Things to Eat this Weekend

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, July 1st, 2011

6/1 – 6/4

Looking to satisfy that sweet tooth this weekend at a minimal cost? Starting today through Monday, the D.C. location of Artfully Chocolate Kingbury Confections (1529c 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005; 202-387-2626), or ACKC, will be giving out a free scoop of ice cream with the purchase of any blueberry, strawberry, or apple pie. Planning to avoid traffic by not going into the District this weekend? Both ACKC Cocoa Bar (2003A Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria, 22301; 703-635-7917) and Artfully Gifts & Chocolate (506 John Carlyle St., Alexandria, 22314; 703-575-8686) will be giving out a free scoop of ice cream with any minimum purchase of $5.

6/2

Veramar Vineyard (905 Quarry Road Berryville, 22611; 540-955-5510) will be hosting an “Independence Day Extravaganza” on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. They will be serving entrees such as pork ribs, gourmet burger, or a grilled chicken sandwich. All entrees are $18 each. There will also be music and tractor rides through the vineyard. Reservations are required.

In celebration of July 4th, Botagi Bodega & Vineyard (35246 Harry Byrd Highway, Round Hill, 20142; 540-338-1144) will be serving sparkling wine at $4 per glass. Sip your wine while you enjoy live music from the terrace. This event is from noon to 5 p.m. No reservations are needed.

6/3

From noon to 4 p.m., Willowcroft (38906 Mt Gilead Road, Leesburg, 20175; 703-777-8161) will be hosting their annual “BackBarn BBQ.” Join them for featured wine tastings as well as barbecue eats catered by Red Hot and Blue at just $15 per person. Please email or call ahead for reservations.

Patowmack Farm (42461 Lovettsville Road, Lovettsville, 20180; 540-822-9017) will be hosting a picnic on their farm this Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. It will be a casual picnic with hamburgers, house-made sausages, fried chicken and vegetarian dishes. For dessert, they will have a brownie sundae that you can make at your own table. It will be $35 per person and reservations are required.

I’ll leave the fourth open up to you since I’m sure most people will be enjoying the fireworks somewhere or barbecuing in their own backyards. Have a happy 4th of July!

- Mai Nguyen

→ POST COMMENT (0)

Salmonella Outbreaks Linked to Backyard Chicks

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, July 1st, 2011

Stop kissing your chickens, people. Geez.

“Backyard homesteading” has become a bit of a thing lately, mostly with tattooed former suburbanites who build a chicken coop in their tiny backyards. You know the ilk. Well it turns out that many of these backyard chickens are making people sick, lots of people. According to Food Saftey News, 71 people, many of them young children, have been infected with two strains of poultry borne Salmonella, most of them reportedly from backyard flocks.

Four people in Virginia have contracted the more widespread of the two, Salmonella Altona, a rare strain. According to the Center for Disease Control, 77% of the 43 people sick from this strain of Salmonella had contact with live poultry in the week before, many of them cute little chickies and duckies. Some came agriculture feed store Feed Store Chain A (inventive name).

The situation has gotten dire enough that the CDC has sent out a list of reminders on how to correctly handle poultry. Basically: chickens are gross! Stop treating them like they aren’t covered with diseases!

So just keep these in mind the next time you kill your chickens so you can blog about how difficult it was:

• - Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water right after touching live poultry or anything in the area where they live and roam. Adults should supervise hand washing for young children.
• - If soap and water are not readily available, use hand sanitizer until you are able to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
• - Clean any equipment or materials associated with raising or caring for live poultry outside the house, such as cages or feed or water containers.
• - Do not let children younger than 5 years of age, elderly persons, or people with weak immune systems handle or touch chicks, ducklings, or other live poultry.
• - Do not let live poultry inside the house, in bathrooms, or especially in areas where food or drink is prepared, served, or stored, such as kitchens, or outdoor patios.
• - Do not snuggle or kiss the birds, touch your mouth, or eat or drink around live poultry.

- Kris King

→ POST COMMENT (0)

Belgian Restaurant Week is Back!

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, July 1st, 2011

(Image: Korolevskaya Nataliya/Shutterstock)

Some of the area’s culinary luminaries, including Chef Robert Weidmaier (Marcel’s, Brasserie Beck, Mussel Bar, and BRABO) and former Restaurant Eve Pastry Chef Niel Piferoen (Locolat Cafe), are joining forces from July 15 through July 21 to bring the region a taste of Belgium in celebration of the country’s National Day.

