The U.S. Bartender’s Guild-DC Chapter has teamed up with Campari to host D.C.’s Negroni Week to raise money and awareness for charities worldwide. During Negroni Week, June 1-7, a portion of the proceeds from every Negroni or Negroni-related item sold at participating retailers, bars and restaurants will be donated to charity. This year, 47 DMV bars and restaurants will offer their own custom versions of the cocktail.
Monday marks the start of Negroni Week in D.C. (Photo: Civilandnaval)
Negroni Week DC will end with “NegroniMania,” a rally of participating restaurants and their respective bartenders and mixologists for one final Negroni toast at Equity Eats, 918 F St. NW on Sunday June 7 from 2-6 p.m. Guests will enjoy unlimited Negroni tastings from participating restaurants as well as heavy hors d’ oeuvres courtesy of Prequel, D.C.’s first successful crowdfunded restaurant. Proceeds from NegroniMania will benefit Miram’s Kitchen. Tickets can be purchased for $60 at http://www.prequaldc.com PrequalDC.com
NegroniMania participatns include Copycat, Provision No. 14, Chaplin’s, Graffiatto, Found Farmers, MXDC, Tico, Daikaya, Vinoteca, Jack Rose Dining Saloon, Lupo Verde, The Gibson, Lincoln and Brine. A full list of Negroni Week participants is available on the website.
Chick-fil-a, Shanghai Tokyo Cafe coming to Columbia Heights
The Columbia Heights neighborhood is getting two new restaurants. Construction on both is currently underway.
Shanghai Tokyo Cafe will open in Columbia Heights were the former Oxxo drycleaner was. (Photo: Popville)
Shanghai Tokyo Cafe, which as has locations in College Park and Columbia, Md., will open at 1376 Park Road NW in the former Oxxo drycleaners beside Sticky Fingers.
The Columbia location serves Chinese, Japanese and Malaysian cuisine while College Park serves Chinese, Japanese and Thai. No word on what Columbia Heights will serve.
Chick-fil-a will open at 3100 14th St. NW, Suite 104, in the former Lime Fresh Mexican Grill in the DC USA development.
There’s no word on when either restaurant will open.
Hula Girl to open in Shirlington
Mikala Brennan, the owner/operator of the Hula Girl food truck, plans to open her first brick and mortar restaurant, Hula Girl Bar and Grill, in September at 4044 Campbell Ave., Arlington, in the former Aladdin’s Eatery space, which closed last October.
Hula Girl Bar and Grill plans to open in September in the former Aladdin’s Eatery space. (Photo: Google Maps)
Diners can enjoy their favorite Hula Girl truck dishes in the 3,600 square foot restaurant designed by Hapstak Demetriou. The space will have a retro vibe with seating for 100 guests, as well as an outdoor patio with seating for 25.
The restaurant will serve Hula Girl food truck’s classic Hawaiian fare such as teriyaki, plate lunches and Spam musubi, as well as traditional dishes like LauLau, butterfish and pork belly wrapped in taro and tea leaves. It will also serve Hawaiian cocktails, as well as mix of local and Hawaiian beers.
Brennan was born and raised in Hawaii. She opened her food truck, which is decked out like a 1960s Woody, in 2011. She opened her first restaurant in 1998 in San Diego. She sold it to a business partner in Canada and was tapped by Marriott International to lead its new food and beverage department, bringing her hands-on, from scratch cooking approach into this hotel giant’s corporate structure. In 2001, she opened Evolve Consultants, where she created, designed and opened over 40 domestic and international concepts.
DC Coast hosts Summer Crab Fest
Crab cakes are on the crab tower during DC Coast’s Saturday crab fest. (Photo: DC Coast)
Beginning today, DC Coast, 1401 K St. NW, will host a weekly Summer Crab Fest each Saturday evening starting at 5:30 p.m.
Executive chef and native Marylander Miles Vaden’s four-course family-style menu will include signature dishes as well as a new wave of peak-season crab specialties for $55 or $80 with optional wine pairings with each course.
