Posts Tagged ‘Dinner’
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, December 16th, 2011
I’d like to share with you a picture of my dinner last night:
No, that’s not a technological error — that was my true dinner experience. I participated in Dining in the Dark, a Visionary Awards Dinner put on by the Foundation Fighting Blindness.
Dining in the Dark is exactly what it sounds like. If you haven’t heard of the trend that started in Germany, it’s when diners eat their meals in complete darkness — I’m talking pitch black. The idea is to enjoy a sensory awareness experience — and in the Foundation Fighting Blindness’ event, to get a glimpse into the lives of the visually impaired.
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
Happy hump day!
I don’t know about you guys, but to me, this week has felt particularly long. So, what better way to celebrate hump day than with half-price bottles?
Tonight, from 5-9 p.m. at Piero’s Corner in Herndon, help give to the local Food Assistance Center by enjoying some free wine tastings and purchasing a half-price bottle of wine with your dinner or discounted bottles to take home with you. A portion of all sales will go to the Food Assistance Center in Herndon.
The wine tasting will feature Tom Savage of International Cellars at the bar, where he will be pouring wine from Niner Wine of Paso Robles, California. Featured wines include: Sauvignon Blanc, Sangiovese, Twisted Spur Blend, Cabernet Sauvignon and the rated 90-points 2006 Fog Catcher.
Piero’s Corner’s kitchen is serving up, as always, authentically delicious Italian pasta dishes, brick oven pizzas, seafood, and more.
Image: Piero's Corner
Piero’s Corner is located at 13340 Franklin Farm Road in Herndon (703-707-6400; www.pieroscorner.com).
-Julia Harbo
Evening Star Café Re-Opens TODAY!
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Out of the loop on Evening Star Café?
The 15-year old restaurant in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria has been closed for the past month while undergoing fun and communal renovations. Today, December 8, the restaurant re-opens with a revamped look, new menu and new chef Jim Jeffords.
Doors open to the neighborhood today to reveal a refurbished space — original wooden banquettes still line the walls, but a new center with bold blue, plush benches boost the seating capacity to 60. New lighting and artwork by local artist Rick Singleton brings a retro feel with old junk turned into new art, in particular, an old Erector set that hangs the lights from the original ceiling in the dining room.
If you look around the restaurant, you’ll notice small vintage details from unique light fixtures made out of old metal to the trophy display on the back wall of the Majestic Lounge bar (the trophies were donated by community members and date back to 1901).
A light fixture made out of vintage jars hangs over the Majestic Lounge's bar.
As a matter of fact, everything about the renovation process has involved the community, from old trophy donations to a yard sale to sell the old furnishings from the pre-renovated restaurant, to a cocktail-naming night that will take place a couple weeks after today’s opening.
The Evening Star menu still features classic-meets-modern American comfort food, but with a more Southern tone. The back bar (dubbed “The Majestic Lounge”) now features 30 bottles of craft beer, 19 draft beers — served from 1950s vintage refrigerators — and one cask, which will feature local brews and rotate constantly. The bar will be serving original cocktails, including “The Hipster,” made with mezcal, chipotle peppers and PBR. You can also order any bottle of wine from Planet Wine next door with your meal.
The kitchen gets cookin’ today for dinner starting at 5:30 p.m. — and it sure isn’t going anywhere for a while.
The Evening Star Café is located at 2000 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria (703-549-5051). Visit www.eveningstarcafe.net for more information.
-Julia Harbo
Beer Dinner at Del Ray Pizzeria
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, November 28th, 2011
Photo Credit: Del Ray Pizzeria
Tomorrow night, November 29, Del Ray Pizzeria will be hosting their Beer Dinner with the theme of “All Things Virginia.”
