Dish of the Week: Blanched Vegetables
Where: Beefsteak
Earlier this year we highlighted Beefsteak, José Andrés’ recently opened vegetable-centric fast casual outlet, as one of our most anticipated openings of 2015. Crowds have been rolling through the Foggy Bottom vegetable-and-grain assembly line since March and a second location is in the works for Dupont Circle. Despite my personal excitement and New Year’s commitment to meatless Monday’s, which is now fading, I still hadn’t been through yet until this week.
The first step at Beefsteak is the selection of your produce. The second one, shove it all in a vat of boiling water. The website describes this process as “the magic of vegetables, flash-prepared.” In other words—blanching. Boiling leeches out nutrients from kale leaves, carrots, and the like. Keep going with the cooking process and the result is a mushy, bland amalgam whether the original input is picked from your garden or the frozen packages of your youth. Limit the cooking time for the bite-size morsels to a minute and a half or so, stop the process with a quick ice bath, and you’ve got a set of uniformly cooked potatoes, asparagus, and soybeans to plop on your grain, slather with sauce, and finish with crunchies.
Small Bites
Korean Night Market
After its owner’s recent trip to Korea, Compass Rose Bar & Kitchen is hosting a Korean Night Market on Thursday, May 21. The price tag is only $20, which includes food and karaoke, and a cash bar. Get your favorite song ready. Chef Sam Molavi will team up with Danny Lee of Mandu and Jesse Miller of Bar Pilar and Café Saint-Ex to prepare street foods such as spicy rice cakes, barbecue short ribs, and somyun noodles. Tickets can be purchased by e-mailing events@compassrosedc.com.
Crossroads Night Market
Trend alert: Pop-up night markets are hot right now. This one set for May 30 in Takoma Park is a fundraiser for the Crossroads Community Food Network and their mission to make local and healthy food accessible, with an emphasis on supporting undeserved families and small farmers. Several of the vendors are immigrants that participate in Crossroads’ Microenterprise Training Program or sell what they grow out of their yard gardens to make a living. Others have written books about how they saved their slightly larger family farms. Tickets for the evening of Central American and Indonesian food and local products, plus beer and wine supplied by Republic are $35-$40 and include a donation to the non-profit.
Jug & Table
On May 29, the street-level bar of Roofers Union will reopen as Jug & Table. Unlike the beer-focused upstairs, this will center on wine and cocktails. Glasses of wine will range from $6-$16 with eight wines served on tap and jug of wine options available for a 5-7 p.m. happy hour (including Saturday’s) that will give groups about two bottles of wine for $20-$25. Chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley has created a new menu of grilled cheeses and snacks served in jars to complement the theme.
Invest in a Whiskey Distillery
Republic restoratives Distillery is readying itself for a summer launch in Ivy City. Pia Carusone and Rachel Gardner have been raising money through an online funding campaign to begin distilling vodka and bourbon and open a cocktail bar across from the Hecht’s Department Store development off New York Avenue NE. For only $25, investors will get a bottle of small-batch vodka later this year. Bourbon comes at the $35 level, but the estimated delivery time for that is 2017 to give the product time to age. Plop down $10,000 for free drinks forever, a hosted dinner in the barrel room, case of whiskey, and more including a first-born child. But, if all goes according to plan, the pair will be giving tours and mixing cocktails this summer at their distillery.
Crab Festivals
Blue crabs are not looking forward to Memorial Day weekend.
