Hot Opening
Chef Peter Prime brought his Trinidadian roots to classic American barbecue at the former Caribbean-inspired smokehouse Spark. Now he’s going all in on rum and roti at his new H Street–corridor joint, Cane (403 H St., NE). We’ve got our eyes on the marinated oxtails and curried-chickpea-stuffed doubles (a fry-bread snack).
What We’re Reading
Last year, amid running his fleet of successful restaurants and feeding government workers during the shutdown, José Andrés also managed to write a cookbook. Vegetables Unleashed is part manifesto (with guidelines for fixing our health and our food system), part veggies-for-dummies (he devotes two pages to the art of boiling water). Bonus: You get the recipe for Oyamel’s salt-air margaritas.
In Our Glasses
When Todd Thrasher was dreaming up a frozen drink called Owen the Turtle Dis-liker for his Wharf bar, Tiki TNT (1130 Maine Ave., SW), he was inspired by two things: piña coladas and friend/fellow tiki-head Owen Thomson. Thomson runs U Street’s Archipelago, which was all about using plastic straws till DC’s ban. We could drink the spicy piña all summer—it’s punched up with Thrasher’s spiced rum, house-made banana syrup and liqueur, brandy, and fresh coconut milk—plus the name is pretty fun, too.
New Favorite Snack
“So good you’ll eat it with a spoon” is a cliché—but that’s what we’ve been doing with the Ethiopian dips from Rockville’s Tsiona Foods. Inspired by the traditional stews Tsiona Bellete serves at Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant, the high-protein snacks range from mild (gingery yellow split peas) to fiery (berbere-spiced brown lentils). And as much as we like our spoon technique, Bellete’s injera chips make a tastier match. Find them at Whole Foods or tsionafoods.com.
Calling All Umami Lovers
You’re going to want to put Columbia Heights’ new Hong Kong–inspired restaurant, Queen’s English (3410 11th St., NW), on your radar. Chef Henji Cheung, who previously cooked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is aging and flavoring a range of unusual soy sauces to incorporate into his dishes. Among the most intriguing: a fermented-tofu version and another with black fungus and prickly ash.
This article appears in the June 2019 issue of Washingtonian.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
