Tom Sietsema of the Washington Post tells us that Medium Rare, DC’s next steakhouse, is very close to opening, and like lots of recent similar restaurants, it has a celebrity chef’s name attached to it: Michel Richard. The French chef, who’s behind Citronelle, Central, and Michel, is working on the Cleveland Park joint with Mark Bucher of BGR the Burger Joint. The menu? One entrée: steak-frites for around $20, and it includes a salad and bread (vegetarians can have a portobello mushroom with red-pepper sauce). Richard’s contribution comes in sauces and desserts.
The Capital Spice blog got a look inside the 100-seat restaurant and says it opens Monday at 5 PM. Here’s a nice detail from the blog: The price of dinner includes seconds on steak and fries. For weekend brunch, there’ll be steak-and-egg dishes, also with salad and fries, for $14.50.
More news from the Washington Post: Writer Tim Carman noticed that the General Store posted on its Facebook page that it’s now closed. His reporting shows that the shuttering has to do with back payment on taxes and other landlord troubles. In another post this morning following a conversation with landlord Spiro Gioldasis, Carman writes that Gioldasis did owe the county taxes, but he said it was because General Store owners Gillian Clark and Robin Smith owe him rent. Clark tells Carman that this hiccup won’t affect her upcoming projects with Smith: Kitchen on K in DC’s NoMa and Georgia Avenue Meeting House in Petworth.
Prince of Petworth wrote that a new restaurant, Shaw’s Tavern, is coming to 520 Florida Avenue, Northwest, in mid-June. The menu includes wood-oven-fired pizzas, pastas, and “tavern classics.” For a tentative menu, click here (*PDF).
The ridiculously busy Dupont Circle farmers market is about to get bigger, according to Washington City Paper. Starting April 3, it’ll expand one block north, open at 8:30, and close at 1 (winter hours were 10 to 1).
There were two separate incidents Tuesday involving food trucks, police officers, and the permits. In Metro Center, the food truck Takorean was told by a police officer to shut down after a call came in that the truck was operating without a site permit. It turned out to be a misunderstanding—Takorean wasn’t violating any laws and was allowed to reopen later in the day, owner Mike Lenard tells Prince of Petworth. DCist reported on a service disruption in Farragut Square, where the District of Pi and Sâuçá trucks were approached by Park Police saying they were going to be issued a $50 ticket for operating without a vending permit. It turned out to be another misunderstanding. In the last couple of years, since DC’s food-truck scene has ballooned, there have been lots of problems with police seemingly not being familiar with the laws and with brick-and-mortar restaurants’ aggravation over the competition.
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