Eastern Market weekend flea market, originally uploaded by odradek23.

With Eastern Market having its grand reopening this weekend, the next big thing for 7th and Pennsylvania SE is the redevelopment of the Hine Jr. High site. This is going to change the face of Eastern Market and Capitol Hill as we know it, and go a long way to the unification of Eastern Market and Barracks Row. DCPS closed Hine and the city will be leasing the property to the developer in a 99-year agreement.

The crop of proposals for the site was recently whittled to four, and the four developers have all been doing their best to inform and woo the neighbors.

I’m not an urban planning expert. I took one urban planning class in undergrad, and though I think I got a B, that was 15 years ago, and I don’t understand a lot of the terms that get thrown around in these discussions. (Particularly the really intense ones over at Greater Greater Washington – I love those guys, but I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about half the time!) So, with that caveat, here are my very brief overviews (with some help from GGW, EMCCA, the CityPaper, The Hill is Home, and CHAMPS) of the 4 plans.
Continues after the jump Read Full Post

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IMG_0040, originally uploaded by katiemac1.

If any of you wandered past Eastern Market over the weekend, you saw that the temporary indoor market hall was closed for business. This is actually fantastic news because last week the temporary market closed down to transition back to the renovated permanent market! The vendors are using this time to move back into their old (improved) stalls, and to do some

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I’ve been kicking around this idea for a while now, that I would talk about how and why I’m still a dedicated Safeway shopper, even though Harris Teeter came to town. I had all of these noble (“Harris Teeter prevents its employees from unionizing!” “The prices – the prices! Just across the river at the VA HT’s everything’s 30 cents less!”) and not so noble (“The HT after work is full of the kind of psuedo-food snobbery that I fully admit to participating in, and frankly, I’m unemployed and want to grocery shop in my sweats and not have to bump into my fancy employed professional acquaintances with a cart full of ramen.”) reasons that I was going to outline and declare my undying devotion to the Safeway Formerly Known as the Unsafeway. I was… I really, really was.

But lately I have to admit… I’ve been fervently cheating on Safeway with the new kid in town. It started innocently enough around the holidays. HT has some swankier goods, and it was just one time. I kept coming back to Safeway to do my weekly “big shop” though. With all the time on my hands though, I started cooking for myself more and more and getting back in the kitchen, happy to have time to pursue one of my favorite hobbies. I’d go to Safeway, and they just wouldn’t always have what I needed. Slowly but surely, it made less and less sense to even bother with Safeway, since I knew I’d have to make two trips anyway. (Not to mention the trips to Balducci’s and Dean & Deluca for the occasional treat or far flung ingredient. I am happy to report I haven’t set foot in a Whole Foods in at least 6 months, but that’s a whole different, irrational issue.) Then Lent rolled around, and the Harris Teeter seafood department is truly far better than my dear old Safeway’s, and so every Friday I’d hit the HT to see what was on sale, or to pick up their passable sushi. Since Easter, I’ve been really lazy what with Spring sort of, kind of teasing it’s way out, so I’ve been all about the (exorbitantly priced) salad bar at the Teet. And that brings us to today…

I have desperately needed to go grocery shopping for a couple of weeks now. And as I was gathering up my things and getting ready to go, I never even considered my old friend the Safeway. And I realized that I’m one of those people. Those people who dump the old reliable when the new and shiny comes to town. I have shopped at the Safeway for 7 years. The staff was no longer surly to me. I’d seen it transformed from the Unsafeway into a real, live, modern grocery store complete with a Starbucks, an olive bar and a decent produce section. (Once, many years ago, I went to the Safeway on a Sunday morning looking for tomato juice for bloodies. They had none. What the fuck, I thought. Now, I can get a variety of tomato-based juices, including my preferred Clamato.) Continues after the jump Read Full Post

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I fell asleep at 8pm on Sunday. Not because I’d been busy doing yard work, or even walking around checking out the Cherry Blossoms. I was worn out from my yearly bout of The Madness.

