The weather is looking a bit iffy for outdoor plans this weekend with 40 percent chance of rain Saturday and Sunday with temperatures in the mid-80s. The Preakness is in Baltimore while D.C. is serving up sheep with Lamb Jam. Luckily, there are indoor and outdoor events and several new movies in case plans get washed out.

It’s a bad weekend for Metro riders. There’s construction on every line. This weekend, Orange, Silver and Blue line trains will operate every 18 minutes. Yellow and Green line trains will operate every 20 minutes with Yellow line trains operating between Huntington and Mount Vernon Square only. Red Line trains will operate every 24 minutes between Shady Grove and Glenmont and every 12-14 minutes between Grosvenor and Judiciary Square from 9 a.m.-9 p.m.

Opera in the Outfield presents Rossini’s Cinderella on the scoreboard at Nationals Park on Saturday. (Photo: Scott Suchman)

Opera in the Outfield

Rossini’s Cinderella is this year’s featured presentation for the Washington National Opera’s Opera in the Outfield. It is the eighth season of free live opera simulcast from the Kennedy Center at the Nationals Park. Preshow activities include a royal parade with kids of all ages in costume around the lower concourse, photos with characters from Cinderella, performances by local artists, a screening of What’s Opera, Doc? starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and more.

May 16 at 7 pm. At Nationals Park, 1500 S. Capitol St. SE. Gates open at 5 p.m. Admission is FREE, but those wishing to sit in the outfield will need to obtain wristbands on a first-come, first-served basis inside the center field gate. No chairs are allowed on the grass, only blankets. Parking is available in Lots B and C for $10.

Lamb Jam

Lamb Jam in D.C. takes place Friday and Saturday. (Graphic: Lamb Jam)

Lamb Jam may be the most DIY cook-off ever. Rather than just offering the opportunity to feast on some delicious lamb made by talented chefs, you’ll have the chance to learn how to prepare your own dishes – just in time for BBQ season. This year’s Lamb Jam includes a VIP seminar from 6-9 p.m. today at Occidental Grill with last year’s champions with dinner, a panel discussion, h’orderves and cocktails and one pound of lamb to take home. On Saturday, there will be a grand tasting from 4-7 p.m. at Uninon Market with 16 area chefs, beer and wine, a DIY lamb spice rub station and butcher demonstration. Awards include Best of Show, People Choice Award and first place awards for shoulder, leg of lamb, shank and loin.

May 15 from 6-9 p.m. at Occidental Grill, 1475 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, and May 16 from 4-7 p.m. at Union Market, 1309 Fifth St. NE. Tickets for Friday are $100, Saturday’s are $60 and tickets to both events are $150.

InfieldFest at the Preakness

Head up to Pimlico Racetrack in Baltimore for the Preakness and InfieldFest. (Photo: Pimlico)

The actual Preakness Stakes race lasts only a few minutes, but with InfieldFest at the Preakness, the fun and excitement is an all-day affair. This year’s lineup for the concert portion of the festivities includes hip-hop prankster Childish Gambino, EDM artist Armin van Buuren and indie-pop act Trampled by Turtles. Go for the horses, stay for the music.

May 16 starting at 8 a.m. at Pimlico Race Course, 5201 Park Heights Ave., Baltimore. Tickets are $50-$140.

Neon Drink On

Wear neon to The Fairgrounds at the center field entrance to Nationals Park and get your drink on. (Photo: Project D.C. Events)

The Neon Drink On summer beer fest offers festival-goers unlimited tasting of more than 80 craft beers. Grab your souvenir tasting glass and neon sunglasses and navigate your way through more than 45 breweries while sipping on the first summer brews, playing games such as cornhole, beer pong, bocce and other lawn games, and enjoying live entertainment featuring Split Decision and DJs. There will also be food trucks if you get hungry. Prepare yourself for a full day of fun, neon and beer.

May 16 from 1-4 p.m. or 7-10 p.m. at The Fairgrounds, 1299 Half St. SE. Tickets are $35 for general admission and $55 VIP, with an extra hour before the general admission, a glass holding lanyard and private restrooms, are $55. Use the code SAVE10NEON and save $10. General Admission tickets are available on Groupon for $25 and VIP for $35.

Taste of Arlington

The streets around Ballston Common Mall will be filled with food booths on Sunday. (Photo: Ballston BID)

Ballston Business Improvement District’s 28th annual Taste of Arlington covers all the basics needed for a successful street fair: a diverse roster of more than 50 restaurants and breweries, entertainment for kids and 90s music with D.C.-based cover band White Ford Bronco, who round out a lineup of live acts that also includes Burnt Sienna and Jumpin Jupiter. New this year is a KidZone Family Expo featuring tables for budding entreprenuers to showcase their talents and skills.