The prix-fixe meal will serve five courses, each paired with a different Port City beer. The courses include:
-Virginia Ham and Sweet Potato Biscuit with Brown Sugar Dijon
paired with Port City Optimal Wit
-Virginia Oyster Chowdah
paired with Port City Essential Pale Ale
-Virginia Rockfish with Virginia Crab over Smith Family Farm Sausage and Grits
paired with Port City Monumental IPA
-Smith Family Farm Beef Short Rib and Cipollini Onions with Potato Puree
paired with Port City Porter
-Virginia Sweet Potato Pie with Pecan Crunch and Marshmallow Brulee
paired with Port City Tidings
The dinner is $49 per person, excluding tax and gratuity. For tickets, call 703-549-2999.
Del Ray Pizzeria is located at 2218 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria; www.delraypizzeria.com.
-Julia Harbo
2011 Farmland Feast on November 7!
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
Local farms, fresh food.
Join in celebrating the farmers, producers, customers and the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay. This premier benefit supports a core mission of running their 11 farmers markets, which surprise, educate, transform and inspire!
Enjoy a seasonal cocktail and a five-course dinner created by an extraordinary team of local chefs and paired with local wines.
This annual Farmland Feast showcases prestigious Chesapeake Bay farmers and producers. Local chefs will prepare a spectacular five-course autumnal dinner with local food and local wine pairings.
Their mission driven, selective auction takes place online for the first time this year and will end during the seasonal cocktail hour; a live auction is held during the dinner. This benefit is a prominent part of the local-food movement in the Washington, DC area; it was named “the locavore party of the year” by DC magazine in 2010, and attracts more than 350 diners as well as local and national media attention.
Funds from the 2010 Farmland Feast go straight to local farmers markets and with the help of more than 150 loyal farmers and producers, FRESHFARM Markets will bring fresh, healthy and local food to more than 360,000 customers this year. And with events such as the Farmland Feast, they are able to reach a significant number of shoppers: friends, families, neighbors, environmentalists, gardeners, health professionals and, most important, healthy eaters.
FRESHFARM Markets strives to build and strengthen the local food movement in the Chesapeake Bay region. They use markets to create vibrant urban and community places, to provide economic opportunities for farmers and to showcase our region’s agricultural bounty. They also aim to create a sustainable urban-rural partnership that brings the blessings of healthy local food to our communities and sustains the working landscapes that feed us.
This dinner features local Virginia chef Tarver King from The Ashby Inn & Restaurant in Paris, VA and a whole slew of greats from DC. Don’t miss out on your chance to support local farms, farmers and markets!
Individual tickets for the feast are $250. For those attending the event, $200 is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.
The 2011 Farmland Feast will take place Monday, November 7, 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, DC.
RSVP early at freshfarmmarkets.org.
– Jennie Whistler
The Great Pumpkin Dinner at Clifton Inn
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, October 24th, 2011
Image: Smileus/Shutterstock
For all you pumpkin fans and fall enthusiasts out there, great news to share:
Tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 25 at 6 p.m., The Clifton Inn in Charlottesville is hosting none other than a PUMPKIN THEMED DINNER!
This culinary celebration will honor the autumn harvest of pumpkins by serving four pumpkin-focused courses (taking the ubiquitous orange fruit beyond its common uses as a jack-o-lantern or pie):
-Scotch compressed jarrahdale pumpkin with pears, chickweed and arugula
-Cushaw pumpkin “risotto” with chestnuts, monkfish and dried black olives
-Caramelized musque de provence pumpkin with sorghum glazed pork belly, herbed wheatberries and pickled wild mushrooms
-Cinderella pumpkin custard with candied pecans, graham cracker ice cream and sherried raisins
Enjoy these epicurean explorations of the famous pumpkin with Monticello Mountain in the distance, a picture-perfect image of fall foliage making a wonderful backdrop for this autumnal culinary event, tucked on 100 acres of the Clifton Inn.
Cost of the Pumpkin Dinner is $58 per person, excluding tax and gratuity. Wine pairings may be added for an additional price.
The Clifton Inn is located at 1296 Clifton Inn Drive in Charlottesville. Call 888-971-1800 for reservations.