The meal begins with Maryland crab bisque with sherry froth and Old Bay oyster crackers followed by a crab tower salad with crispy fried green tomato, avocado, frisée, mâche, basil vinaigrette and lime mustard aioli. The third course crab platter showcases an array of local fare with crab cakes, softshell tempura, crab andouille and crab hollandaise with sides of truffle potato salad, sweet corn succotash and creamed spinach. The meal ends with key lime pie with ginger graham crust, Island Rum dulce de leche and toasted meringue.
Del Campo launches asado menu, late night happy hour
Del Campo, 777 I St. NW, is gearing up for summer with an Argentine asado menu and late night happy hour specials.
All summer long Del Campo is offering its take on a traditional Argentine asado in the form of a new fixed-price menu. Served family-style, the menu starts with grilled provoleta and salad before a main event of flank steak, sweetbreads, chicken, short-ribs and chorizo. It is available for dinner throughout the restaurant for $45 per person.
The restaurant is also offering a late night happy hour from 10 p.m.-midnight Thursday through Saturday. The late night happy hour includes drink specials along with complimentary anticuchos, chorizo bites and grilled provoleta sandwiches at the bar and on the patio.
Richard Sandoval restaurants join Eat (RED) Drink (RED) campaign
This June, chef Richard Sandoval’s restaurants will participate in the Eat (RED) Drink (RED) Campaign, the worldwide culinary campaign to turn up the heat on the AIDS fight and raise money to eliminate AIDS. Throughout the month, Masa 14, El Centro D.F., Toro Toro and Zengo will feature a (RED) cocktail with a percentage of each cocktail going to RED. Each restaurant hopes to raise $1,460.
A portion of the proceeds from Zengo’s Yuva Fresca will go to the (Red) Campaign during June. (Photo: Zengo)
El Centro, 1819 14th St. NW and 1218 Wisconsin Ave. NW, is serving the Red & Smokey made with Mina Real mezcal, chili ginger and hibiscus for $12. Masa 14, 1825 14th St. NW, is offering a strawberry lemonade made with vodka, fresh strawberry purée, and fresh lemon juice for $8. The La Bamba Punch made with Luxardo cherry liqueur, dark rum, triple sec, fresh lemon juice, cranberry and Champagne will be featured at Toro Toro, 1300 I St. NW, for $10. And Zengo, 781 7th St. NW, will serve the Yuza Fresa made with Sobieski citrus vodka, lemon, strawberry puree, lemon and sour for $11.
Also, Sandoval has been selected along with a handful of others a U.S. Chef Ambassador for the Eat (RED) Drink (RED) Campaign.
DC Greens hosts inaugural K Street Farm dinner
DC Greens, an organization working to create a healthy food system in the nation’s capital, will host its first K Street Farm Dinner on June 2 at its urban farm at the corner of K Street and New Jersey Avenue NW. The rain location is Union Market’s Dock 5. The dinner features some of the area’s top chefs, who will prepare dinner on the K Street Farm, a parcel of city land that’s managed by the non-profit organization featuring locally grown produce.
The K Street Farm was formerly the Farm at Walker-Jones. (Photos: BadWolf DC)
Drinks at the welcome cocktail reception will be served from the farm’s potting shed, which will be transformed into a bar serving craft cocktails for the evening along with a vintage Airstream, which will serve local wine from Virginia’s Early Mountain Vineyards.
The family-style dinner will be prepared by local chefs including Ruben Garcia of MiniBar, Spike Mendelsohn of Good Stuff Eatery and Béarnaise, Mike Friedman of The Red Hen, Jeremiah Langhorne of the forthcoming The Dabney, Bryan Voltaggio of Aggio, Family Meal, Lunchbox, Range and Volt, Mike Isabella of Mike Isabella Concepts and Tiffany MacIsaac of Buttercream Bakeshop. Guests include Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who are on DC Greens’ board of advisors.
VIP tickets are $600 each and include a welcome reception starting at 5:30 p.m., a gift back and dinner. General admission is $250 and includes the 5:30 cocktail reception and 7:15 p.m. dinner. Tickets are available http://www.dcgreens.org online.
Nage Bistro debuts summer wine specials
Nage Bistro, 1600 Rhode Island Ave. NW, has a new summer wine program. Guests can enjoy hard-to-find, traditionally expensive wines at special prices. The wines are offered by the bottle only and will change throughout the summer through Labor Day.