May 17 from noon-6 p.m. along Wilson Boulevard from North Glebe Road to North Quincy Street and along Wilson from North Stuart Street to the Metro outside Ballston Common Mall, 4238 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. Admission is FREE! A coupon book with 10 tasting tickets is available online for $35, through the BallstonConnect mobile app for $30 (including at the event) or $40 at the door.

Concert in the Park

Visitors to last year’s Concerts in the Park enjoy free music in a Georgetown Park. (Photo: Citizens’ Association of Georgetown)

Concerts in the Parks, Georgetown’s free summer concert series, is back in Volta and Rose Parks. The family-friendly events take place on Sunday through the summer and feature music, family fun activities, free cupcakes from Sprinkles, free ice cream from Haagen Dazs and food trucks. The 2015 concerts will take place on Sunday in Volta Park, June 21 in Volta Park and July 12 in Rose Park. The series kicks off with singer-songwriter Rebecca McCabe accompanied by the Human Country Jukebox band including Jack Gregori, who was on “Team Adam” on NBC’s The Voice. There will be a singalong of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off at the end.

May 17 from 5:30-7 p.m. in Volta Park, 34th Street and Volta Place NW in Georgetown. Admission is FREE!

G.I. Film Festival

Land of the Sun kicks off the G.I. Film Festival on Tuesday at the Embassy of Canada. (Photo: Melissa Flagg)

Now in its ninth year, the G.I. Film Festival returns with features, shorts and documentaries that either have a main character who is current or former military, or the writer, director or producer is current or former military. The slate of movies this year reflects the diversity of veterans’ experience. Festival organizers hope that a person walks away after viewing a film with a greater appreciation of what a service person goes through.

May 18-24 at the Angelika Film Center, 2911 District Ave. in the Mosaic District in Fairfax except the opening night films and reception, which are at the Embassy of Canada, 501 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. There is a free shuttle from the Dunn-Loring Metro station to Mosaic District that runs with the last bus leaving the station at 7:18 p.m. Tickets range from $300 for an all access pass to $85 for a weekend pass, $40 for films with receptions and $12 for general admission movies. Tickets are available online or at the box office.

SER restaurant, 1110 N. Glebe Road, Arlington had its soft opening in Ballston on Mar. 5 in the midst of Thursday’s snowstorm. The grand opening will be this coming Thursday, Mar. 12.

The dining room at SER in Ballston evokes the feel of a Spanish home. (Photo: Rey Lopez)

The restaurant, owned by Christina Campos-Condon, her husband, Javier Condon, and with chef Josu Zubikari, won the Ballston Business Improvement District’s 2014 Restaurant Challenge. As the winner of the challenge, SER received a year of free rent and a $245,000 interest-free loan.

You won’t find any tapas on the menu at (“Simple, Easy, Real” and a play on the Spanish verb “to be”), but traditional Spanish dishes like paella, chicken and ham croquetas, and roast suckling pig. The menu includes comfort foods such as cochinillo (roasted suckling pig), bacalao al pilpil (salted cod in olive oil emulsion), txipirones en su tinta (squid in its ink), carrilleras de Iberia (braised pork cheeks) and sopa Donostiar-ra (fisherman’s soup). The paella will be served tableside and Iberico will be carved tableside. A salad cart will display several kinds of lettuces, vegetables, proteins and dressings that diners can mix-and-match and watch get made in front of them.

Main dishes are divided into three sections: “from the market” that use seasonal, local ingredients; “from our travels” such as a cheese burger and gluten-free angel hair pasta with lime zest and caviar; and “from our grandmothers” featuring family recipes. There will also be daily specials that highlight the country’s traditional dishes, as well as a “menu del dia” – a prix fixe three-course menu that changes daily based on what Zubikarai finds at the market.

During lunch, guests can choose between a full menu with seated service or SER’s “Lunch Shop” featuring house-made sandwiches, soups and salads to go.

The wine list consists of both Old and New World selections, with more than half of the “everyday” bottles less than $40 while the dozen or so “celebratory” wines range from $60-$120. The beer selection includes mostly local brews with a few from Spain, and the cocktail list is the result of several bar crawls throughout Spain and includes drinks made with sherry as well as coffee.

Campos-Candon designed the interior on a tight budget with big wooden tables, turquoise chandeliers, coral-colored chairs, and chartreuse-colored bar stools. Like someone’s house, photos of family members and Kickstarter investors and flower-patterned curtains hang in the doorways. The 5,000 square-foot restaurant seats 140 with a seasonal 100-seat, dog-friendly patio and features and open kitchen counter, cheese and charcuterie bar and a raw bar.

