Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Car Pushed Into Anacostia River By Train
Devendra Banhart @ 9:30 Club
Capitol Lounge, fixture of the Capitol Hill bar scene, launched a revamped, Teddy Folkman-created menu over the weekend. Folkman, who can be seen on TV competing to be The Next Food Network Star, accepted the Executive Chef role at the Lounge after helping owner Joe Englert in launching H Street Country Club’s Mexican-themed menu. Their goal is to “raise the bar,” providing gourmet bar food to the staffers and Hill denizens that frequent Pennsylvania Avenue.
The menu covers some expected burgers, salads, and sandwiches over a modestly sized menu with limited flair, but there are several twists out of the norm for pub fare. Tabasco Fried Oysters are indeed picked for quality, as the menu suggests. A $10 order includes six large, plump morsels. The oysters are greaseless, though their breading lacks the kick suggested by the dish’s name. Goat Cheese Poppers ($8), on the other hand, are merely three round, mild goat cheese bombs. The pepper is not a vessel, but minced and meekly specked within. A popper is normally a cheese-stuffed, breaded, fried jalapeno. Sometimes it’s wrapped in bacon. You want some ooze from a popper, but the goat cheese in these won’t be melting anytime soon. And two small chunks of bacon inexplicably sit on the plate with the “poppers,” more of an awkward afterthought than a dish component. You don’t come to a bar for Crispy Tuna Rolls ($8), but they weren't available anyway during a recent visit. Chips with salsa or cheese dip are inexplicably priced at $10.
Folkman’s reputation has been made largely by his mussels and frites, and he adeptly recreates his popular bacon and blue cheese version brought over from Granville Moore’s. It’s the dish that beat Bobby Flay in a “throwdown” and is for the most part a bargain at $12. However, the house-made fries were over-seasoned with a salt and herb mix. A less salty fry would work better for dipping in the lemony white wine broth remaining in the mussel bowl. A grilled chicken sandwich looks so succulent on another diner’s table that we ask for our own. The chicken is grilled and seasoned adeptly and served on a crusty, square onion roll. A sprinkling of barbeque potato chips and chipotle-mayo covered jalapeño slices add a slight kick as sandwich toppers.
A trip for wing night yields disappointment. The wings, 25 cents a piece on Tuesdays, are mild and smack of fake butter flavoring. It’s a cheap, all-consuming taste—one reminiscent of omelets from a second-rate breakfast buffet or movie theater popcorn. It also doesn’t help that my plate arrives at the same time as those of a few fellow patrons who ordered a good 10 minutes after me. The wings are warm enough, but not steaming, and lack the bits of crispness that come with a good frying. Then again, after a neighbor at the bar makes quick work of his plate, he’s quick to order 15 more.
In its 20+ year life, along with cheap wings, Cap Lounge has mostly been a place for a drink. Known for generous specials in the past, now on offer is a lackluster happy hour with a name that’s misleading at best. What comes to mind when you hear the term “$1 Happy Hour?” Dollar beers! Rum and cokes all around! Get hammered, pay with a ten, get change! This $1 Happy Hour means $1 off any drink from 4:00-7:00, Monday to Friday. Though fully explained under the bold print, it’s a pretty important omission of the word “off” in the title. Thursday does offer pitcher specials all night long, with food specials available other nights of the week. Half price pizza night on Monday. $13 for Fish ‘N’ Chips and any pint on Friday. And one result of the menu upgrade is a varied and enticing beer menu. Twelve taps currently feature Bell’s Oberon and a pale ale from Charlottesville, Va. Over 50 bottled beers are conveniently broken down by style on the drink menu.
We share laughs about the poor service we’re receiving over dinner with our neighbors at the next table - they were charged for one of our beers. It’s natural early on to need to work out the kinks. But the yellow mustard on the table reminds us that we are in a bar on the Hill after all. Silverware comes after the food and water refills are an adventure. And there’s some distance to go if Englert and the potential next TV star chef achieve the gourmet they’re seeking. A gastropub it’s not.
Capitol Lounge
231 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20003
202-547-2098
Hours:
Monday - Thursday, 4:00 pm - 2:00 am
Friday, 4:00 pm - 3:00 am
Saturday, 10:00am - 3:00 am
Sunday, 10:00 am - 2:00 am
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This $1 Happy Hour means $1 off any drink from 4:00-7:00, Monday to Friday.
Bait? Meet switch.
So the wings sucked, the fries stank, the service sucked, the pepper poppers didn't, and the beer specials weren't. And I'm supposed to go here...why?
"Raising the bar" indeed. WTF is the point of this? If I want snooty food, I go to a snooty restaurant. When I go to a bar, I want cheap booze, a cup of hot fat, and the head of Alfredo Garcia. I don't want some dish that thinks it's better than me. Did you hear that, grilled chicken breast sandwich? F**K YOU! You're not the boss of me, you f**king a$$hole!
(gives plate the finger, leaves)
The Dixie Chicken Breast sammich at Southside is, in fact, better than all of us.
Folkman is wearing a Phillies hat. Appetite lost.
I completely got fooled by their $1 happy hour. I don't think I will go back.
Cap Lounge has always straddled the line between dive bar and place to been seen, accomplishing neither. I guess they're officially giving up on the dive bar part.
I love the Cap Lounge, but I could never picture it as a place to be seen. That's just absurd.
And I thought that Ann Cashion was executive-chefing the H Street Country Club. Bummer.
I still love Teddy, even if he dunks his wings in Country Crock.
Those same wings used to be 10 cents each on Tuesdays, right? And they more than double the price for no particular reason?
Wings still taste the same, still terrible service, on a street with three or four other bars just like it. $10 chips and salsa. I think I'll pass.
chips with salsa/cheese dip = $6, not $10 as listed in this article