Opening options include 2012 Chateau de Sancere Loire, France; 2010 Domaine JA Ferret Pouilly-Fuisse Tete de cru Les Perrieres Maconnais, France; 2006 Terlato & Chapoutier Shiraz Pyrenees, Australia; 2008 Domaine Berthet – Reyne Chateauneuf du Pape Rhone, France; 2009 Sequoia Grove Cambium Blend Napa Valley, Calif.; 2012 Barboursville Cabernet Franc Reserve Barboursville, Va.; 2008 Rodney Strong Reserve Cabernet Alexander Valley, Calif.; 2012 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet/Shiraz Southern Australia; and 2009 Far Niente Cabernet Oakville, Calif.. They are priced from $40-$99 per bottle.
EatWell DC names two new chefs
Shabier Bahramy (Photo: EatWell DC)
EatWell DC has named two new chefs de cuisine at its Logan Circle restaurants.
Shabier Bahramy will head up the kitchen at Logan Tavern, 1423 P St. NW, while Victor Garcia takes over Commissary, 1443 P St. NW. Both previously worked at EatWell DC restaurants.
“The decision to promote from within at both locations showcases the commitment and connection we have with our staff,” said EatWell DC principal David Winer in a press release. “Both chefs have strong culinary backgrounds and understand our vision of farm-to-table neighborhood cuisine, and that made them the obvious choice.”
Victor Garcia (Photo: EatWell DC)
Garcia has been with EatWell DC for the past seven years and was most recently the executive sous chef at Logan Tavern. Prior to joining the company, he started his career at Chef Geoff when he came to the United States from El Salvador in 2005.
Bahramy was most recently the executive sous chef at The Pig, where he worked for the past two years. Following his career launch at Wildfire in McLean, Va., Bahramy apprenticed for The Pig’s chef Michael Bonk at The Queen Vic before moving with him to The Pig. He holds a Culinary Management degree from the Art Institute of Washington.
Mango Tree gets new executive chef
Adrian Salazar (Photo: Mango Tree)
After only just opening in January, Mango Tree, 929 H St. NW in CityCenterDC, has replaced Paul Kennedy with Adrian Salazar as executive chef. Salazar previously worked as a sous chef at Zaytinya before coming to Mango Tree as a sous chef last December for its January opening.
Since his promotion, Salazar has wasted no time enhancing his reputation as a local sourcing and farm-to-fork fanatic, persuading local farmers to start growing Thailand aubergines for the restaurant. In June, he plans to visit Chesapeake Bay’s oyster and soft-shell crab fishermen to foster a closer relationship and get the inside track on the best and freshest seafood, with a view to offering two or three locally-sourced seafood specials daily.
Salazar’s culinary career began at age 17, shucking oysters at Blue Point Kitchen and Bar in Tucson, Ariz. He worked in ever increasing positions of responsibility at Tucson establishments such as Wildflower American Cuisine and St. Francis in Phoenix.
]]>Local celebrity chef Bryan Voltaggio was charged with drunken driving following a traffic stop in Baltimore on June 6, according to online court records.
Bryan Voltaggio was arrested for drunk driving June 6 in Baltimore. (Photo: Volt)
The season six Top Chef runner-up was charged with driving while impaired, driving under the influence of alcohol, and driving under the influence per se, which means his blood alcohol level allegedly tested at more than .08 percent.
Baltimore police stopped Voltaggio, 38, who lives in the 9000 block of Bishop Gate Drive in Frederick, Md., at 12:20 a.m. on South Howard Street in Baltimore. Voltaggio did not contribute to an accident or cause personal injury, the records show. The records also show that he was committed on June 6 and released on June 7. A court dates is set for 9 a.m. on Sept. 19 in Baltimore Circuit Court.
Voltaggio owns a number of restaurants in the DMV including Range, Aggio and Lunchbox in Friendship Heights, and Volt and Family Meal in Frederick. He is opening another Family Meal in Ashburn and a second Italian-themed Aggio in the Inner Harbor in a space formerly occupied by Tatu, a sushi and Asian-styled restaurant.
Archambault leaves Blue Duck Tavern for The Back Room
Executive Chef Sebastien Archambault has left the Blue Duck Tavern at the Park Hyatt Washington for The Back Room at One57 restaurant at the new Park Hyatt New York, the brand’s flagship hotel.
