Tatiana Day

In honor of St. Tatiana, not to mention partner Tatiana Brunetti, Mari Vanna is giving a free flute of champagne and a Birdsmilk dessert (pictured above) to anyone named Tatiana. Who is St. Tatiana? According to Wikipedia:

She was the daughter of a Roman civil servant who was secretly Christian, and raised his daughter in the faith, and she became a deaconess in the church. This was dangerous, and one day the jurist Ulpian captured Tatiana and attempted to force her to make a sacrifice to Apollo. She prayed, and miraculously, an earthquake destroyed the Apollo statue and part of the temple.

Tatiana was then blinded, and beaten for two days, before being brought to a circus and thrown into the pit with a hungry lion. But the lion did not touch her and lay at her feet. This resulted in a death sentence being pronounced, and after being tortured, Tatiana was beheaded with a sword on January 25, around AD 225 or 230.

So if you're a Tatiana, head to Mari Vanna to celebrate your namesake's beheading. It'll be fun!

Pork!

Lauren DeSantis reminds us that Cochon 555 is only three months away:

Guests will be treated to an epic pork feast of seven whole heritage pigs from amazing chefs, wines from five different small wineries plus special tastings from celebrated food and beverage producers. New additions in 2013 include the streaming live cocktail competition called "Punch Kings" featuring local mixologists, our unique take on "Guy on His Buffalo" Cocktail Series, a special Mezcal tasting and the launch of the TarTar Bar. Everyone enjoys butcher demonstrations, interactive tasting contests, ice-cold brews, artisan cheeses, Rappahannock River Oysters, the infamous Manhattan Bar, a pork-spiked dessert, cold brewed coffee and to close the evening, attendees and local judges will help us announce the 2012 NYC Princess of Porc.

 A lot of these sorts of events are pretty gimmicky and not really worth the cost of admission, but I've only heard good things about this pork-centric event. Tickets start at $125.

Places to go next week

Urban Daddy reminds us that Graffiato is starting their late night pop-up series next week Monday. On the first Monday of every month, Isabella is handing the kitchen over to another area chef. Kicking it off is Bryan Voltaggio and Owen Thompson, so it should be awesome. I'm not sure I can stay up that late anymore, but someone should definitely let me know how it is. The full schedule is here.

Pearl Dive Anniversary Party

Happy First Birthday Pearl Dive! Hard to believe it's already been a year, but Pearl Dive / Black Jack are celebrating their first anniversary on September 20th. Courtesy of Borderstan:

Pre-sale tickets are priced at $150 and include unlimited fresh seafood (including oysters, of course!) with signature dishes from Pearl Dive’s menu, live music, and an open bar. Proceeds from the event will be donated to Food & Friends on behalf of the Black’s Family Foundation.

 I'm sure it will be a lot of fun.

Happy Belated Rickey Month

Photo by Reece Lloyd, on flickr.

Apparently, July is National Rickey Month. I've been remiss. Typically, a rickey is made with a shot of gin, half a lime, and soda; after juicing the lime, you put the lime carcass in the drink. It's historically also been made with bourbon, though that's much less common. The rickey is the official drink of D.C., and so the D.C. Craft Bartenders Guild declared July National Rickey Month.

A rickey is a fine, refreshing drink, but there's not a whole lot going on. So there's been a contest to find the best variation in town. All month, bars across the city (as well as a couple in Virginia) have been offering their take on the rickey. Get five punches in your rickey card, and you get free admission to Jack Rose for the finals on August 5th. There's still time to get your punches, so get to it! Our favorite so far has been the Strawberry-Rhubarb rickey at Vinoteca, which sadly wasn't entered into the contest. If you like pickles, you should try Rachel Sergi's I'm Gonna Need You to Focus Rickey, which involves pickled soda and is available at Jack Rose.

Graffiato goes mobile

Not permanently, but Mike Isabella will be taking to the streets with a Graffiato food truck. He won't be selling food, but there will be an opportunity to win if your taste buds are sensitive enough, and there may be some samples. From The Plate:

On Wednesday July 25, we’re partnering up with Mike Isabella to put Graffiato on wheels and hit the streets of D.C.
Chef Isabella will also be testing his fans with a “Challenge Your Palate” contest at different stops around the city. Those who can identify ingredients in dishes Chef Isabella creates (using Breville kitchen appliances) will win prizes ranging from lunch at Graffiato to autographed copies of his forthcoming cookbook, Mike Isabella’s Crazy Good Italian (releasing September 25), to iPods and products from Breville.
TRUCK STOP LOCATIONS
8:00 am: Dupont Circle – Q Street between 20th and Connecticut
11:00 am: Union Station – Massachusetts Ave NW and F Street NW
2:15 pm: Franklin Park – Corner of 14th and K streets
4:45 pm: Farragut North – K Street between 17th and Connecticut
6:30 pm: National Mall – 10th St and Constitution Ave NW

 Just more false hope for those of us who want him to put out a real food truck.