Stop in by Mar. 11 during the soft opening and food is 20 percent off. Also, the restaurant will donate 25 cents from every meal, even after the grand opening, to the Arlington Food Assistance Center. SER opens at 5 p.m. during their soft opening.

Peruvian Brothers to feed visitors at Folklife Festival

The Peruvian Brothers, Giuseppe and Mario Lanzone, have won the bid to showcase their culinary talents at the 49th annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival this summer. This year the Folklife Festival will highlight Peru with more than 100 Peruvian artisans, musicians and dancers, as well as artists and tradition bearers from the Peruvian American diaspora.

The Peruvian Brothers, Mario (left) and Giuseppe Lanzone, in their food truck. (Photo: Peruvian Brothers)

The brothers were born and raised in La Punta, Peru, where their father and uncle ran boat restaurants. Chef Mario Lanzone is a bartender at Napoleon Bistro and Lounge and spent recent summers captaining yachts in the Mediterranean. Giuseppe Lanzone competed with the U.S. rowing team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London games, where his team finished fourth. He coaches men’s lightweight rowing at Georgetown University.

With an estimated attendance of 500,000-1.1 million over the 10 days, the program’s theme will be “connectivity.” Visitors will experience how ties are made and maintained in Peru through cooking and craft demonstrations, music and dance performances, moderated conservations, ritual and celebratory processions, and other activities. The Peruvian Brothers will craft their comida criolla dishes such as pan con chicharron, salted pork tenderloin sandwich, and fresh ceviche as well as vegetarian options all served with traditional salsa criolla, thinly sliced julienne onions marinated in lime juice with chopped Peruvian chilies.

The history behind the Peruvian comida criolla cuisine is as appealing and complex as the unique combinations of flavor. With roots in Andean-Spanish-Afro-Peruvian and Asian influences, comida criolla boasts powerful flavors. The Peruvian Brothers will serve recipes passed down in the Lanzone family as well as Mario’s own original spins on traditional Peruvian favorites.

“The Folklife Festival will be a wonderful opportunity for us to demonstrate our passion and knowledge of the foods we grew up with in Peru.” said Giuseppe Lanzone. “Each plate has a significant historical background that we would like to share with the Washington, D.C. community. In addition to our traditional sandwiches, we are going off menu to introduce some of our secret family recipes.”

The Folklife Festival takes place from 11-5:30 p.m. June 24-28 and July 1-5 on the National Mall in front of the national Museum of the American Indian. Admission to the festival is free

Old Town Pour House offers March Madness specials

Old Town Pour House, 212 Ellington Blvd., Gaithersburg, will be showing the college basketball playoffs on its 110-inch video walls Mar. 19-22, 26-29 and Apr. 4-6.

Sports fans can watch March Madness on the 110-inch video walls at the new Old Town Pour House in Gaithersburg. (Photo: Jeff Elkins)

On those dates, Chef Paul Katz will cook up special gameday grub including ham and pickle hushpuppies ($11) with Old Bay ketchup; achiote chicken quesadillas ($13) with molcajete, corn, black beans, asadero cheese and Peruvian green salsa; and Cuban sandwichs ($13) with smoked pork shoulder, ham, spicy beer mustard, Swiss cheese and fried pickle served with olive oil parsley fries.

Also, from the kickoff of the 2015 NCAA Tournament to the final championship, fans can take make reservations to save their seats.

Vinoteca offers spring wine classes

Vinoteca, 1940 11th St. NW, will kickoff its “Spring Wine Class Series” starting Mar.24. Led by Vinoteca sommelier Kate Chrisman, the series of wine classes begins just in time for Cherry Blossom season, exploring spring’s best rosés, as well as some full-bodied whites and soft reds.

Vinoteca in the U Street corridor is offering spring wine tasting classes. (Photo: Vinoteca)

The spring wine classes will take place on Tuesday evenings from 7-8:30 p.m. in the restaurant’s upstairs lounge. Each class will explore and pour five to six different wines, and also include food pairings from executive chef Lonnie Zoeller as well as a $5 gift card.

The classes include:

• Mar. 24: Cherry Blossom Festival of Rosé – To celebrate the beginning of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the class will feature a selection of cherry blossom-hued wines in a wide array of styles from all around the world. Learn how rosé wines are made and how to pair them with spring and summertime foods.
• Apr. 7: Full-Body Whites – Part 1 of the “Season of Transition” class will explore white wines that bridge the gap between winter and summer – when it’s too warm for big, heavy reds and too cool for bright, crisp whites. Featuring wines from France, Italy, South Africa and more, the wines will help your palate prepare for summer.
• Apr. 21: The Softer Side of Red – Part 2 of the “Season of Transition” class will showcase red wines that won’t overwhelm the palate as the temperature begins to rise. Whether served slightly chilled or turned into a picnic-ready sangria, these wines are perfect for late spring. Featured wines will come from New Zealand, France and the United States.

