• 12Nov

    Tastings are Happening in Dupont and Rockville at Dawson’s Market!

    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.

    Dawson’s has an online event calendar.

    -JAY

    Permalink Filed under: Drinks, Etc, Products, Stores Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
  • 20Nov

    Three New Southern Restaurants!

    Hill Country’s Thanksgiving smoked turkey, and sausage.

    The first of these opened relatively recently, the second was converted from a different restaurant, and the third is about to open.

    Hill Country ( near Gallery Place) is a Texas style barbeque restaurant.  Their other restaurant is in New York City.  I have eaten there before (and like their chicken and sides), but I recently tried their entire Thanksgiving catering menu at a DC Food Blogger Happy Hour. we sampled the sausage, smoked turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, guacamole and chips, 3 pies (pumpkin, apple, and pecan), and 2 Blue Bell ice cream flavors (vanilla and banana split).  Everything was very good, and the desserts were extremely memorable.  Your thanksgiving order has to be in by tomorrow (the 21st) and picked up the 24th between 9am and noon.  A feast for 9-12 people is $265 and a feast for 5-8 people has a smaller turkey and is $185.

    Harry’s Smokehouse’s fried fish, fried shrimp, sausage, wings.

    Harry’s Smokehouse (in the Pentagon City Mall) is one half of the Harry’s Taproom split, with the other restaurant becoming Market Tavern. We sampled fried chicken, St. Louis style ribs, salmon, sausage, fried shrimp, fried fish, sliders, mac and cheese, greens, broccoli, baked beans, 2 kinds of corn bread, and various beers and mixed drinks. I was surprised at how good much of the menu was, with some of the standouts being the sausage (smoky and delicious), brisket, ribs, mixed greens (really good!), jalapeno corn bread, fried fish appetizer, and fried shrimp appetizer. The mac and cheese was surprisingly dull and lifeless.

    They have a good beer list and the mixed drinks were excellent (except the “Blues” drink which reminded me of OTC medicine). Harry’s has a variety of fruit purees they can add to iced tea or lemonade, and the peach iced tea and pineapple lemonade were very tasty and refreshing.

    We did not get to the dessert menu, which is a shame because they make the desserts in-house.

    Memphis’ New Orleans Style Seafood Gumbo.

    Memphis Barbecue is opening in Crystal City on December 1st.  We got to try the restaurant at the media pre-opening event.  The New Orleans style seafood gumbo was the absolute standout, although some people thought gumbo shouldn’t have crab meat sitting on top of it (and I disagree since the dish was delicious).  The bar-b-que baby back ribs and and blackened shrimp were good, as was the prime rib (although it was served well done and several of us would have preferred medium). The “Original Blondie Brownie” (which feels like one of those 3 words don’t belong) and ice cream sundae both featured the aforementioned Blue Bell ice cream.

    The misses? There were major service issues: many people got the wrong entree, my entree came way after the other dishes, and the waiters did not know the menu’s (and probably were busboys and not waiters). Also, 2 publicists (for this event, so they have a relationship with the restaurant) ordered salmon, which turned out to be very undercooked. The restaurant is not yet officially open, so I trust that these issues will be taken care of before the opening.

    I will definitely try this place again when it opens (and order the gumbo as a first course).

    -JAY

    Editor’s Note (2014): Memphis BBQ is out of business.

    Click to add a blog post for Harry's Smokehouse on Zomato

    Click to add a blog post for Hill Country Barbecue Market on Zomato

    Permalink Filed under: Events, Restaurants Tags: , , , 1 Comment
  • 26Nov

    Pre-Thanksgiving Hangover Braise

    Summer’s been over a while, and my food habits had gotten lazy. I needed a jolt: some dish that could pull me back to caring about food enough to spend the time to cook it. Discovering YDFM‘s bloody fabulous unpasteurized Parmesan was a good start, but it mostly just lead to Alfredo comas and suspicious decisions involving grits. Fall, it seems, was wasted on me. paulaner-oktoberfest

    But then came October and, better yet, Oktoberfest. Having drunk myself…drunk…all month, I ended up finding myself with a couple leftover bottles of Paulaner’s delightful seasonal. For reasons best left to everyone’s imaginations (quiet, you!), I realized they’d probably not get consumed in time, so I decided to try something a bit strange with some veggies, also nearly past due: I braised them. In beer. And put Parmesan on top. It’s like a very, very bougie ratatouille, and was bloody delicious, and easy, and a nice way to slide out of fall. I plan to keep on making until I get sick of it, which may be never. And it’ll be a great accompaniment to my Thanksgiving spread.