Whether or not I closely follow college hoops during the regular season is largely dependent upon how good a team Maryland, my alma mater, has and how exciting the ACC is. But come March, I’m ready for hours of game watching, smack talking, and bracketology.

Since I’m not working, this year I didn’t have to develop a mystery illness to duck out of work at Noon on opening day. I have however had to decline invitations to meet friends at locations without enough tvs, and I almost stormed Comcast’s offices when my cable went out just in time for the Sweet Sixteen. I was also supremely anti-social at the PoP happy hour last week, not ever setting foot upstairs, because I’d found an excellent perch at the bar from which to view ‘Nova knock Duke out of the tourney and my hometown favorite Pitt win for the last time this year.

I’ve been checking out the games all over town, and across the river in Old Town. From Solly’s the other night, to the Pour House in my neck of the woods, to Chadwick’s across the river, to Lola’s (in the old Tapatinis spot on Barracks Row – make a point to check it out if you haven’t; it’s an excellent little neighborhood bar) to the Argonaut, to Bugsy’s (also in Old Town), to Tonic for post game highlights – I’ve logged more than a reasonable amount of hours in front of televisions in bars, not to mention consuming innumerable pints of beer, celebratory shots, drowning-of-busted-bracket-sorrows shots, chicken fingers, nachos, pretzels and all manner of bar foods. (Lola’s has the best chicken fingers I’ve ever had – seriously, check it out.)  Continues after the jump. Read Full Post

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I finally went and visited the lovely residents of the house featured here.

It’s a really great space, and that store front window provides a sort of stage-like space inside the apartment. Perhaps for karaoke parties?

They took me out to their patio to show me their outhouse and great grilling space. You may recall that they said that the building had previously been a German bakery – you can still see the charred wood from where they used fire to bake the bread in the back building (which now serves as the owner’s garage).

Many thanks to Sharyn and Nick for letting me snoop around and share pictures of their very cool apartment with everyone!

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At PoP’s request, I went to the National Building Museum. In the afternoon. In jeans. No ballgowns or tuxes in sight. Weird.

I had never been there during the day before. Well, I had once, but that was to tour the space for a fundraiser I was throwing. (we did not ultimately use the venue) But other than that, the Building Museum has always been to me a place where obligatory, formal-wear-required parties and balls and benefits take place, where all that there is to look forward to is the open bar and the hope that there will be passed hors d’oeuvres more interesting than mini-crabcakes. So when PoP asked, I gave an enthusiastic “Sure!” – especially since the very next day, I was meeting a friend for lunch at Eat First.

After lunch on Friday, we wandered over there. My friend, an employee at the GAO, said that she’d been inside many times. After all, on cold nights, it was an excellent (and warm) shortcut from her office to the Judiciary Square metro. And of course, those cookies at Firehook are fantastic. I asked if she knew what sort of stuff was in there, and other than the fountain and the columns, with which I was already familiar, she didn’t have much more of a clue than I.

To be fair, a former colleague’s wife works there. I’ve never met her, but I asked him once, “So what kind of stuff is there,” and he said, “You know, architectural stuff. An exhibit on DC. A ton of empty office space that they’re looking to rent.”

When we walked in, it was clear they were setting up for an event. Not the kind of black tie thing I was fairly used to, but something else, with a lot of booths. We later found out that it was for Discover Engineering Family Day, an event put on my the National Engineers Week Foundation and the Museum. Not ever having been especially prone to science, or math, or anything engineer-y, my response to learning this was, “Seriously?” In reality though, I wish I’d known about this in time to let all of you know beforehand (the event took place on Saturday the 21^st) because it looked really cool. The woman I spoke to was from the National Science Foundation. They were in the process of constructing a tank where they would be simulating tsunamis! AND, where you could construct your own mini structures, to put in the line of the tsunami to be destroyed! When I excitedly explained how that was pretty much the coolest thing ever because tsunamis are my favorite natural disaster, the nice lady invited me back for the event. Unfortunately my extreme discomfort in the presence of one child, let alone hundreds, prevented that from happening – but damn, it seemed cool. Continues after the jump. Read Full Post

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You know how when you live in one place for a long time, you sort of start to take for granted what’s neat about it? Sometimes it takes a new eye to remind you of why you’re there in the first place. Well, this is kind of like that.