 
All wine classes are $45 per person Space is limited to 20 people per class. To register, click here.

Happy hour start early at Oval Room and 701 Restaurant

Happy hour is starting earlier at sister restaurants The Oval Room and 701 Restaurant.

Get a jump on happy hour at The Oval Room or 701 Restaurant. (Photo: Bisnow)

Guests at 701 Restaurant, located at 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, can sip on featured cocktails, wines by the glass and bar snacks for $7 each 3-7 p.m. daily in the lounge. Current cocktails include the Cure Royale with Prosecco, Lillet Blanc and house vinegar; the Bitter Blonde with gin, sweet vermouth and Suze; the lavender lemon drop with Meyer lemon infused vodka and lavender simple syrup; and the Moscow Mule with Tito’s vodka, ginger syrup and ginger beer.

Small plates include fingerling potatoes with chive crème fraîche and bacon; sesame hummus served with grilled pita bread; Serrano ham served with charred focaccia and mustard; a duck sandwich with picked kohlrabi and jalapeno; oyster sliders with Asian slaw and apple remoulade; crispy calamari with smoked paprika and caper aioli; and a grilled cheese sandwich with cheddar, red onion and fig jam.

The Oval Room, 800 Connecticut Ave. NW, offers happy hour from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Select cocktails are $8 and select wines by the glass are $7 at the bar. Cocktails include the Oval Room Manhattan with Old Overholt rye shiskey, sweet vermouth, barrel aged bitters and a Campari amaretto cherry; The Lady Michelle with sparkling wine, vodka, lemon-lavender syrup and Crème Yvette; and the Jalisco Mule with ginger beer, Añejo tequila and sage.

Embassy Row Hotel taps two to lead new restaurant

Peter Kloiber, has been named the chef de cuisine at the remodeled Embassy Row Hotel’s new lobby restaurant, Station Kitchen & Cocktails and The Rooftop Lounge. He joins Robert Yealu, who was named director of restaurants in January overseeing all the restaurant’s food and beverage operations.

Robert Yealu (left), director of restaurants, and Peter Kloiber, chef de cuisine, will run the new Station Kitchen & Cocktails restaurant at the remodeled Embassy Row Hotel in Dupont. (Photos: Embassy Row Hotel)

The hotel, 2015 Massachusetts Ave. NW, recently underwent a $15 million renovation. Station Kitchen & Cocktails will open Mar. 18 as part of what the hotel is calling a “lifestyle-driven lobby experience” anchored by the restaurant. During the day, the restaurant will serve Compass Coffee, baked goods from Union Kitchen

During the day, the restaurant will serve Compass Coffee, baked goods from Union Kitchen and a chef’s pantry with grab-and-go sandwiches. At night, the restaurant will serve small plates like Wellington meatballs, tuna casserole and Korean chicken lollipops at communal tables and nook-style seating. Station Kitchen & Cocktails will also serve a special of the day in a curated ceramic bowl made by students of the Corcoran School of Art at George Washington University. The restaurant will donate 25 cents from each bowl sold to So Others May Eat, which feeds the poor homeless.

The restaurant will also have a bottled cocktail program hand-crafted on-site with drinks such as the Lame Duck made with basil and clove roasted pineapple, lime, coconut IPA and rubber ducky; Vice & Virtue made with gin, burnt honey, imbue rose, thorn and sriracha flakes; and Sunny Side Up made with silver rum, kiwi syrup, key lime and “marshmallow” foam.

Originally from Wisconsin, Kloiber most recently worked at Marcel’s as sous chef. Previously, he spent two years as the sous chef at The Federalist restaurant at the Madison Hotel and at Jackie’s in Silver Spring. He started his culinary career locally as chef de tournant at Vidalia, under the direction of Jeff Buben and R.J. Cooper and also worked at Le Paradou.

Originally from New Jersey, Yealu relocated to Washington D.C. after graduating from the University of Buffalo to pursue a career on the Hill, but it wasn’t long before his passion took over and he landed a job as the beverage manager for Ping Pong Dim Sum. He most recently worked at Bordeau LLC, where he was director of operations overseeing Table and Menu MBK restaurants, as well as 42 Degree Catering. Prior to that, he built the beverage program as part of the opening team at The Federalist.