I don’t really think of myself as a fan of Mexican food. Burritos pretty much disgust me; enchiladas underwhelm me. Sure, I like a good homemade guacamole as much as the next girl, but you won’t catch me ducking into a Mexican joint when there’s Thai (or Italian, or Japanese…) to be had instead.
Then I went to Oyamel.
Now, I’m not trying to say Oyamel’s cuisine is in a different league than any other Mexican cuisine on the planet. But it is a restaurant that proves Mexican food doesn’t have to be about large globs of refried beans, or overly cheesy but ultimiamtely bland concoctions.
The Crystal City restaurant, founded by José Andrés of Zatinya, Café Atlantico and Jaleo, draws its inspiration from the small plates craze, this time in the form of antojitos. The friendly, patient and knowledgable wait staff recommends 2-3 antojitos per person. My companion and I each got two, contenting ourselves to fill up on the compilmentary chips with two types of salsa (including a creamier-than-usual salsa verde) – and saving room for dessert in the process.
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27Jul
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26Jul
Do you like a little dancing with your wine?
Four friends of mine and I made the trek Saturday to Boordy Vineyards, located in Hydes, Maryland, about 15 minutes from the Baltimore beltway. A place that offers tours and reasonably-priced wine year round, Boordy also stages many events throughout the year. Craving stew in the winter? Go there one evening for the nights they serve hot pots of the stuff made with Boordy wines. They have a similarly-themed fondue night as well.
But in the sweltering heat of the weekend, wintery foods weren’t on our minds. Music, dancing and drinking, though, seemed a great way to spend the night, and throughout the summer, Boordy brings out a different band for each event, with a corresponding dance class. They’ve got a zydeco group, motown singers, salsa instruction, and even an 80s night to finish off the series.
We learned the Fox Trot and danced and drank the night away to the sounds of Shades of Blue, fronted by a guy essentially doing a decent Sinatra impression. A warning – nearly every swing dancing event I’ve attended before has been very friendly to singles – there’ll either be plenty of unattached people there, eager to dance, or many opportunities to swap partners. At Boordy, this wasn’t the case – the dance floor was crowded almost exclusively with couples, and a lack of guys present meant I ended up being paired with an almost-elderly Asian woman for the entirety of the class. So if you’re into dancing, bring a date – or at least a buddy. -
22Jul
Most of us have a signature recipe. You know, that one thing we know we’re good at making, which we can bring to a party and rest assured will be gobbled up in seconds. I’m thinking of my Aunt Barb’s southwestern dip, my friend Eve’s roast beef & yorkshire pudding, my mom’s “Death By Chocolate” concoction.
I have more of a signature ingredient: bacon. My friends tease me for incorporating the heart-clogging ingredient into nearly everything I make. I’ve stated here before that I firmly believe bacon makes everything better, and I’ve yet to be proven wrong (though a friend once led me to an article mentioning the bacon martini, which could be the lone exception to the rule). One day, my all-bacon cookbook will fly off the shelves at Barnes & Noble.
The easiest (and probably most popular) bacon dish I can always throw together at the last minute is rumaki, one of the few dishes my mother passed down to me that I haven’t tinkered with aggressively. It’s ridiculously simple, and despite water chestnuts not being an ingredient the general populace is usually clamoring for, I bet 10-to-1 you’ll have party guests complaining you didn’t make enough of these one-bite treats. -
20Jul
Guest writer JEB has joined our staff to write about wine.
How many things have to happen before you’ll admit that you’re wrong? I had to admit three times that I was wrong about wine, and the admission didn’t come too easily.
I grew up in a Jewish house. My only exposure to wine for the first 19 or so years of my life was Manischewitz. With non-drinking parents, I was never taught about the “real” stuff. I came of age thinking I hated wine altogether.
I grew up a little and drank a little and tasted a little more wine and realized there was more to life than kosher blackberry wine. I came to the conclusion that there were lots and lots of good wines out there, and I liked all sorts of varietals. I just couldn’t stand chardonnay or merlot. -
19Jul
DCFud hasn’t really been in the habit of reviewing too many super-expensive restaurants, considering the budget of its writers (and likely, the budget of its audience). But that doesn’t mean we don’t walk wistfully past such restaurants as Ceiba, Vidalia or Tosca, wishing we were wealthy executives who could afford dinner there more than once a millenium.
But two weeks each year, we get our chance. That’s when DC hosts Restaurant Week, where the area’s finest (and even some of its mediocre) restaurants get together and offer great prix fixe meals at affordable costs. For $30.05 at dinner and $20.05 at lunch, you get a three-course meal at places like Charlie Palmer Steak, Colvin Run Tavern and Zola.
The event will be held August 1-7, and reservations are already starting to fill up, so make yours ASAP if your choice is more popular. Reservations can be made through OpenTable.Com.
Some argue the crowds and often-subpar service make Restaurant Week something to avoid rather than embrace. Our staff doesn’t tend to fall into that mindset. MAW checked out Vidalia last time around and enjoyed his experience. What do you think is Restaurant Week’s best deal? -
18Jul
This entry was written by guest contributor TCD, one of the brains behind the DC Food Blog.