I sometimes forget that the rest of the city kind of ignores my part of the world, especially that stuff which isn’t conveniently located on Pennsylvania Ave., 8^th St., H St. or at Eastern Market. So when I offhandedly mentioned to my NW-dwelling friend that I’d gotten food at Jimmy T’s today, she actually asked, “What is that?”

It’s not her fault really. I have a hard time dragging my friends over here for a night out (to their credit though, it does happen) let alone cheap, greasy, comfort breakfast, and I can see how I may not have really mentioned it since it’s Jimmy T’s – it’s just not all that special.

Sure, there’s the Leg Lamp from A Christmas Story. And an autographed Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle from A Christmas Story. And pictures of the cast from A Christmas Story. And sure they serve breakfast all day, except for Mondays and Tuesdays when they’re closed. But, it’s just Jimmy T’s, right? Continues after the jump. Read Full Post

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Market Inn, originally uploaded by sally henny penny.

“In the Washington Times, Market Inn in SW is closing down tonight, that landlord apparently has other plans.”  

I had Nichole check it out and it turns out, sadly to be true:

It’s true. According to the Times’ article:
Owner Carl Mandis hadn’t planned on closing the family business that was started by his mother and father, Hilda and John Mandis, in November 1959. But the property owners’ new lease demand, which includes higher payments and a shorter renewal period, made it impractical to continue business, Mr. Kipp said.

The property owners plan to raze the building to make way for office space, he said.

In addition, the legendary nude paintings and other furnishings and memorabilia are being auctioned off. If you have any interest, the link is here.

This makes me sad. I recall having a couple of work meetings over lunch here a few years ago which were reminiscent of Charlie Wilson’s Washington. (Though perhaps not as much as the working lunches we occasionally had at Archibald’s.) They also had a great brunch here. Market Inn will be missed.

Any fans of Market Inn out there?

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In the comments on my post about Taylor Gourmet a couple of weeks ago, IMGoph pointed out that I had been remiss in mentioning Margialardo’s on the Hill (14^th and PA Ave SE) when I discussed the remarkably few places around town to get a decent sandwich. Mangialardo’s keeps old timey bankers’ hours (7:30am-3pm, M-F) so unless you’re working in the neighborhood, you are going to miss out. Since I only live on the Hill, it’d been years since I had the opportunity to stop in, but my current unemployed state allowed me to stop in last week.

I got there post lunch-rush (around 2pm) and got a G-Man for myself and a Big G for my sandwich loving friend. There was only one other couple in front of me, so I put my order in and waited about 10 minutes for my sandwich. The goods were cheap – I think $15ish for both sandwiches and a soda. Much to my friend’s glee, they put will gladly put mayo on your sub (Taylor doesn’t even keep the stuff in the store). This is a sandwich more in the A. Litteri style than the Taylor style, and while it was good, and certainly filling, we both ended the meal with an “eh.” It wasn’t bad – at all. It was certainly good. But Litteri’s is better. And Taylor is different – also good. But in the quest for a decent sandwich in DC, you can do better than Mangialardo’s. If the city had better outposts for procuring a great sandwich, I don’t think Mangialardo’s would warrant much of a mention (in fairness, the same might be said for Litteri’s) but here, it’s far, far above average and definitely worth checking out if you can make it over to the Hill before 3pm on a weekday.

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U.S. Capitol, originally uploaded by NearDC.

“My daughter will be interning from January 12th-May 09 in the Senate building, and we have been trying to locate reputable, temporary housing for her, via the internet. This is quite challenging, since we live in Tennessee, and she will not be traveling to D.C. until two days before she reports to work. Do you have a community bulletin board that is available to the public, which might list rental property? What communities are considered safe and offer a short commute to the Senate building? Any info would be appreciated.”

I was going to take a crack at this but decided to punt it to Nichole who lives on the Hill. So below please find Nichole’s advice.

