One of our favorite local charities, Food and Friends is having its wonderful fund raiser, Dining Out for Life next Thursday, March 10. Over 140 restaurants are participating. You can see the list and reserve your seats here.
Dining out for Life is in it's fifteenth year and your lunch, dinner or both will hep put thousands of meals on the tables of your neighbors in need. Happy Dining!
A. now lives in Mount Pleasant, but she left her heart in Bloomingdale, a leafy neighborhood near Howard University. Though the weather was not cooperating, I wanted to check out my friend's haunt, Big Bear Cafe, which is also lauded for its amazing lattes.
The cafe, on the corner of R and 1st street, NW, is the quintessential neighborhood coffee shop, complete with dancing-by-the-counter regulars, artwork on every available wall, staff that remembers your usual, and people deep in conversation nursing counter culture coffee or, thanks to a recently acquired license, a selection of funky beers. It takes a confident kitchen to have a single dinner option - Big Bear does sandwiches until 5 PM, but it's 8 PM closing time calls for a minimal dinner menu.
I got there a bit past 5.30 to find A. there, hard at work. Though the tables run small, there were plenty of people there with laptops. In the spirit of a true coffeehouse, the dim light and ambient music creates an atmosphere that lends itself more to chatting and people watching through its tall windows than anything else. A. had lured me there with the offer of chili and organic beer - two things that hit the spot on a frigid winter evening.
The chili - $8, including extra corn bread, is a lovely example of the possibilities of vegetarian food. Beans floating in soupy mix of spice (Chipotle) and acid (vinegar, and hints of lime), topped with a bit of sharp cheese and some cilantro. The corn bread is delicious, and I crumbled mine on the bowl for some extra texture. A. chose the porter and I had the Framboise, a Belgian raspberry beer that is refreshing and so aromatic it gave the chili a run for its money. At $9 it is the second most expensive on the menu, but the bottle is bigger than the $5 options. The chili was delicious but the size of the portion does not make for a hearty dinner.
While this is a coffeehouse that is very much embedded into its neighborhood, the quality of ingredients and the friendly service make it well worth the visit. For us interlopers, Big Bear Cafe is very easy to get to on the G2 bus, and on Sunday they are the anchor for the Bloomingdale Farmer's Market.
Big Bear Cafe
1700 1st St NW
Washington, DC 20001
www.bigbearcafe-dc.com
Monterrey, my hometown, is the capital of a landlocked state in Northeastern Mexico. And yet, whenever I make it back for work or play, I eat seafood almost every day.
Not really a ceviche, Vuelve a La Vida (Back to Life) is the sophisticated older sister of the shrimp cocktail. Topped with slivers of fresh avocado, this seafood cocktail is one of my favorite ways to beat the heat. There's nothing in DC quite like it, but my mission is to successfully replicate it before summer.
Recipe from Big Oven.Another good one, also in English And a third
Remember, cocktail sauce is a must!
Oh, and if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods, try Chef Alfredo Villanueva's valentine to regional Cuisine, San Luisito, Costa Nueva and El Muelle de Al Lado for Pacific seafood, and La Catarina for a contemporary spin on amazing Mexican food. And if you are looking for a Burger Sherpa in the city, check out my friend JJ Garza-Onofre's fantastic blog.
Perusing our recent entries, you'd think that we only go out for brunch. While we need to play catch up (Bibiana and Blue Duck for Restaurant Week, an early January culinary scavenger hunt through the city, an an organic delivery service in Bethesda, to name a few) brunch will always have a special place in my heart - the one meal where food and relaxation can trump any other consideration.
Contributor extraordinaire Maria got married over the weekend and, with the help of a very understanding catering manager, we managed to throw an after-nuptials family brunch during Restaurant Week. The private dining room at Urbana fits 12, and during the peak of the brunch service we were grateful for the sliding doors that separate it from the main dining room (extra tables for Restaurant Week, ceramic tiles and Bottomless Bellinis generate an atmosphere that, while usually appreciated, were grating my sleep-deprived, slightly hungover self on this particular outing).
Our reservation was for 1 PM, so our group fell on both sides of the brunch divide - hamburgers and Chicken Caesar Salad for some, breakfast items for the rest of us, and coffee all around. The Bottomless Bellini (with refills all through Brunch until 3 PM) is still a steal at $16: a selection of fresh juices (favorites include passion fruit and strawberry, while the Pear is not for the faint of palate) topped with sparkling wine (an Italian Prosecco, Montelliana, with a mineral content that makes it ideal for mixing). Through years of practice (our extended neighborhood and all) Maria is particularly adept at creating creative concoctions. Tables of 4 or more get to keep the bottle table-side.