Archambault came to the Blue Duck Tavern in December 2011. Under his direction, the restaurant received many local and national accolades.
Chef Sebastien Archambault has left the Blue Duck Tavern for The Back Room at One57 restaurant at the new Park Hyatt New York. (Photo: Mark Heckathorn/DC on Heels)
Archambault was born in Lubbock, Texas, where his parents owned and operated a small restaurant before returning to their home in Le Bugue, France. It was there Archambault developed his love of food while working in his family’s restaurant. He graduated from the two-year French cooking and hospitality program of ESCF – Ferrandi. He worked at several award-winning restaurants including Restaurant Les Bouquinistes, under the direction of Guy Savoy, and at Restaurant Alain Ducasse. From 2000-2003 he worked Jean-Francois Rouquette at the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome as a line cook and moving up to sous chef. He served as executive chef at Restaurant Champs-Elysees in Mexico, Restaurant Le Pirate in Corsica, which earned one Michelin star during his tenure, the Andaz West Hollywood hotel and its RH Restaurant and finally L’Epicerie Market in Los Angeles before coming to D.C.
A signature of Archambault’s cooking is using fresh, locally sourced ingredients, which he stressed at the Blue Duck Tavern.
The Park Hyatt New York and The Back Room, located in midtown across from Carnegie Hall and two blocks from Central Park, are slated to open this Tuesday, Aug. 19. Walter Brindell, former general manager of the Park Hyatt Washington, is the general manager of the new New York location. It is New York’s first 5-star hotel since 2003 with rooms starting at $795 a night.
A spokeswoman told DC on Heels that “Park Hyatt Washington is currently interviewing for his replacement.”
Alexandria Summer Restaurant Week is Aug. 15-24
Alexandria Summer Restaurant Week is going on now through Aug. 24. Sixty participating restaurants are offering a dinner for two or a three-course, prix-fixe menu for $35. Click here to see a full list of participating restaurants and their restaurant week menus.
EatWell DC restaurants host benefit for City Dogs Rescue
EatWell DC’s restaurants will host their third annual Dining Out With the Dogs on Monday, Aug. 18, from 5 p.m. to close to benefit City Dogs Rescue. Participating restaurants Commissary, Grillfish, Logan Tavern, The Heights and The Pig will donate 15 percent of dinner sales to the organization, which works to rescue adoptable dogs in overcrowded and high-kill shelters throughout the DMV.
The event has raised more than $10,000 n its first two years and organizers hope to surpass a 2014 goal of $7,000.
“City Dogs Rescue’s mission is one that resonates with our company and so many of our guests,” said EatWell DC partner Josh Hahn, who helped launch EatWell DC’s charitable arm Give Well in 2010. “GiveWell allows us to have a great impact on the charities and community organizations in which we believe, and City Dogs does incredible, important work that we want to support.”
To increase contributions, EatWell DC has implemented a few new perks for diners this year. Partnering with American Harvest, each restaurant will feature a vodka cocktail with 100 percent of proceeds donated to City Dogs. Happy hour will run as usual until 7 p.m. at all restaurants, but each bar will have a “late night” happy hour from 10-11 p.m. In addition, any child can receive a free meal from the kids menu until 6:30 p.m.
Dogs are welcome to join on Commissary, Grillfish, Logan Tavern and The Heights’ patios, where City Dogs will have adoptable pups greeting guests.
Momofuku coming to CityCenterDC next year
Chef/owner David Chang tweeted on Wednesday that he will open his newest Momofuku restaurant in CityCenterDC, at the corner of 11th and I Streets NW, in the spring or summer of 2015.
Hey dc. @momofuku isn't coming home solo @momomilkbar & @ChristinaTosi are opening a spot too! That's right soft serve & cookies for all
— Dave Chang (@davidchang) August 13, 2014
Chang, who grew up in Northern Virginia, said the 4,500 square foot space will be the largest of any of his restaurants outside of Toronto. He said there will be items on the menu that the restaurant has never been done before or done before, but not a lot, as well as favorites. An outpost of Momofuku Milk Bar, the dessert branch of the empire headed by James Beard Award-winning chef/Springfield, Va. native Christina Tosi, will open inside the new restaurant.
