I recently discovered Armenian cucumbers at Anchor Nursery’s stand at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market. They look and taste like cucumbers but are actually members of the melon family.
I like these “cucumbers” because they have the clean, fresh cucumber flavor without the bitter note you sometimes get from the skin. They’re also exceptionally crunchy, and there’s no need to peel them.
Anchor doesn’t have a sign for them at its stand, so you may need to ask where to find them. The Armenian cucumbers aren’t always on display because one of their employees likes to hide them (I’m not kidding!), so ask Emily, the proprietor, if she has any available.
They’re in season right now and are also available at Anchor’s Rose Park Farmers Market on Wednesdays in Georgetown.
Thanks Cassandra Hetherington (Main Streets Cleveland Park Director) for this scoop: “Stop by Coldstone Creamery (3501 Connecticut Avenue NW) on Tuesday February 11th between 5-6pm to meet the new owners Abby and Jingo. Grab a free scoop of ice cream while you’re there too!!”
Now we know where to go for watermelon sorbet with gummy bears this summer. Yes, it’s a thing! 🙂
And, thanks to our friend “Sh” for forwarding the message with the Coldstone Creamery intel.
Pressed opened across the Street from the P Street Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago. I checked it out last week, trying all four of the frozen treat flavors. I enjoyed the Dragon Fruit, Acai, and Golden Rosé flavors, but was not a fan of the Vanilla. The Acai bowl was flavorful, and included granola and good quality fresh fruit. I tried one shot (refresh, which is a tastier alternative to apple cider vinegar), two juices (Citrus 2, and Strawberry Basil Lemonade), one Acai Bowl, and some great and addictive chewie organic tropical mango candy from Candy Kittens. I liked that the two juices were not very sweet, which highlighted their flavors. All three employees (including Asha, the Manager) were personable and helpful.
Pressed is definitely a nice addition to the area, and it is great that it has outdoor seating. Georgetown and Mosaic District locations are coming soon.
-JAY
Disclosure: From time to time, we are given free items, meals, or entry to events. Our words are still our own.
This topic reminds me of my recurring column from many years ago about eating in Arlington when nearly broke. Here are some Dupont Circle specials:
Dawson’s Market free beer tastings on Thursdays (City State are DC Brau are the next two events). Photos of some previous tastings and their event calendar were covered in a previous article. They also have one Friday wine tasting a month at the DuPont location.
Duffy’s Irish pub (which opened on P Street during the pandemic) has dine in 1/2 price burgers Mondays with the purchase of a beverage all night and dine in all day/night 1/2 price wings Wednesdays with purchase of a beverage. Every Thursday from 4pm-7pm kids eat free from the kids menu with the purchase of an adult entrée and drink.
Rakuya has Happy Hour (HH) food and drink specials including $3 shishito peppers or edamame, $5 yakitori, $5.50 gyoza, green beans tempura, shumai, crunchy spice salmon rolls, or spicy tuna rolls. They also have $4-8 beer, $7 glasses of wine, and a few $8-9 cocktails on HH.
Firehook Bakery has Buy One Get One pastries M-F 5-6pm, but not cookies, or cupcakes; it’s items like scones and cinnamon rolls.
Across the Pond has a special on Mondays 4-8pm: $6 hamburger and fries ($1 additional per topping).
The Admiral HH features 3 cheeseburger siders for $10.
Specials from our neighbors:
Chef Geoff’s West end (a few blocks from DuPont) has a number of food on their HH menu like $4 mahi tacos, $6 white truffle popcorn, $12 pasta Bolognese, $5 off of burgers, etc. And, a few $8 cocktails and $10 supermug drafts.
Ted’s Bulletin in Logan Circle during their HH Monday – Friday 3 PM – 6:30 PM has $3 drafts, $5 wines, $7 cocktails, and food specials like $6 fried pickles, $6 French onion dip with truffle potato chips, and $7 chicken parm sliders, $7 bacon cheeseburger empanadas, or Rueben tacos.
Restaurants, bakeries, and grocery stores often have food left over at the end of the day that could go to waste. The Too Good To Go app is a marketplace where you can purchase food from business at the end of their day (or meal service). The items in these bags/boxes can be pretty random, even if you pick up two boxes at the same location (or on different days).
Ala
Le Pain Quotidien
The food is usually already packaged as a mystery bag (or box) when you pick it up during the specified timeframe, but there were some exceptions. I didn’t mind waiting a few minutes if a place put a bag together while I waited.
Rose Ave Bakery
Taim Falafel
Purchasing these deals can be competitive, with new mystery bags/boxes usually hitting the website 15 minutes after the current day’s pickup range ends. As an example, The Cakeroom‘s pickup range is 8pm to 9pm, which means that at 9:15pm on Tuesday, the mystery bags/boxes to be picked up Wednesday will populate on the app. There are exceptions such as Rose Ave Bakery that sometimes drop mystery bags/boxes on the app for same day pickup.
Zenebech
The Cakeroom
Below are mystery bags/boxes I tried:
Ala ($3.99) in Dupont Circle has two pickups with different types of items, afternoon and evening (and I tried both). The above image is from the afternoon timeslot, and contained a Halva Croissant, Apple Tea (loose chopped dehydrated apples), an herbal teabag, Meringues, one Thumbprint Cookie, and Crunchy Chickpeas (dried).