For their first brunch as a married couple, the newlyweds had classic menu items - a three egg omelette with everything minus the chorizo for the groom, and the Challah French Toast with a side of bacon for the bride who, despite her best efforts, always orders the same thing. The stomach, like the heart, wants what it wants, and Sunday was no exception. There's something about the crunch from the griddle and the acidity of the strawberry compote paired with the maple syrup that conspires to make this a great dish. As for me - I skipped the Bellinis (Botomless Cup of Coffee did the trick for me that day) and had the blueberry pancakes with bananas and a side of eggs. The eggs can come in any style but I chose scrambled, slightly runny, and doused with the hot sauce I requested. The pancakes are fantastic - fluffy, and with just a touch of blueberry. The banana slices are placed on top, and the dish could easily do without them. But at least you can use them to tell yourself you re having two servings of fruit, and conveniently forget to account for the warm maple syrup. Our server, Dana, heroically handled the sliding door and our floating head count to make this a very happy close to the festivities.
Urbana Restaurant and Wine Bar at Hotel Palomar Dupont Circle
2121 P St NW
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 956-6650
www.urbanadc.com
As far as gastronomy-related performances go, Perry's Sunday Brunch is hard to beat. Brunch, my favorite meal, promises a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and exaggerates certain characteristics with a flourish - breakfast in drag, and at a much more convenient hour. While Perry's is a destination for groups of revelers, T. and I decided to give it the Any Given Sunday treatment and just showed up at their recommended hour of 11.45 AM. Perry's does not take reservation, and your arrival time is noted by the hostess. You are welcome to wait at the very crowded bar (where we were treated to a dancing father-daughter duo, as well as patrons that were sporting handle bar mustaches and bleached and permed hair). Most of the tables turn when the performers take breaks, and our wait was about 45 minutes. The servers play a huge part in keeping everybody happy and imbibed - Perry's serves the strongest Mimosa I've ever had in DC, with just a splash of OJ to go with your bubbles.
If you have anything important to discuss with your brunch companions, this is not the place to do it. The Queens command attention, and the disco/Lady Gaga/Beyonce mix blares on top of the ding of a crowded dining room. It is also a more interactive experience than the Gospel Brunch at the Corcoran (where, I suspect, none of the performers will ask you if you want or need a BBC in your life). On Sundays Perry's goes from a la carte to a buffet (around $25 per person, cocktails are about $6 each). I am not a huge fan of brunch buffets, and the long line that forms in between shows makes repeated visits difficult (the solution is giving you an enormous plate, which may not be everyone's favorite strategy). However, the kitchen tops off the selections regularly, and everything is well prepared - everything from eggs, salads, waffles, noodles, sushi, cold cuts, lasagna, orzo salad, and grilled chicken and pork. The corn muffins are very tasty and the dolmas, though they had no reason to be there, were chilled and tangy. The sushi is nothing special on its own, but its sheer presence next to scrambled eggs makes the roles noteworthy.
The most boisterous brunch in the city, and a wonderful way to beat the winter blues.
Perry's Restaurant
1811 Columbia Rd NW
Washington, DC 20009
www.perrysadamsmorgan.com
Another recycled post from my now-defunct personal blog, The Border Fence. This one is from 19 December 2006. A safe and happy holiday season to all.
It’s a quiet night in Maryland and I am enjoying one-upmanship on my behalf. Each person in the house is cooking a dish, and soon the kitchen table decked out in Marimekko is populated by different entrees: whole fish in sauce, pork and peanuts, scrambled eggs with tiny fish, perfectly cooked vegetables, and tofu stir fried with mushrooms and bacon. I make a mental note to discuss this last dish with all the vegetarians I know.
The project involving visiting Chinese lawyers will wrap soon. They will fly home on New Year’s Eve, and are thinking about things to do with their last few days in the US. They ask me to suggest some activities, a question that comes as second nature by now, considering I have been running their lives for the better part of 6 months. I have never spent the Holidays in DC, but I rattle down a list: the Messiah at the Kennedy Center, the huge Menorah at the Ellipse, the rather quaint trees at the Capitol, Union Station and behind the White House. I warn them that all museums close on the 25th and that maybe they can take the opportunity to sample some local cuisine. They shudder at the thought, but reveal that they have partaken in a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon tradition.
“We went caroling yesterday around the neighborhood with the church from down the street. Can you help us figure out some of the words?”
I smile at how new the age-old songs must seem to them. I am giving a thoroughly parsed booklet and go through the circled words:
“Bethlehem is the town where Jesus was born. Noel is another word for Christmas, and it comes from the French Noёl, a manger is where you keep animals. Gloria in Excelsis Deo is in Latin, not English, and it means Glory to God Above / in Heaven. Hark is a call to attention, I think. Ye is old English for The. Christ/Jesus/Christ the Lord is sort of used interchangeably […]”
“Will there be fireworks for Christmas?”
I am sorry to disappoint them, especially because they arrived in DC right after the Fourth of July. Maybe there are firework displays in the South, and in some locales for New Year’s, but not anywhere near them.
“Do you have fireworks in Mexico for Christmas?”
I set my tea down. I remember pointing empty Coke bottles at the sky, the perfect launching pad for whistling rockets, running around on the street in front of and behind spinning multicolor rosettes, covering my ears as black cats popped without much show. My grandfather’s gift of Bengal lights, his hand holding a Zippo steadily beneath a bumpy gray rod almost as tall as me, with ignition revealing millions of bright orange limbs that clawed into the night sky.
“Of course. Mexico is the land of Christmas tigers.”