The first thing I’d recommend is Craigslist for temporary housing. With the transition, rentals are moving quickly with so many new people coming into town. As for neighborhoods, the first I’d recommend is Capitol Hill, which is definitely walking distance to the Senate. The Senate offices are on the Northeast side of the Hill, but really, it’s all walking distance. (I live on the NE side at the corner of 10th and Constitution NE, and one of my neighbors works in the House, the other in the Senate and they both walk to work) The Hill has been experiencing a great rennaissance, and the “safe places” are expanding every year. The “Hill East” area (which is roughly east of 12th St. SE/NE) is becoming a great neighborhood, with several restaurants and the new Harris Teeter grocery store, and easy access to the Potomac Avenue metro.

A little north of Capitol Hill is the H Street area. You might see it called “Atlas District” in listings. This is another great neighborhood, and the demographic is a little younger than Capitol Hill. Prices there should be a little cheaper than on the Hill, and it’s still an easy walk to the Senate buildings. I will be very honest though: a single young girl should be very cautious walking at night. This rule is true of everywhere, even in the nicest of city neighborhoods – but I will say that both the Hill East and H Street areas are constantly evolving and are considered “transitional.” That said, I’d still highly recommend both areas because of their proximity to amenities and the Senate and I don’t think they are unsafe areas.

I took a quick look at craigslist and found a couple of postings that looked promising, depending on your price range: (Continues after the jump) Read Full Post

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Sydney 2008 New Year Fireworks 1, originally uploaded by silverlily.

I’ve been asked by a number of folks some options for new years. So I had Raz, Tina, Nichole as well as myself put a few together. If you have any recommendations please put them in the comments. Thanks.

From Solly’s:

Celebrate the New Year with the Washington Irish Rugby Team!

Tickets include 2 hour complimentary Surreal Vodka, Heineken Light, and PBR until 10:30PM.

Admission also includes:

* Buffet of great food
* Live band covering your favorites
* $3 Surreal Vodka after 10:30PM
* $3 Heineken Light and PBR
* Champagne Toast

New Year’s Eve Irish Fundraiser

When: New Year’s Eve – 8pm to Close
Where: Solly’s U st Tavern, 11th and U st NW
What: Open Bar and food from 8 to 10pm, bands, prizes, good times
Cost: $45 before the event
**Buy your tickets here http://www.washingtonirishrfc.org/nyePay.php

More after the jump. Read Full Post

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I was in Baltimore this past weekend for the Ravens game (I’m a Ravens fan from Pittsburgh who lives in DC – it’s complicated.) and after suffering a disappointing defeat, my friend and I left the game looking for some cheer. Luckily, we were a cheap cab ride away from Baltimore’s own brand of cheer: 34^th Street in the Hampden neighborhood.

The Miracle on 34^th Street as it’s come to be called is a Christmas tradition in Baltimore, and one that I’ve missed. (I called Baltimore home on and off in my early 20s and sometimes I really miss it. I’m a blue collar girl at heart and Baltimore is comfort food for me. Of course, there’s a reason existing on mashed potatoes and mac n’ cheese alone is inadvisable and I’m very happy living here and visiting from time to time.) This year it was just what I needed to put me back in a good mood after the game.

About 25 houses on one block participate, and some even let folks inside for a peek. On Sunday there was someone selling hot chocolate, an appearance by Biker Santa and a group of Japanese tourists. If you find yourself in Charm City before January 1, you should definitely make a stop in Hampden. Not just for the lights, but maybe the meatloaf at Cafe Hon, or a burrito at Holy Frijoles (which doesn’t serve alcohol on Sundays), or an afternoon of shopping the Avenue before hitting 34^th Street after the sun goes down.

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matchbox: capitol hill location, originally uploaded by aliciagriffin.

I have to admit only having been to Matchbox’s original location a few times. Not because I didn’t enjoy it (I did) but more because it just didn’t occur to me that often. With their opening on 8^th St. SE (Barracks Row) that is set to change.