Menus for the D.C. restaurant are still being developed but a Momofuku spokesman said the restaurant will offer a sort of greatest hits menu from other locations. But, Tosi expects her Milk Bar to feature items are legendary in Manhattan and Toronto like compost cookies will fillings such as broken potato chips and pretzels; crack pie, with an oat-cookie crust; and cereal milk steeped with sugary cornflakes.
Mio’s piragua cart. (Photo: Mio)
Mio serves boozy snow cones
Mio Restaurant, 1110 Vermont Ave. NW has added piragua, a Puerto Rican shaved ice dessert made with fresh fruit syrup. The ice cones are prepared at Mio’s Piragua cart on the patio.
The piraguas come in eight flavors: tamarind, guava, coconut, mango, lime, passion fruit, pineapple and Mio’s signature Puerto Rican coffee. The shaved ice is topped with a shot of DonQ Rum.
The cooling libation will be served through Sept. 21 at the restaurant’s 65-seat bar/lounge or on the 38-seat outdoor patio. Each flavor is priced at $5. Nonalcoholic cones, also priced at $5, are also available upon request.
Sample a MAG-nificent Cab at Blue Duck Tavern
Every Tuesday evening in August, Blue Duck Tavern’s general manager Joseph Cerione will be pouring a specially selected rare magnum of a featured cabernet sauvignon for a taste of the wines, which are not found on the restaurant’s wine list.
Blue Duck Tavern’s general manager Joseph Cerione shows off some of the Cavs that will be served. (Photo: BisNow)
With the Blue Duck Uncorked series, the restaurant will showcase one magnum bottle each week so guests can enjoy four-ounce pours for $30 each.
Cerione has chosen an assortment of Napa Valley Cabernets from the 1980s to showcase over. On Aug. 19, a 1982 special select cabernet sauvignon from Caymus Vineyards will be highlighted; on Aug. 26, a 1981 cabernet sauvignon from Silver Oak; and Sept. 2, a 1989 cabernet sauvignon from La Jota Vineyards will be poured.
“We chose to incorporate these vintage California cabernet wines into our Blue Duck Uncorked summer selection, as over time, they have matured to a lighter body with softer tannins,” says Garrett Kaneshiro, the restaurant’s director of food and beverage. “After the 1976 Judgment of Paris, these iconic producers really helped to put Napa on the map and define this style of wine through the 1980s and beyond. The retail wine list price for these magnums ranges from $650 to $1,600.”
The Blue Duck Tavern is located in the Park Hyatt Washington, 24th & M Streets NW.
Brookland Pint opens Monday
Brookland Pint, 716 Monroe St. NE in the new Monroe Street Market, will open at 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 18, just in time for D.C. Beer Week.
Owner John Andrade in front of Brookland Pint. (Photo: Popville)
Owner John Andrade also owns Meridian Pint in Columbia Heights and Smoke & Barrel in Adams Morgan.
The Brookland restaurant and beer bar will open daily at 5 p.m. before adding lunch and brunch service after a few weeks.
Like its sister restaurants, Brookland Pint will focus on American craft beer with two dozen taps and a special “cellared list” of aged bottled, but a big attraction at this location will be a large outdoor patio along the Market’s gallery-filled Artwalk.
Rebecca Hassell, formerly sous chef at Estadio and executive chef at Big Bear Cafe, is running the kitchen.
Brookland Pint is open from 5 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
]]>Aggio, Bryan Voltaggio’s new restaurant-within-a-restaurant, opened Valentine’s Day serving the Top Chef alum’s modern Italian cuisine and six-course tasting menus.
Brian Voltaggio’s restaurant-in-a-restaurant Aggio is located inside Range in Friendship Heights. (Photo: Dane Nakamura/Twitter)
The new restaurant occupies a large portion of the private party room in the back of Range, Voltaggio’s restaurant in the Chevy Chase Pavilion, 5335 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Aggio is open Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 5-10:30 p.m., and Friday-Saturday from 5-11 p.m.
The makeover, which took less than three weeks, features brown and beige circle-studded wallpaper, and a plush black sofa and chairs lobby. New light fixtures were added to the white table-clothed dining area, which seats 82 guests. It also has a different kitchen, staff including executive chef Johnny Miele, wine list and music.