Attention Beer Lovers!

This is apparently going to be a very good weekend for beer people in DC, according to the Going Out Gurus. On Saturday, Churchkey is pouring five different beers from the Russian River Brewing company, starting at noon. Russian River is most their most famous, known for being one of the few IPAs to get a perfect score on Beer Advocate, but all of their beers are supposed to be quite good. They'll be pouring Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig IPA, Supplication, Consecration, and Sanctification.

Sunday, Meridian Pint is celebrating their 2nd anniversary by bringing to $2 pints of select local beers. Not only that, but Chef Logan Grear of Smoke and Barrel will be manning a barbecue outside from 3 until 6. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it to Churchkey, but I'll probably swing by Meridian Pint some time on Sunday.

4 P's Closing Party Tonight

Tonight is apparently the last night for Ireland's Four Fields, known as the 4 P's. The owner writes: Wednesday June 27 – Closing Party. We are closing this location forever. Drink the Bar Dry! Rumor is, it will be replaced by an upscale Irish pub run by McFadden's.

h/t: PoP

Safeway Barbecue Battle

This past weekend, my wife and I finally made it down to the Safeway Barbecue Battle, 2012 edition. We're tempted to go every year, but it's usually beastly hot, and we've never been quite sure it's worth the price of admission. This year it was, again, beastly hot, but we figured we might as well go and see what all the hype was about. It's a pretty big festival, spanning Pennsylvania St. between 7th and 14th streets NW, with a bit of action on some of the side streets as well. There are several teams of barbecuers, being a battle and all, located in tents throughout the festival. For us, however, the main attraction was the food.

There were two ways to get fed here. You could depend on the free samples, or you could purchase some from a fairly substantial selection of vendors. We started off with the free samples. There was a pork table with a selection of four pork dishes to sample -- chop, tenderloin, burger, and I can't remember the fourth. It may have been another tenderloin. They were pretty good, and there wasn't a line, so it was a good start. Most of the samples, however, were in the Safeway Sample Tent, an amazingly bad idea. Putting them all in one place meant that instead of standing in several lines of moderate length, you had to stand in a single very long line. We waited an hour, and the line was even longer when we left the tent. The samples varied in quality. Most were pretty good, though not great, and some were pretty bad. The lamb was especially good, but overall, we felt that we spent more time in line than the samples were worth.

We weren't terribly hungry after the free samples, though, so we wandered around a bit more. Several of the booths had games like cornhole, which my wife enjoys more than I. PNC had a basketball court set up where you could play PIG. It was a good reminder of how bad I've gotten at basketball, but at least I beat my wife. Please don't take that out of context. I wanted to get some barbecue before we left, so we swung by one of the vendors to get some brisket. I think we picked the wrong one. The price was the same as the other vendors, but the serving size was not. Still, it was pretty good brisket, and I definitely wouldn't be heading down here again next year. Just remind me to avoid the free sample tent.

Safeway Barbecue Battle

The annual Safeway Barbecue Battle is coming to the National Mall this weekend:

The 20th annual Safeway Barbecue Battle, one of DC's largest and most unique food and music festivals, gets cookin' on June 23rd and 24th!

Over the course of two days, $40,000 in cash and prizes will be doled out to the best of the best in barbecue, as top vendors compete in the Safeway National Barbecue Championship. What does that mean for you? A full weekend of delicious barbecue and tasty treats, a variety of food samples, plus cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs and cookbook authors on the Safeway Demonstration Stage.

In addition to turning Pennsylvannia Avenue into a meat-lover's paradise, the festival will also feature over 30 bands on 3 stages, including acts like Soul Asylum, ConFunkShun, Cowboy Mouth, the Chuck Brown Tribute Band, and many more.

You can get tickets here.

Toast of the Town

This Friday, Wine Enthusiast is hosting Toast of the Town at the National Building Museum. This event showcases 500 different wines from around the world, as well as food from area restaurants. General admission tickets are still available for $100. I can't wait!

Spirits in Black tonight!

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

You won’t find Bryan Tetorakis behind the bar at Rogue 24 tonight. Instead, at around 10 p.m., he’ll be crafting cocktails with an edge at American Ice Company for Spirits in Black, a boozy, wink-and-nod tribute to heavy metal, replete with atonals, growling vocals, awesome hair and headbanging.

 American Ice Company is a great venue, and Bryan certainly knows what he's doing behind the bar, so this would be a great event to go to if you're in to cocktails.