    Here’s the stuff:

    Preheat your oven to 350 while you chop.

    Fresh fennel, washed and cut into big bits (quarter the bulbs, etc)
    Yellow onion, similarly cut
    A couple handfuls diced carrot
    A couple handfuls diced red bell pepper

    And prep:
    Kosher salt
    Black pepper
    Enough Paulaner Oktoberfest to cover the rest
    Parmesan cheese (unpasteurized, though you could use pasteurized too, as long as it’s not from a green cylinder)

    Put everything except the cheese into a baking dish, and bake, uncovered, for about 15 minutes (less if the beer is not cold). After that time, take the dish out of the oven, stir things around, and sprinkle some cheese over top of the veggies. Now crank up the oven up to 400 and put the dish back in for 8-10 minutes, until the veggies are cooked. If you’ve used the right amount of beer, the cheese will get all nice and melty and brown, but if you’ve used too much, it’ll just melt into the liquid, which isn’t as elegant but may also be very tasty.

    Eat, preferably accompanied by the rest of that giant bloody beer you opened.

    Bonus: sopping up the clearly excessive quantities of braising liquid with hearty Bavarian rye bread. For dessert. Or breakfast. Possibly with all that leftover turkey.

    -MAW

    Permalink Filed under: Ingredients, Recipes Tags: , , , , No Comments
  • 19Nov

    What is a foodie to do?

    I’m in the middle of a crisis.  It’s not that I’m watching Angels in American while drinking pink champagne.  That my friends, that is divine!  Here is my problem; an age old conundrum that haunts us all at one time or another – where do I eat and what should I order?

    Let me use Thanksgiving as a case study.  My parents are coming for dinner – that makes us a party of four.  I love to cook – the brown butter pound cake fresh from the oven to my right would agree to this.  But for only four people, the hassle of Thanksgiving preparation becomes almost unbearable.  So, we shall eat out…but where?  Everyone loves Citronelle.  The Blue Duck Tavern was ok the first time I went, but if the Obama’s can date night there, may be its gotten better!  Rasika perhaps?  In the end, we’ve picked Corduroy.

    Why Corduroy?  Because it suits everyone’s needs.  Some hate fish, others don’t eat meat.  I’ve looked at the menu for Central – it looks delicious – but my partner won’t stick a chunk of bumblebee in his mouth unless there’s some mayo smothered on top.  I’ll probably never eat at Central.  Another place I’ll probably never eat – Wolfgang Puck’s offering. Asian-fusion speaks to everyone born after 1972, but it’s closed on Sunday.  Like Komi.  Chefs, I work hard for a living -hard, long hours.  Saturday is time to spend at home with my loved ones.  Sunday, I can eat out.  But not at The Source or Komi unfortunately.

    My point, as I come up for air through my rambling, is that I will probably never eat at some of the best restaurants in Washington, D.C.  Not for lack of resources or interest, but because dining out, is, in the end, compromise.  I eat out with people I enjoy – and if they hate seafood, good-bye Hook.  Should I go by myself?  Some people would.  I’ve seen a movie by myself, and I’ve buffeted at Bob’s Big Boy solo, but I’m not going top notch as a single.  Where’s the fun in it?  It’s all for the food some would say.  But eating is a communal act, and I need someone to trash talk the scallops with!

    Where do I eat, and what do I order?  I order what I want – I’m a big boy, like Bob, and I eat where everyone can enjoy the experience.  Everyone’s hungry?  Perkins is a no.  But we may stroll over to Open City.  Food is best when savored with company.   When everyone at the table is happy, the gods smile down from their endless serving of ambrosia, knowing in that moment, that we are all eating from the same dish.

    AEK

    Permalink Filed under: Etc, Restaurants Tags: , , , No Comments

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