The week will commence with the annual Brew at the Zoo event, where Belgian restaurants will host a VIP tent. During the remainder of the week, the following events are scheduled to festively showcase Belgian culinary tradition and heritage:

Belgian Prix Fixe Menu (Thursday, July 15)
Mussels Throw Down at Eastern Market’s North Hall (Friday, July 16)
Belgian Waffle Brunch (Saturday, July 17)
Chocolate & Champagne Brunch (Sunday, July 18)
Seven-Course Belgian Beer Dinner hosted by Ambassador Jan Matthysen (Monday, July 19)
Duvel Happy Hour Events (Tuesday, July 20)
Belgian National Day Celebratons sponsored by Latis Imports (Thursday, July 21)

To further entice you (as if the above weren’t enough), here is a list of the Restaurant Week participants:

Belga Café
BRABO
Brasserie Beck
Et Voila!
Granville Moore’s
Locolat Cafe
Le Pain Quotidien
Marcel’s
Marvin
Mussel Bar

For more information about both scheduled events and menu offerings at the particpating restaurants, click here or visit the Belgian Restaurant Week Facebook page.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July!

-Johnisha M. Levi

→ POST COMMENT (0)

Taiwanese Bubble Tea

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Bubble tea originated in Taiwan during the 1980s. It’s normally a tea based drink and the bubbles are the chewy tapioca “pearls” at the bottom of the drink. I’m sure that if you frequent Eden Center enough, you’ve had Vietnamese bubble tea before which is more of a fruit smoothie with tapioca pearls whereas Taiwanese bubble tea is just of a liquid consistency since the tea is not blended with ice before serving. Although Vietnamese bubble tea is easier to find in Northern Virginia, there is one location I know of that serves Taiwanese bubble tea. A&J (4316 Markham St, Ste B, Annandale, 22003; 703-813-8181) is an authentic Taiwanese restaurant hidden in Annandale. I’ve never had the chance to sit down and try their food (but I hear its delicious), but I’ve definitely bought my fair share of bubble tea from them. They used to have a whole list of flavors but I guess since business has been slow, they now only have the default flavor which is black tea with milk (also known as milk tea). I don’t mind since I’m glad they’re still serving any bubble tea rather than none at all.

A&J Restaurant (Image: Mai Nguyen/Northern Virginia Magazine)

Milk Tea with Tapioca Pearls (Image: Mai Nguyen/Northern Virginia Magazine)

* When you go in and don’t plan to eat in, just let them know that you want to buy bubble tea before they seat you and turn it into a confusing situation.

- Mai Nguyen

→ POST COMMENT (0)

Horrible Things: Animal Rights Activists’ Peek Inside Pork Plant

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Hey, a can of worms. I wonder what’s inside…. Oh.

Warning: Horrifying Content

I’m no vegetarian, and I’m certainly no activist, but we can all pretty much all agree that industrial animal farming is about the worst thing in the world, right?

Shot by animal rights group Mercy for Animals, the above video highlights a series of rather troubling, gory images that go on every day in one of Iowa’s many sunless, hellhole pork production facilities—and it ain’t pretty. There’s botched castrations, prolapsed uteruses, and people saying that it’s okay to toss a piglet because they bounce when they hit the ground.

Coming to terms with how we treat the animals we eat can be difficult. Factory farming provides affordable food to millions, but when you factor the cost (human, environmental, economical), man can this get tricky. There are a lot of meat eaters in the world, most of whom eat too much of it, and it’s insanely easy to separate what we get pre-packaged from the grocery store from living, breathing creatures.

Still, industry lobbyists are trying their damndest to get geek show footage like the one above banned, and they’re getting pretty close—and that is messed up. Sure, they’re gross and biased and have a clear aim to take down the meat industry as a whole, but they also alert meat eaters like myself into remembering what went into that mediocre ham sandwich I had for lunch.

It also keeps animal abusing morons, or people who protect animal abusing morons, in line, and I like that. Nobody should punt a pig, even if it’s going to wind up with an apple in its mouth this weekend.