5th Annual Beacon Bar Martini Contest

Last night, I attended the Beacon Bar Martini contest with my wife and a friend of ours. As expected, we had a wonderful time. The 'martinis' were of varying qualities, and while some were better than others, there weren't any truly heinous ones. The secret ingredient was coconut vodka from Skyy which combines two of my least favorite things in liquor, vodka and coconut, so I found the cocktails better when they 'balanced' out the coconut flavor. I had four favorites, courtesy of DC Coast, Sky Bar, Occidental, and the Four Seasons. They were all quite good, and encourage me to patronize their establishment. Sadly, the DC Coast table was swamped, so I don't have notes on their cocktail.

Sunny Kim from the Sky Bar at Beacon Hotel did well on her home turf. She had two cocktails, one a chocolate one that pretty much only tasted like chocolate, and a far more successful pomegrate cocktail called "Acapulco is Dangerous." This drink incorporated lemon and açai with the coconut, balancing it out nicely. She also placed coconut jelly and pomegranate, giving some textural play to the drink.

Jo Jo Valenzuela from the Occidental prepared a drink he called "Flight of the Coco Melon." To the coconut vodka, he added some melon water (it looked like cantaloupe), cinnamon tincture, and fresh dill. I asked why he used a cinnamon tincture instead of a pimento dram, and he said it helped keep it light. It was certainly a nice, light and refreshing drink.

My favorite drink of the night was the "Coconut Delight," by Aaron Joseph of the Four Seasons and Sax. This drink used lemon and pineapple to balance out the coconut, and it was one of the few drinks that managed to taste good, and yet still taste a bit like coconut. As a garnish, he used a grilled pineapple. This added some smokiness to the drink, but the pineapple itself was a bit limp, and was big enough to hinder drinking.

The food was fine, but not the focus of the event, though I did really enjoy the shrimp ceviche. Now I can't wait for the competition to come back around next year!

Free Beer Tomorrow at 901 Restaurant to Kick Off Summer

Photo by Alexa Clark, on flickr.

Tomorrow, 901 Lounge is offering a complimentary pint to celebrate the opening of its celebrated patio. Capital Cooking writes:

Only four stops to Nats Stadium on the Green line via Chinatown Metro, the double happy hour is great for both the pre and post game celebrations.  The happy hours feature both food and drink specials—this hot spot will be a great place to cool down.

I enjoyed 901 last time I was there, so if you're working shorter hours than I am, it may be worth dropping by.

Via Capital Cooking with Lauren DeSantis:

Taste of the Nation in review

My wife and I went to Taste of the Nation on Monday (preview here). I didn't take notes, so I'm not going to do a full overview, but we had a great time and can't wait to go again next year. The food was great. It was a bit heavy on the seafood, but there was enough non-seafood dishes that you wouldn't go hungry if you didn't care for oysters or mussels. Or scallops in a saffron calamari broth (our favorite dish). The drinks were good too, though I was less impressed with them in general than with the food. Some pictures below.

Dean Gold with his tasty testa.

The tables were arranged in four-somes.

The space at the National Building Museum is incredible.

I forget what this was called, but it was fun, and not as messy as you'd expect.

Hanging around outside.

Smoke and Barrel: Whiskey Story Hour II

The other night we went to Smoke and Barrel for their second "Whiskey Story Hour". At these events they serve whiskey and small plates. They have a whiskey expert, Mike Goss, talk about the whiskeys and give some of the history behind them. This event was focused on Irish whiskeys, with Irish food accompanying them. We both like Smoke and Barrel, and we love whiskey, so we were really looking forward to this event.

The food was all really good. They first served PEI mussels with bacon and pepperoncinis. The peppers were fairly spicy and stood out, but the rest blended together quite well. The second dish was a Gorgonzola boxty with fried cabbage and chipotle aioli. There wasn't much gorgonzola, but the potatoes were nice and fluffy. The final dish was the corned beef brisket. Since this was five whiskeys in, I don't remember the details, but it was very tender and tasty, which is a nice combination to have.

They served eight different whiskeys at the event, seven that were included and an eighth as a bonus add-on at the end of the night. I enjoyed all of them. I'm not going to talk about all of them, but one of the highlights was the Jameson Gold. Aged in bourbon, sherry, and virgin oak, it was complex and sweet with hints of stonefruit. The Redbreast 15 was incredible, all toffee and caramel, and the Connemara had a hint of peat, but was far smoother than any Islay I've had. The Middleton Very Rare was fabulous, as was the Green Spot.

We had a really great time at this event. The other people at the table were great, and Mike Goss was very helpful. However, it was a bit disorganized. Most of the whiskey was out before the first food dish was; it would have been nice to have had food a bit earlier to soak up the whiskey. And Mike didn't say very much after the Jameson came out. But we'll definitely be back for Whiskey Story Hour III!