Unlike Range, which serves small plates, Aggio’s traditional menu features antipasti, soups and salads, pasta, fish, poultry, beef ad authentic classics that use sustainable, domestic ingredients treated with classic and progressive techniques. Diners have the option of a six-course tasting menu for $95 each evening which can also include wine pairings devised by Range’s two in-house master sommeliers. The website not fully functional yet and the menu and pricing was not available. However, Voltaggio did Tween out a photo of the menu.
The Fredrick News-Post reported Monday that Voltaggio will open a second Aggio at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor at 616 Water St. in a space occupied by Tatu, a sushi and Asian-styled restaurant. He took possession of the space in the Power Plant Live! development on Saturday, he told the newspaper. Voltaggio is a Frederick, Md., native and owns Volt and Family Meal, a diner-style restaurant, there. It is slated to open late spring or early summer. He also plans to move his shuttered Lunch Box, a sandwich shop, from Frederick to the Chevy Chase Pavilion.
Glover Park’s Sprig & Sprout offers vegan special
Sprig and Sprout (Photo: popville.com)
Sprig and Sprout, the Pho and Viet sandwich shop at 2317 Wisconsin Ave. NW in Glover Park, has paired up with the female monks of Bien An Tu Temple to create a guilt-free seven-course prix-fixe vegan dinner tonight and Feb. 24.
The menu includes traditional Vietnamese Buddhist dishes such as banh bot loc chay (a steamed transparent dumpling), goi ngo sen chay (lotus stem salad with white tremella mushrooms, carrots, cucumber and seasoned bean curd with a mix of viet herbs), banh tet chay (vegetarian mung bean sticky rice cake served with sweet and salty radish), canh chua chay (sweet and sour tamarind soup with pineapple, tomato, okra, and ngo om), ca ri chay (sweet potato, carrot and tofu in coconut curry sauce), do hu mang kho (tofu and bamboo shoots in braised caramel sauce) and che ba mau (three colored jelly dessert).
The dinner is $40 per person and credit card information is required at the time of reservation. To make a reservation, e-mail [email protected] or call Jen at 202-333-2569.
Grill Room’s $3,500 dinner
The Grill Room at the Capella Georgetown. (Photo: Capella Hotel)
The Grill Room in Georgetown’s Capella Hotel, which brought us the $22 barrel-aged Manhattan, will be pouring some of the priciest and rarest wines in the world during a dinner Mar. 15. The cost is $3,500 per person, which includes a “once-in-a-lifetime tasting of exceptional old and new world vintages,” a five-course meal from executive chef Jakob Esko, an overnight stay at the hotel, breakfast in the morning, airport transportation and more.
The wine tasking will be led by master sommelier Emmanuel Kemiji and features 20 rare wines such as a 2005 Château Lafite Rothschild, a Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 and a 2005 Château Petrus. Click here for the full list.
The five-course menu includes diver scallop Carpaccio with watermelon caviar and crispy sour cream; slow-cooked duck breast with black currant and foie gras; a low-temperature organic egg with wild mushroom ragout, black truffle and Iberian ham; grilled bison strip loin with king oyster mushroom and celeriac black berry sauce; and dark chocolate black forest cake roll. Each course will be paired with a wine.
The event is available to the first 20 reservations. If you have the spare change, call Elisabeth Thomas at 202-617-2400, or e-mail [email protected] to reserve your space.
Pinstripes bowling alley-restaurant opens
Pinstripes Italian restaurant/bocce/bowling alley in Georgetown. (Photo: Pinstripes)
Pinstripes, a bowling, bocce and Italian/American bistro, opened recently in The Shops at Georgetown Park, 1604 Wisconsin Ave. NW. The 34,000-square-foot, two-floor restaurant is just shy of being the largest restaurant in D.C. It is D.C.’s second bowling alley and includes 14 bowling lanes, six bocce courts, a dining room, private event space, two bars, wine cellar and outdoor patio with fire pit that overlooks the C&O Canal.
This is the fifth location for Pinstripes, which has three locations in the Chicago area as well as one in Minneapolis. Another is set to open soon in the Overland Park suburb of Kansas City, Kan.
