chefs: Chef Yonemoto of Kushi (Part I)

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You gotta respect a man with a headband and lean, mean butchering skills, right? Chef Yonemoto of Kushi Izakaya and Sushi is bent over a cutting board chiseling away at a raw chicken, effortlessly slicing up breast strips for us to grill. Cathy and I are standing in the open grill kitchen (if you want to get all fancy about it, you can call it the robata counter) of Kushi sipping green tea and observing the inner workings of my newest favorite sushi spot in the city. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Special Events, The Daily Feed, We Love Arts
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Fringe 2010: Medea

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

I’m reviewing eight plays over eight days for the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival, in collaboration with DC Theatre Scene. Get your button and join me!

If you want to know why Greek tragedy is still vital to modern theater, go see paperStrangers Performance Group’s adaptation of Medea. Striking use of movement and multimedia combine to bring very intense moments of madness to life. Director Michael Burke has a fascinating vision, unified throughout all the major design elements he also helmed – lighting, video, sound and costumes – creating a sometimes strident but brutally beautiful work, like Medea herself.

“A woman’s likely to get emotional when her husband marries again,” understates Jason (of the Argonauts, if you are keeping mythological score). He owes a huge debt to Medea, who murdered her own brother and many others to assist Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. She bears him two children, and expects to reign as his queen despite her barbarian background. But love is a luxury for heroes – he puts her aside for a more royal bride, and more insults to follow, with the bride’s father wanting her banished.

This is where we meet them, at the moment the ultimate bridezilla is dumped in her swan feathered bridal gown, her voiceless screams of rage fracturing the space, a creepily twisted chorus shuffling in to reveal her inner turmoil. Continue reading →