Last Saturday, my friend Writergirl and her high school friends were generous enough to let us see the long lost episodes of their homemade sitcom, “Makin’ It thru the Day”. Imagine a group of smart midwestern daughters of college professors and their little brothers deciding to do a parody of every cheesy family sitcom, produced complete with bad puns, slutty neighbor girls and an “everyone hugs” ending. And since I am totally addicted to so-bad-it’s-good television, I forced Writergirl and her friends to show us their parodies of afterschool specials, including Choices: One Girl’s Story (she’s keeping her baby) and Three Cheers for Murder.
When watching such a smorgasbord of hilarity and bad camera work, alcohol must be present and in abundance. In honor of our high school years, Writergirl was kind enough to make homemade version of Matchbox’s Chinatown – which tastes like an upmarket, adult version of the wine coolers I used to drink in high school…and college. Ah, the halcyon days of Bartle’s and Jaymes.
From Writergirl, The “Chinatown” is (all numbers totally approximate):
3 oz Watermelon vodka
1 oz triple sec
splash of sprite
splash of sour mix
tiny splash of cranberry juice for color -
15Jul
…I would SO be into attending this event being held tomorrow. Perhaps other Fud-readers are in better financial shape than I am.
The S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian will hold an all-day workshop, “Food Writing For Food Lovers,” this Saturday, led by Dianne Jacob, author of Will Write For Food: The Complete Guide To Writing Restaurant Reviews, Cookbooks, Recipes, Stories and More. In the morning, there will be workshops and tutorials to help writers find their style.
In the afternoon, however, there will be three impressive appearances: Kim Severson of The New York Times, Jeffrey Steingarten from Vogue and DC’s own Tom Sietsema from The Washington Post. Attendees will get to hear their words of wisdom in a panel discussion, with Severson on trends, Steingarten giving personal appearances, and Sietsema – in disguise, of course – letting us know his reviewing methodology. Sadly, though, your $131 admission won’t even buy you lunch at this shindig.
Would it be wrong for me to cancel on my good friend visiting from NYC and just throw this on my credit card? Sigh, I suppose so. If anyone ends up going, well, then, we’re expecting an article on it. And it better be good; you’re learning from the best! -
14Jul
How far are you willing to go for free food? Are you a stand-in-line-for-hours-at-Krispy-Kreme kind of person? Or do you want your free deals as no hassle as possible, like when you accidently stumble into Ben & Jerry’s on Free Cone Day?
If you fall into the former category, you may be in luck. Tomorrow is Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A, this Fud-writer’s favorite fast food restaurant. In honor of the restaurant’s “Eat Mor Chikin” slogan, patrons who enter the restaurant dressed HEAD TO TOE in cowprint gear get a free combo meal.
Think you can squeak by in only a cowprint hat or something? Your efforts will be rewarded, but only slightly – patrons in “partial-Cow” attire get a free single entree.
So head to Chick-Fil-A tomorrow before I have to make some sort of “Get Moooving” pun. Oops. Too late. -
12Jul
This entry was written by new contributor CZ
Mark and Orlando’s is very similar in atmosphere and layout to Komi, if you’ve ever been there. It’s a converted flat with exposed brick, simply decorated with an open window to the kitchen in the back where Orlando stands and keeps an eye on the floor. It’s unpretentious and very comfortable. I will say it was a bit confusing when you walk in because there is no host/hostess stand. You walk into the bottom of the stairs and you can either go straight into the dining room, or upstairs. Luckily, one of the waiters saw us from the bar and told us to come on in.
The menu was extremely diverse, but simple. There weren’t an overwhelming number of choices, but it had something for everyone. One thing I did notice, however, was that there weren’t any of what I call “standards,” things like NY strip teak with Bearnaise or sesame-encrusted tuna with wasabi-mashed potatoes. So if you are someone who is expecting something like that, you will be disappointed. -
12Jul
This entry was written by guest contributor PKG
A few summers ago I was a member of the Crystal City runners, and we used to meet on Wednesday evenings at a big condo across from Reagan National Airport. After the five mile runs, we would sit in front of a fountain and consume refreshments. A young Japanese couple belonged to the group; the husband was attending graduate school at GWU. The wife, Hideko, would bring a bottle of a mysterious lemon concentrate and some paper cups. She would then pour each of us a small amount of the lemon concentrate, and then she would cut it with water and hand a cup to each of us. The rest of Crystal City runners began calling it our lemon elixir.
After a few weeks, I began to get curious about this lemon elixir. I asked Hideko to tell me the recipe. Hideko had a shaky command of English, and when she told me that it consisted of only lemons and honey, I thought that I had misinterpretated her, because I could taste no honey in it. Now when I make Hideko’s Magical lemonade for guests, I always ask if anyone can guess the ingredients: no one has ever guessed honey.
Three items are needed to make HML: 3.5 lbs of lemons, one 32 ounce (2 lbs) jar of honey, and a medium sized Tupperware container (roughly 7″ in diameter and 5″ deep).
