At a time when everybody’s looking for good dining deals, Karma Kitchen’s one-page menu is a big attraction. It changes almost every week, but the prices don’t: There aren’t any.
Instead of a bill, diners receive a note explaining that their meal is a gift from a previous patron. The only request: Leave what you will to cover the next person’s meal.
Get out that recycled tote bag—this summer we’re taking our video camera to farmers markets all around Washington. We’ll have local chefs show you around their neighborhood markets, then we’ll give you their shopping and cooking tips about whatever’s in season. For our first installment, we asked PS 7’s chef/owner Peter Smith to take us on a tour of the Penn Quarter FreshFarm market, where he shops every week. Armed with ingredients from local vendors, Smith prepared a grilled cheese with bacon, arugula, and in-season strawberries for a market demo. See how he did it in the video, then try it yourself with the recipe below.
Following the crumbs on the President and First Lady's dining trail.
What date night at Citronelle looks like for the President and First Lady. Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/Sipa Press/Newscom.
The Palm and the Capital Grille aren’t going anywhere, but there’s been a shift in the dining landscape ever since the Obamas came to Washington. The President and First Lady have been eating like locals, hitting all sorts of foodie hot spots, from Michel Richard’s extravagant Georgetown dining room to a hidden-away Arlington burger joint. Where will they show up next? To help you guess, we’ve followed their trail of crumbs. If you flip burgers or operate a fry basket, stay on your toes.
The swirly “Guggenheim” rolls that kick off dinner at this strip-mall surprise are irresistible, and the often-whimsical desserts from pastry chef Cindy Bennington—after whom the place is named—are among the area’s best. And what’s not to like about being sent off with a fresh-baked cinnamon muffin? In between, things are iffier. Brian Bennington’s cooking can both dazzle (a seared lobe of foie gras with caramelized peach) and disappoint (a tough pork chop). More often, it does neither—content to ride the middle ground of convention. The generous, crowd-pleasing preparations don’t always warrant the high tabs, but they seldom overreach with forced juxtapositions and obscure ingredients. They call to mind a simpler, less showy era of dining out.
It's time for The Washingtonian's Cheap Eats guide! Read our picks in the June issue of the magazine, on stands now, and check out an online-only photo slideshow of local cheap eats restaurants below. But one warning: don't look at this during your lunch hour. You may find yourself in your car, heading out to Annandale or Falls Church to dine at one of these delicious and affordable spots. Photography by Matthew Worden, Scott Suchman, and Stacy Zarin-Goldberg.
From a tiki-lounge-like spot for pho to a downtown gelato stop, we've got the goods on the restaurants people are talking about.
Photograph by Chris Leaman
Downtown DC gets a branch of the chocolate chain Schakolad, which serves gelato, filled chocolates, and fudge.
District
DC Noodles (1412 U St., NW; 202-232-8424). The owners of Logan Circle’s Rice have transformed what was the Simply Home restaurant/shop into a 52-seater whose menu has as many permutations of noodles as Bubba Gump’s company does of shrimp.
Kitchen (2404 Wisconsin Ave., NW; 202-333-3877). Once an Austin Grill, then a Peruvian lounge, it’s now part Southern comfort—chicken-fried steak—and part pub grub: There are 25-cent wings during Monday’s happy hour.
Pho 14Vietnamese Restaurant (1436 Park Rd., NW; 202-986-2326). With a tiki-lounge-like bar, this mom-and-pop joint bids to give DC its first authentic taste of the famed Vietnamese noodle soup, pho.
Qualia (3917 Georgia Ave., NW; 202-248-6423). Joel Finkelstein has been roasting coffee beans out of his house for two years. Now he has converted his hobby into a coffeehouse serving, among other things, pitchers of coffee—enough for four.
Schakolad (1107 19th St., NW; 202-457-8888). Six flavors of gelato accompany a sweeping selection of chocolates, all made in-store using recipes that cofounder Baruch Schaked learned in the 1960s.
Tons of Fourth of July parties, fireworks, pool parties galore, a pig roast, the closing of the Folklife Festival and Artomatic, and lots more in this jam-packed weekend guide.
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Though Ann Limpert graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in art history and creative writing, she spent most of her time in New England debating the merits of warm, buttery lobster rolls vs. cold, mayo-y ones. She spent two years covering the internet for Entertainment Weekly magazine (highlights include interviewing the Beastie Boys and dancing to "Livin' la Vida Loca" with Penn Jillette), then left to hone her kitchen skills at the Institute of Culinary Education. She has worked as a cook at several New York restaurants, researched and edited cookbooks, and now writes about food and restaurants for the Washingtonian.
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Kate Nerenberg
Kate Nerenberg started as an editorial intern at The Washingtonian in January 2008 and became an assistant editor in September 2008. A native of West Hartford, Connecticut, she spent the first half of her writing life as a sports reporter, and was the editor of the athletics section for the newspaper and student-run magazine while at Middlebury College. A joint Spanish and Art History major, Kate graduated in 2005 and took off on a year-long journey around the world. After tasting everything from fried crickets to lavish Turkish breakfasts, she realized she wanted to devote herself to writing about food, a lifelong passion. She lives with three roommates just east of Logan Circle in a house that's often filled with the smell of sauteed garlic, warm banana bread, or fried bacon and eggs.
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Rina Rapuano
Rina Rapuano's English degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond put her on the path to becoming a managing editor of a weekly business magazine; a freelance copy editor; and assistant managing news editor—and later the lifestyles editor—at a weekly paper in Maryland. But she realized her true calling when her descriptions of meals to friends and colleagues always seemed to end with the same statement: “You're making me hungry.” Frankly, it was making Rina hungry, too. She chucked her day job in 2006 to become a full-time freelance writer focusing mainly on food, and now works as assistant food and wine editor at The Washingtonian.
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- From the Magazine
