Posts Tagged ‘Planet Wine’
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
Wine Tastings for Thanksgiving
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
Trying to figure out what beverages to serve with your big Turkey Day dinner?
Image: Bochkarev Photography/Shutterstock
Well, stop by one of the few wine tastings going on today and tomorrow and you can sample some different wines to pair with your Thanksgiving meal.
Planet Wine (2004 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria; 703-549-3444) will be hosting their Procrastinator’s Saving Grace tomorrow, Wednesday, November 22, from 3-7 p.m. with wine sampling to pick out your bottles for the feast. There will also be Red Apron charcuterie (sage and maple sausage, coppa, bresoala, prosciutto, country pate) and pies from Buzz Bakery (sweet potato pie with cranberry jam, cinnamon and marshmallow fluff, bourbon chocolate pecan pie, and classic pumpkin) for any last minute cooking mishaps that may force you to pick up something a little easier.
The Vineyard Table (711 Dranesville Road, Herndon; 703-657-0002) is having a Turkey Day Wine Tasting today, November 22, from 12-5 p.m.
The Vineyard (1445 Laughlin Ave., McLean; 703-288-2970) is having their 4th Annual Thanksgiving Extravaganza tomorrow, Wednesday, November 23, from 12-4 p.m. They’ll be pouring wines that compliment all the typical Thanksgiving dishes and will offer pairing recommendations for any specific dishes on your menu.
-Julia Harbo
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, October 17th, 2011
This Saturday I ventured out to Rustico‘s Oktobeerfest in Alexandria. Offering over 50 different beer drafts all day, Rustico was teaming up with neighbors Buzz Bakery and Planet Wine to raise funds for their non-profit partner Arcadia.
I think it’s safe to say they earned a great amount of money this weekend.
I arrived at around 3 p.m. and after waiting in a short line received five free tickets, as promised, for showing a picture of myself standing in front of the Braddock Road Metro (they were, however, all out of the other option of a free glass Oktobeerfest beer mug and only offered the ceramic ones for purchase for $10, which I was mildly disappointed by).
Upon entering the festival area, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The space was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with beer-thirsty people; and though it was otherwise an absolutely perfect warm and sunny fall day, I began to sweat and feel like I was a cooking grain of rice jam packed among 500 others in a boiling pot. (It was at this point that my boyfriend and I agreed we’d rather have been told the festival was at capacity instead of them letting us inside.) But we’d just paid $40 in tickets and wanted some good, cold beer, dang it.
I risked punching my fellow Oktobeerfesters in the side and was able to pull my arm through the crowd and up in the air to get this picture.
With our eye immediately on the Hoptober beer labeled on a sign that I could peek a glance at between bobbing heads of people in the crowd, we went over and stood in the area of the crowd that we guessed was the line. After about 10 minutes, we watched the beer-pouring employee tear down the Hoptober sign and barely read his lips form the words “all gone.”
Since we couldn’t actually move anywhere else, it seemed like we were standing in another line to get beer from any of the other kegs (of the supposed 50+ beers on tap) and when inquiring what kind of beer it was, the woman behind me (who, with whom I shared so much skin, could have been mistaken as my siamese twin) whined “I don’t even care anymore.” When we finally got to the front of the ‘line,’ we didn’t know what kind of beer was in the keg in front of us, but the man in the Oktobeerfest t-shirt informed us that the “sour, very sour” beer would be “9 tickets each.”
Maybe I’m just missing an affinity to sour beer, but oh man, was it sour.
One of the serving tables. Sadly, they were all out of turkey legs by 3:15.
The high note of the afternoon was the short line for the mustard braised pork shoulder sandwich with red cabbage and apples. We got lucky and snagged a corner of one of the few small standing-height tables to pause for a minute with the food.
Mustard braised pork shoulder sandwich with red cabbage and apples, and our sour beer.
Hungry for more, we went towards the brat dog tent where we saw people coming from holding amazing looking dogs piled with bacon braised sauerkraut. We had been waiting in a mess of a line for about 20 minutes when the server shouted out to the hungry crowd that everyone on the left side (our side of the mob) had to be ordering the BBQ pulled pork sliders and everyone on the right side was for the brat dogs. It was then that we gave up and pushed our way through the crowd toward the exit.
On the bright side, all of the staff members were very pleasant and helpful despite the mayhem. The ticket booth bought back our unused tickets (we donated five to Arcadia) and the hostess inside Rustico, where we went to see how long a table for two in the restaurant would be (an hour, we were told, because the kitchen was backed up), was very friendly and apologetic to us.
Perhaps the good weather simply brought way more visitors than expected; perhaps we got there too late in the day. If I go back next year, I would like to see more available beer with shorter lines and about one-third of the crowd. Regardless, it was a busy day for a good cause and I’m hopeful in saying that the event must have been a success for at least some people in the crowd.
-Julia Harbo
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, March 13th, 2009
Would that prime cuts of beefs and charcuterie could save our flagging economy.
(Photo: Laurent Jung)
Because this area boasts a slew of custom meat purveyors par excellence.
Tallula/EatBar ex-toque Nathan Anda left the Arlington gastrohub last summer to develop his own charcuterie concept, which has since evolved into the Red Apron Butchery. Though he’s still scouting final locations for the shop–something Anda hopes is “weeks, not months away”–Anda already envisions a full-service facility replete with homemade sauces, gourmet foodstuffs and exotic proteins.
“It’ll be an experience, going in there,” Anda insists. He plans to specialize in “stuff that isn’t available everywhere,” tossing out pig ear terrines, cured lamb bellies, handmade lardo and trotters as potential impulse buys.
In the meantime, Anda’s current catalog (cured meats, homemade hot dogs) will be available for retail purchase at Planet Wine and officially debuts in Buzz‘s panini line. Anda is also firming up his relationships with various local farmers markets, estimating that he’ll make the rounds to the weekly Ballston, Penn Quarter and possibly one other open-air showplace beginning early next month.
Anda is also talking with fellow Neighborhood Restaurant Group chefs Anthony Chittum (Vermilion) and Frank Morales (Rustico) about weaving some of his wares into their menus.
“Hopefully, in the coming months, he’ll be using my pepperoni,” Anda said of the spicy sausage he’s developed for Morales’ gourmet pies. He also plans to make his products readily available to incoming Tallula chef Barry Koslow–though he suspects the charcuterie-savvy Koslow will not want for jaw-dropping snackables.
“With Barry coming in, it’s [Tallula] going to be awesome,” Anda predicts.
Meanwhile, Robert Wiedmaier’s new gourmet shop, The Butcher’s Block should be up and running shortly. Chef Chris Watson will oversee a gourmet retailer (along with the fledgling BRABO/BRABO Tasting Room) poised to offer fresh breads, wild game and a bevy of Belgian beers.
Down the road in Del Ray, Aussie butcher Stephen Gatward has developed a loyal following at Let’s Meat on the Avenue by serving up hard-to-find items (kangaroo meat, anyone?) as well as neighborhood necessities (smoked dog bones).
For those who enjoy a a dash of intrigue with their entrails, the mercurial Jamie Stachowski continues to peddle his cured goodies in the darnedest places (next delivery: tomorrow at noon).
And I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t give a nod to the gourmet links that spring from the mind of improbable sausage baron, Stanley Feder.
We’ve never had it so good.
–Warren Rojas