-Julia Harbo
Whole Foods Dinner: Not Your Whole Paycheck
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
Last night, in a hasty desire to cook a good dinner, my boyfriend and I swung by the Whole Foods on 14th Street in D.C. on the way home from work. Though it has unarguably great products, it’s all too often that Whole Foods becomes synonymous with Whole Paycheck.
But on a mission to not spend a whole paycheck’s worth on quality groceries (as my stomach growled more vigorously as the hour crept closer to dinnertime, it was hard not to pull everything off the shelves), we roamed the store on a strict budget. And succeed we did, with dinner for two, for under $20. And it was a really good dinner.
Since hunger, not time, was on our sides, we picked out four ready-to-cook herbed and seasoned chicken thighs, a fresh (still warm, oh yes) baguette (I couldn’t help ripping off a hunk from one end of the warm baguette as we walked back to the house four blocks away), a large portobella mushroom, and fresh goat cheese. Lastly, we made an arugula salad at the salad bar. Total cost: $18.02.
That comes out to about $9 per person, and we still had two leftover pieces of chicken, and about half of the baguette and circle of goat cheese. If you doubled the salad quantity, you could easily feed four for about $5 per person.
Now, let me tell you how good this dinner was…simplicity is good.
To start, we made our salad with fresh arugula, shredded beets, jicama, zucchini, corn, and feta cheese. We made our own dressing at home with a little bit of balsamic vinegar, whole grain mustard, honey, hot sauce, olive oil, and salt and pepper. I swear I could have eaten just this salad for dinner, it was that good. There’s just something about fresh arugula, with its sharp bitter taste, mixed with the slightly sweet and tangy flavor of beets and balsamic dressing that is impossible to beat.
Arugula salad with corn, beets, jicama, zucchini and feta with homemade balsamic-honey dressing
Next, we made our crostinis by slicing up the baguette, topping each piece with a smear of goat cheese, and then adding the sauteed portobella mushroom on top. To cook the mushroom, we simply sauteed it in butter and balsamic vinegar, with a little salt and pepper, and then chopped it up and added it to the bread and cheese. We ran out of mushroom for one row of the bread slices, so we just used goat cheese and a drizzle of honey for those. Then we sprinkled all of them with some herbed basil and pepper and popped them in the oven for about 10 minutes while the chicken was baking.
Goat cheese and honey/goat cheese and portobella crostinis
The chicken was the easiest– we literally just transferred it from the saran-wrapped package to the oven. And man, did it come out ever so juicy and tender, with so much flavor from the herbs. Normally I would opt to buy plain fresh chicken and season it myself, but this package just looked so good, so easy, and was ridiculously cheap.
The whole dinner.
So, as it turns out, it is possible to shop at Whole Foods without making it your Whole Paycheck.
For Whole Foods locations near you, go here.
-Julia Harbo
First Annual Village at Shirlington Restaurant Week
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, October 10th, 2011
The latest to hop on the Restaurant Week bandwagon: Shirlington.
This week, October 10-16, The Village at Shirlington is offering its first annual Restaurant Week.
At participating restaurants, patrons can dine on a two-course lunch for $15 and a three-course dinner for $25.
Participating restaurants include: Aladdin’s Eatery, Aroma Indian Cuisine, Bistro Bistro, Bonsai Grill, The Bungalow, Busboys & Poets, Capitol City Brewing Company, Dogma Bakery & Boutique, Extra Virgin Modern Italian Cuisine, Johnny Rockets, Luna Grill & Diner, PING, Samuel Beckett’s Irish Gastro Pub, and T.H.A.I. Shirlington.
See the special Restaurant Week menus here.
Enjoy!
