Food and Drink: October 2009 Archives

The line outside of Greek Deli is always ridiculously long. And with good reason. The food is delicious. The gyros are excellent with a lovely dilled tzatziki sauce. The daily specials like meatballs, meatloaf, and roasted pork melt in your mouth, and are large enough for two meals. All these tasty standbys make it hard to work your way to other items on the menu. So it took a while to work toward getting the avgolemono soup.

Magic Hat’s winter variety pack is in stores now with a mix of their standards and seasonals. (I picked mine up from the Giant in Columbia Heights.) With the name on the box, you might expect the Feast of Fools Stout to be inside, but no such luck. The variety is a good mix for parties, covering a range of pale to dark with four distinct flavors. And with most of the mix coming in under 5 percent ABV, you can have a few without acting a fool.

Potentially great news for Black Rooster Pub loyalists. The longtime downtown watering hole served what it thought would be its last drinks on October 16, after the bar's owner, Jody Taylor, learned at the end of September that his had landlord had declined to renew the Rooster's lease. Heartfelt farewell stories to the pub appeared in the media shortly thereafter, and we chalked the whole sad story up to accepting that nothing, not even a popular, 40-year-old Washington bar, lasts forever. But earlier today, the BlackRoosterPub twitter feed provided the first glimmer of hope:

Good news for the Black Rooster! We are making headway getting back to business.. Details soon. #rally4therooster

Reached by telephone, Rooster Pub kitchen manager Phillip Turner confirmed that the bar does indeed hope to reopen in the next two to three weeks. Turner said that as he understood it, the leasing agent and the building owner "were able to work out something."

Where: JJs Cheesesteaks

Ever since it was announced more than 18 months ago that Birch & Barley/ChurchKey would be taking the place of Dakota Cowgirl and Ramrod in the Logan Circle neighborhood, anticipation has been building. The PR machines and press cranked, listing anticipated opening dates to ad nauseum. So it wasn't that surprising that more than 30 people were lined up outside of the bar starting around 4:50 p.m. on Thursday night, anticipating a 5 p.m. opening. But alas, they had to wait until 5:35 p.m. watching the delivery men roll cases of beer and liquor up the stairs. Even now, the bottles have not been inventoried and will not be available until next week.

We know it can be hard to approach that fine young thing sitting at the bar. And that's why Bourbon Steak has been trying to improve their patrons' game with hopefully slightly less embarrassing consequences. They've come out with a series of 10 coasters with classic pick up lines that you can slyly flip over and slide to your neighbor. Each coaster has a convenient spot for writing down your phone number. The current ones include favorites such as, "Are you legs tired? Because you have been running through my mind all night," and, "I couldn't help noticing you, noticing me, noticing you."

Ray's Hell Burger. Ben's Chili Bowl. Five Guys. Good Stuff Eatery. And now Pete's Apizza. It is becoming abundantly clear that the first family has a yen for junk food that rivals even former president Clinton's Big Mac attacks.

The second location of Taylor Gourmet sandwich shop just opened today in the CityVista condo complex at 5th and K Streets NW. While checking out the opening, I most decidedly fell in love with their hoagie bread. The bread comes from Sarcone's Bakery in Philly, where the bread is picked up each day. With the heft of fillings that can range from meatballs to chicken cutlets to Italian deli meats, a really strong bread is needed to stand up to all that goodness.

Beloved Dupont neighborhood watering hole Fox & Hounds returned to its roots this month, permanently bringing back its old, standard jukebox almost three years after the machine was replaced with a newfangled digital version.

Where: Tomatillo Taqueria

Very sad news for D.C. residents and lovers of half-smokes the world over: Ben Ali, co-founder of Washington institution Ben's Chili Bowl, passed away Wednesday night, (as City Desk also reports). He was 82.

It was at a Christmas dinner several years ago that booze book author Garrett Peck had his “a-ha moment” about writing The Prohibition Hangover. It being a celebration, Peck opened a bottle of 1997 Burgundy—but his grandmother, a product of the Great Depression and the aftermath of the temperance movement, would not indulge. Peck made do—he and his mother split the bottle—but the seed was planted.

The weeknight dinner rotation of Van Ness-ers (Ness-ians?) just got a little shorter, with the closure of the Indian restaurant Delhi Dhaba. The restaurant shut its doors Sept. 30, and is already completely gutted, as seen here. The owners are supposedly eying a location on Wisconsin Ave., but no one was around the the restaurant to confirm that today. That leaves just a few sit-down restaurants in the neighborhood -- two Chinese (Shanghai Garden and Charlie Chiang's), one Indian (Indian Ocean), Tesoro (Italian on the main floor of the Days Inn), Italian Pizza Kitchen, and the new wine bar/small plates spot Acacia Wellness Bistro. And don't get your hopes up for some new and different eats in that location. Word is the building is hoping to fill that space with a retail establishment, and not a restaurant.

Dish of the Week: Apple cider donuts

Two of the area’s biggest and best “Taste of …” events complement each other over the next two weekends. With Taste of Bethesda this Saturday afternoon and Taste of Georgetown a week later, foodies will have a chance to eat their way through two of the area's fanciest neighborhoods this month. But both events make it easy to leave disappointed if not approached properly. Handle them well, and you should be able to string together a hearty and sophisticated tasting menu for less than $20. DCist’s strategy for a successful Taste: be discriminating with your tickets, hit up Bethesda later in the day, and get to Georgetown early.