The menu includes small plates, soups and salads, pizza and flatbreads, sandwiches, pastas, large plates and desserts. There’s also a Sunday brunch from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. with made-to-order omelets, carved prime rib, fresh seafood, desserts and a chocolate fountain for $20 with $3 mimosas and $5 Bloody Marys.
The upscale lounge décor includes black sofas in front of every bowling and bocce lane. Pinstripes is open from 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 a.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-12:30 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday. Bowling is $5/game except after 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday when it is $7/game. Shoe rental is $4 and bocce is $4/person/hour except after 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday when it is $10/person/hour.
Columbia Height’s Alero becomes El Tio
Allero Mexican restaurant in Columbia Heights is not El Tio Tex Mex Grill. (Photo: popville.com)
The Alero Mexican restaurant at Tivoli Square in Columbia Heights is now an El Tio Tex-Mex Grill.
Alero first opened up in the former Rumberos space at 3345 14th St. NW in 2010. Now the space has become El Tio. The Columbia Height’s location isn’t included on El Tio’s website, which does include locations in Falls Church, McLean and Gainesville, Va.
No word on if the menu is the same as the Virginia restaurants or if the hours have changed from Alero.
House of Falafel opens in Petworth
The House of Falafel in Petworth. (Photo: popville.com)
The House of Falafel opened about a week ago at 22 Upshur St. NW in Petworth. The restaurant, which started and continued as a food truck, is open from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Saturday.
The brick and mortar restaurant offers Tunisian Mediterranean dishes including soups and salads, sides and appetizers such as torshy, bourik, houria, meshwia, kaftajy, grape leaves, hummus, lababy and of course falafel, couscous wraps and bowls, and veggie, chicken, beef, lamb gyro, merguez and combo platters. Eventually, breakfast will be added.
B Too begins late-night service Feb. 20
B Too begins late-night service Thursday. (Photo: B Too)
The Belgian restaurant B Too at 1327 14th St. NW will begin serving late-night bites beginning Feb. 20. The menu will include hearty foods to help you sop up all that alcohol you drank or help you continue with drink specials and discounted bottles of wine.
B Too will serve its late-night menu from 10 p.m.-midnight on Thursdays and from 11 p.m.-1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Dishes include savory waffles, baby back ribs with spiced avocado and mayonnaise, and frites. You can also get $5 beer and $7 drink specials, half-off larger bottles of beer and $25 bottles of wine.
The Coupe in Columbia Heights scraps 24-hour scheduled
The Coupe is no longer open 24 hours. (Photo: Borderstan)
The Coupe at 3415 11th St. NW has cut its schedule from 24 hours to 6 a.m.-midnight Sunday-Thursday and 6 a.m.-1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The new schedule began Feb. 11.
Maxwell Hessman, formerly general manager of Pizzeria Paradiso in Dupont, took over as general manager of The Coupe in November. “The Coupe management has decided to move away from the 24 hour cycle for one very basic reason, after a year and half the sales are not there to support our large scale operation late night,” Hessman told the Popville blog. “We labored over this decision for quite some time and feel it is in the best interest for our company and our customers. We will still be open from early morning to late night to provide each and every guests a wonderful experience.”
The menu will also evolve a bit to be a more “cafe style” rather than “diner style”. Expect to see those changes in April.
Hessman, who was also Pizzeria Paradiso’s wine buyer, said also beginning in April the bar will focus on martinis and champagne-based cocktails to give its cocktail program focus along with wines. They looked at 11th Street and thought that of those cocktails, beer and wine, the strip would most benefit from an improved wine program. Of course there will still be beer options though the emphasis will soon be on Belgian saison style, although a few “everyday beers” will still be available.
BlackSalt reopens after fire
BlackSalt Restaurant has reopened after a small fire. (Photo: Washington City Paper)
BlackSalt Restaurant reopened just in time for Valentine’s Day following a kitchen fire late on Feb. 8.
The minor fire, which closed the restaurant at 4883 MacArthur Blvd., in the Palisades neighborhood for about a week, was caused by a mechanical issue in the kitchen’s hood. No one was hurt in the fire and the restaurant didn’t suffer any major damage.