The Hill/H St. area is sorely lacking in pizza places. The upscale pizza craze has largely ignored the area until now. Even the planned Radius at the Ohio on H St. seems to be tabled in favor of a Tonic. Apparently the city’s pizza purveyors don’t think we have any interest in their wares over here. (In fairness, I am a big fan of the very traditional pizza from Bistro Italiano on D St. NE behind Schneider’s, and Armand’s isn’t terrible. Regardless, there certainly isn’t a glut of options.)

bar, originally uploaded by aliciagriffin.

Matchbox opened on Friday the 5^th, and I made it over for dinner on Sunday night. My friend and I got there just before 6, and were seated right away, but about 10 minutes later, the place was packed and stayed that way until we left. Not bad for a cold Sunday night. People familiar with the Chinatown location will recognize the similarities. What my friend (formerly a Hill resident, now a denizen of Southwest) and I most noticed was the variety of patrons. Lots of families, lots of folks watching the Steelers’ fourth quarter victory over Dallas at the bar, young couples and groups of friends all patiently waited to be seated or dined leisurely on the pizzas and burgers (I saw so many trays of burgers go by, it almost made me question our choice to split a flat-iron steak pizza.) The food was excellent, the service was speedy, and despite the fact that there was clearly a wait, we didn’t feel rushed to leave. Continues after the jump. Read Full Post

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DC is not a sandwich city. This is a common lament from transplants who remember the delis back home and are looking for a little sustenance on a sub roll. Sure, there’s Litteri’s, So’s Your Mom, breadline, and the Chicken Madness at Wisey’s, but for a city of this size, it can seem like slim pickings.

David Mazza and Casey Patten are Philly transplants who recognized the need for a place to get a decent sub in DC and so they opened Taylor Gourmet earlier in the month. The folks over at Frozen Tropics have been holding their breath waiting for this spot to open at 1116 H St. NE for months now. And now that they have, it seems like a day doesn’t go by that a new positive review isn’t posted on a blog or, most recently, in the Post.

I recently dropped in on Taylor moments before the lunch rush and got to chat a bit with David, and of course, grab a sandwich and some risotto balls. My timing was great because 5 minutes after placing my order, the line was starting to form. I asked David what he recommended and he said that I had to give the 9^th Street Italian a try. Perfect, because I’d been eying the menu for a while and that was precisely what I was thinking. I got a side of risotto balls and a soda from the Boylan’s fountain.

Continues after the jump. Read Full Post

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I know that the PoP community isn’t comprised of a bunch of Georgetown enthusiasts. [Ed note: I actually met a few readers from Georgetown at the 2 Year Anniversary Party and they were quite nice. While Gtown isn't my normal stomping grounds they do have some sweet homes and doors there.] Myself, I have about as much use for Georgetown as I do for a nose on my butt and there are only a few very select circumstances that will find me miserably wandering the intersection of M and Wisconsin muttering to myself in anger over whatever reason brought me into this neighborhood that easily passes for my own personal 4^th Circle of Hell. However, my friend is seeing some doctors over at Georgetown Medical Center, and I’ve been helping her out with rides to and from some of her appointments, so I’ve found myself on the Darkside on a few occasions recently. I’ve taken this opportunity to revisit some favorites that I’ve long since abandoned and check out some of the new kids on the block.

First up is Wisemiller’s Deli, located way up off of Prospect St. on 1236 36th St NW. (Next to 1789, F Scotts and the Tombs aka the Rich Old White Guy, Mid Life Crisis and Popped Collar Undergrad of the Clyde’s family of restaurants.)

Wisey’s looks like a typical convenience store, with pints of Ben & Jerry’s, six packs of remarkably decent beer, sodas and snacks. But it is also home to my One True Sandwich Love in DC: the Chicken Madness. I think most people who have gone to Georgetown are familiar with the Madness; I’m pretty sure you have to eat your weight in them to graduate. Having gone instead to the less illustrious state school up the road in Maryland, Wisey’s wasn’t brought to my attention until sometime in the mid-90s when a friend from my crappy temp job who was a G’town graduate decided to introduce me. I’ve been hooked ever since and make it my mission to get others on board.  Continues after the jump with lots of cupcakes… Read Full Post

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