At the end of the day it all boils down to people, like me, who want to eat meat but not feel like a total monster at the end of the day. That probably isn’t possible, if I had to kill a sow on my own I would probably cry, so I get people to do the dirty work for me. But come on, Iowa pig farmers, at least keep the intestines inside the piglet.

In any case, there goes my barbecue plans for the weekend.

- Kris King

→ POST COMMENT (2)

You Must Chill! USDA Launches Food Safe Families Campaign

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, June 30th, 2011

John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler admonishing Jeremy Piven’s-drunken-mess-of-a-character in Say Anything was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard about this week’s launch of the Food Safe Families Campaign:

The $2 million multimedia public service campaign is spearheaded by the USDA, in collaboration with the FDA, the CDC and the Ad Council. The launch was scheduled just in time for the Fourth of July, a holiday that may have originally celebrated independence (for some Americans) but has now become justification for a national day of outdoor beer-guzzling, carnivorous gluttony. The USDA figures that grilling season is a time of increased risk and therefore the perfect time of year to get our collective attention.

Each year, there are an estimated 76 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States; 325,000 hospitalizations; and 5,000 deaths.

The Food Safe Families message seems simple enough, as the campaign is built around four food safety “steps” (as in “Check Your Steps,” the motto).

CLEAN: Clean kitchen surfaces, utensils, and hands with soap and water.

SEPARATE: Separate raw meats from other foods by using different cutting boards.

COOK: Cook foods to the right temperature by using a food thermometer. (160 Fahrenheit for those hamburgers!)

(and finally, my favorite)

CHILL: (You must) Chill (!) raw and prepared food promptly.

But NYU Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Marion Nestle raises an excellent point in reaction to Food Safe Families. She calls the campaign “cute” and “humorous” but validly questions its efficacy in light of the fact that so much of today’s outbreaks actually stem from food that has been contaminated way before it gets into the hands of the home cook (e.g., raw sprouts).

Nestle’s answer? To “stop food safety problems at their source” by implementing “a functional food safety system. This means rules that require all producers to follow food safety procedures and a government with the authority and resources to make sure they do.”

While this is clearly an important long-term solution and goal, we all could do well to take some simple precautions in our kitchens in the meantime to control what we can: mainly, cross-contamination and time and temperature abuses. (Stay away from the TDZ, the temperature danger zone, which is 41 to 135 Fahrenheit. This is when nasty things, i.e. bacteria, begin to multiply in your food. If your meat and potato salad is out for more than four hours this holiday, throw it away!)

To learn more about the campaign, or to get your Fourth of July grilling questions answered, join @FoodSafetyGov and @USDAFoodSafety in a live Twitter Chat at 1:00 p.m. EDT, using the hashtag #checksteps.

-Johnisha M. Levi

→ POST COMMENT (2)

Ramen in the Summertime

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

D.C. has Toki Underground, and soon Daikaya. Maryland has Ren’s Ramen. Where does that leave us Virginians to satisfy our craving for authentic ramen? Maneki Neko of course (which has been open much longer than the other restaurants). Granted each restaurant listed serves a different style of ramen (Toki Underground is Taiwanese ramen, Daikaya and Ren’s Ramen are both Sapporo style ramen, and Maneki Neko serves Okinawa style ramen) and therefore, you should really try all of them to see which style you like best.

When it comes to Japanese ramen, each part of Japan has a different style based on their climate. For example, since Sapporo is a colder region of Japan, their ramen will have a heavier, greasier broth, and generally comes with an egg and corn. Whereas Okinawa has a semi-tropical climate and averages about 72 degrees Fahrenheit all year round, making the broth of their ramen would be lighter and less greasy. This makes for a great ramen to eat in the summer time.

Sapporo Ramen from Ren's Ramen (Image: Mai Nguyen/Northern Virginia Magazine)

Okinawa Style Ramen from Maneki Neko (Image: Mai Nguyen/Northern Virginia Magazine)

As you can see from the two pictures, the Okinawa style ramen is less greasy and even looks lighter than the Sapporo ramen. Overall, I enjoyed the ramen from Maneki Neko better since I could actually finish it and the broth was gingery which made it refreshing for me. The Sapporo ramen from Ren’s Ramen was too heavy for me and I couldn’t finish it. I also felt it was over seasoned and ended up tasting pretty salty really quickly.

- Mai Nguyen

→ POST COMMENT (0)