Le Pain Quotidien ($4.99) gave me 3 pastries: a Cheese Danish, an Apple Turnover, and a Pan Aux Raisins. PDQ is much more readily available on the app than other baked goods options and has multiple locations (Dupont, 17th Street, Penn Quarter) you can choose from.
Rose Ave Bakery ($3.99) downtown offers fun Asian American-themed pastries. It is located at The Block DC food hall with Pogiboy, which is also on the Too Good To Go app. My Rose Ave mystery box contained green pastries: two Matcha White Chocolate Donuts, a Pandan Donut (green filling), and a Matcha Chocolate Cookie.
Taim Falafel‘s ($3.99) mystery bag included a Falafel Bowl and Tractor Beverage Company‘s Mandarin Cardamom. Their Georgetown and Dupont Circle Locations are both on the Too Good To Go app.
Zenebech ($4.99) is an Ethiopian restaurant in Adam’s Morgan. When I checked in, they put together a Vegetarian Combo for me with injera (spongy flat bread made from teff). I was lucky enough to score bags from both Zenebech and The Cakeroom to be picked up on the same evening, which was nice, because they are on the same street a few blocks from each other.
The Cakeroom ($5.99) put together a bag of mostly chocolate flavored items. There was a slice of Cherry Cheesecake, two slices of Chocolate Vanilla Cake, and two Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes.
I recommend Too Good To Go in DC (it’s in other cities too) but you need to be open to receiving really random items, especially at Ala. If you get something you can’t eat, share it with a friend. Too Good To Go is definitely a good value, since most of the mystery bags I received were worth 3 to 4 times what I paid.
There’s a great relatively new Asian Market in the basement of Rice restaurant in Logan Circle about a block from the P Street Whole Foods. The people working in the market are friendly and helpful.
I often see interesting produce like makrut limes, key limes, holy basil (tulsi), yuzu, Thai Basil, and Thai bird chilies in the market. They carry a variety of prepared foods (from the restaurant upstairs), dry goods including green, red, and black rice, and various types of noodles, condiments, and sauces. The selection is a bit random, with a different option for fish sauce being available on each of my visits. They have groceries from various countries in Asia including Thailand, Korea, China, and Indonesia. It’s a “go and see what they have today” kind of a shop.
The Rounds sponsored a giveaway though Washington City Paper (and I won). It was random that a food blogger won, but I figured it would be nice to give back with a little publicity.
S’mores Pop-tart from Ted’s Bulletin
Everything Bagel from Bethesda Bagel
Bread from Seylou Bakery
Texas Sheet Cake Ice Cream from Jeni’s
Some wonderful local products/companies that The Rounds carries were featured — you can see the list in one of the above images. They even included a Wick & Paper scented candle, and gift cards from Jeni’s Ice Cream and Le Diplomate. For the record, the Baked & Wired Carrot Cake Cupcake was the first thing I ate. 🙂
Glen’s Garden Market in Dupont Circle recently became Dawson’s Market. The store seems mostly the same, which is nice. I know that a lot of businesses haven’t gotten back to doing tastings, but Dawson’s is an exception.
Every Thursday, Dawson’s has a different brewery pour samples 5pm-7pm during a weekly cookout, but lately other tastings have been happening as well. Today, both the Dupont Circle and Rockville locations had a wine and cheese tasting (see the Siema Wines photo above for Dupont Circle), and this weekend there will be tastings from Dawson’s Thanksgiving Menu. In Rockville the Thanksgiving menu tasting will be on Saturday, November 13th 12pm-3pm, and in Dupont, it will be on Sunday, November 14th 12pm-3pm.
We’ve written about Dizzy Pig‘s spice rubs many times, and cook with Peruvian-ish and Raging River often. But, now I’ve tried Mad Max Turkey, and since it is just around for the holiday season, it’s a good time to mention it. This spice rub contains herbs (including sage) and garlic, and is designed for turkey, stuffing and gravy. Oh, and try Mediterranean-ish in pasta sauce, pizza, or garlic bread! Chris really knows how to design spice rubs, which is one reason his professional grilling team has won so many awards.
Bluefish Fillet with Onions and Raw Spice Bar’s Creole Seasoning.
Also, I’ve been experimenting with Raw Spice Bar‘s Products. We are very impressed with the quality of their spices. We enjoyed the Creole Seasoning, Jamaican Jerk, Ras-El-Hanout, and Malaysian Curry. Ok, we were split on the last one, but personally, I liked it. The Creole Seasoning was great on bluefish fillets (which was impressive), the Ras-El-Hanout (a Middle Eastern spice mix) worked well on both cauliflower and turkey burgers, the Malaysian Curry created a star out of chicken thighs, and Jamaican Jerk flavored chicken drumsticks wonderfully. We haven’t had a chance to try the Turkish Cured Sumac (since we are waiting till we make rice or buy some hummus) yet but it smells great.
We recently sampled a variety of Pacari‘s organic Ecuadorian chocolate. We loved the Manabi, Raw Chocolate, and the Nibs. We also are fans of the Andean Mint (which is not in the image to the right) and Passion Fruit. This is high quality organic chocolate, and they have raw options as well. We aren’t fans of the Chocolate Covered Golden Berries, but if they have any other chocolate covered fruit, we’d love to try it. Oh, we want to try the variety with cardamom, but they were out of it when we placed an order. Pacari is my pick for holiday gifts this year.