-Julia Harbo
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
The other night I had the pleasure of enjoying a fantastic meal of fish tacos at my boyfriend’s parent’s house. Fish tacos have recently become one of my favorite meals; every time I have them I am reminded of how good they are, with so many fresh flavors and textures. Plus, enjoying some fish tacos makes me feel like a cool Californian surfer, like this dude:
Here’s my recipe for ridiculously delicious and easy fish tacos. Most fish tacos are made with mahi-mahi, but I use tilapia because I like the mild taste and it’s generally less expensive. I use a bean-corn-tomato dip recipe as the topping for the tacos, and it compliments them amazingly. Finally, they’re topped with a killer sauce my boyfriend whipped up to give the tacos an ultimate zesty kick. These fish tacos are Wapahh! good:
(Serves four)
For the converted dip-topping:
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can sweet corn
1 large tomato, diced
1 small red onion, diced
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
Salt and pepper, to taste
Sprinkle of cayenne pepper (if you want an extra kick)
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix together thoroughly. Put aside, either in refrigerator or leave out at room temperature.
For the sauce:
1/4 cup light mayonnaise
1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
Juice of 1/2 lime
A couple leaves of cilantro, finely chopped
In a small bowl, whip together mayonnaise and vinegar with a spoon. Add the honey and the lime, and lastly, the cilantro. Put aside.
For the taco essentials:
4-12 small soft corn tortillas (depending on how many tacos you plan on eating)
3 tilapia filets
Salt and pepper, to season
About 1 tablespoon of olive oil, for pan frying
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Season the filets with salt and pepper on both sides and throw in the pan when hot. Cook for about 3-4 minutes on each side or until cooked all the way through. Don’t worry about keeping the filets intact as you serve them in medium-sized chunks anyway. When finished, put the fish into a bowl with a spoon for easy serving.
Warm the tortillas in the microwave or in the oven.
To assemble, spoon some fish onto your open tortilla, followed by a generous serving of the dip-topping, and finally, the sauce. I like to finish it off with a sprinkle of green chile hot sauce. Roll the tortilla together and dig in! Expect it to get messy and have extra napkins handy (or just lick your fingers like I do).
For more fish taco options, check out this Northern Virginia-based blog recipe or visit some of the fish taco-serving joints in the NoVA area, such as Taqueria Poblano‘s Baja Fish Tacos with beer-battered and fried mahi-mahi.
Enjoy, dudes!
-Julia Harbo
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 31st, 2011
At a certain point in life, birthdays can start feeling a little bittersweet. Milestones are few and far between, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be celebrated annually. Jehovah’s Witnesses may disagree, but commemorating the anniversary of your birth in some form or fashion is a time-honored cultural tradition worth keeping. It’s the perfect excuse to go out to eat with friends and family, as if we needed one. Restaurants around the region provide added incentives for those who choose to eat there on the day of. Freebies, discounts and renditions of the song we all know and love have become the norm at most chains.
If you’re looking for birthday deals. Here’s a list of viable options…
1. Applebees offers a free dessert and a birthday song.
2. Benihana will send you a certificate worth $30 to use during the month of your birthday when you join the “Chef’s Table” mailing list.
3. Buffalo Wild Wings will prepare a free dessert just for you.
4. Chevy’s Fresh Mex has free desserts when you join the Compadres Club.
5. Famous Daves will send you a free food coupon when you join the P.I.G. Club.
6. Fuddruckers has free burgers once you join the Fudds Club.
7. IHOP offers a free meal and a sundae at some locations.
8. Macaroni Grill offers a free dessert plus a song.
9. Maggiano’s will take $10 off the price of your meal when you join the Birthday Club.
10. Outback Steakhouse will prepare you a free dessert and sing you a song.
11. P.F. Changs also has free desserts on your birthday.
12. Ruby Tuesdays has free burgers for anyone who joins the So Connected Club.
13. Texas Roadhouse will send you a coupon for a free dessert or appetizer when you become a “Roadie“.
14. TGI Fridays has free appetizers when you sign up for Friday’s E-Club. Waiters have been known to sing to you as well.
As you can see, most of these deals do not exist without signing up for a free membership first. This minimizes the success rate of dishonest individuals, and allows restaurants to reward loyal customers.
Whenever it may be, I hope you have a happy birthday!
Ryan Robertson
(image: BLOGSPOT)