Flying food? Perhaps you've noticed the odd little vehicle with wings near 8th and H, NW selling empanadas and other Mexican fare. It's On the Fly, a new food business started by one of the founders of Zip Car, Gabe Klein, L'Enfant cafe owner Christopher Lynch, and architectural designer Michel Heitstuman. The car is one of the first in a planned series of food carts and small stands that will swarm the city. This......

Han Sung Oak in Falls Church has a familial feeling, from the large parties that occupy the main dining room and the private rooms in the back, to the service staff, willing to help you as you navigate the intricacies of their native cuisine. I was surprised to be asked "smoking or non-smoking" when I entered the restaurant, but all I smelled was grilled meat, so I don't think the seating area would have mattered.......

Sietsema responds, sorta Last week, we asked Tom for a clarification of the star-rating system. During his Dining Guide chat, he linked to his ratings code, which he posted this past Monday. One of the chatters had the same questions we had, "Have you ever considered a different system for your ratings? So often you will write a review where you rave about the food but mention something else (service, appearance) that you didn't like,......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

At first today's forecast just looked a little bit annoying: a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms in the late afternoon which, in the words of our esteemed pals at CapitalWeather.com, we'd venture to say "those odds are too low to go changing any plans yet, but high enough to keep an eye to the sky and on radar just in case." In other words, we're packing up to head to a barbecue right now, potential......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

FRIDAY: >> Let it be known - any country with a holiday that translates as "party of music" (or "music party") is OK in our book. In celebration of the French holiday Fete de la Musique, as well as the summer solstice, French and American musicians will be performing at La Maison Francaise tonight. Local guitar and cello duo Janel and Anthony*** will play from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the auditorium stage, but......

By DCist contributor Mike Roscoe They may have problems managing income inequality in their post-independence, Hacienda-style economies, or dealing with the lingering social effects of the brutal military dictatorships of the past, but there is one thing that South Americans have got down pat: grilling meat. As skilled and deft as any Texan tending smoking mesquite, South Americans know how to raise it, season it and cook it. From the churrascarias of Brazil to the......

If anyone asked us about D.C.’s signature dish, of course we’d say wings with mumbo sauce. If they asked where to get it, we’d send them to Howard China. This teeny carryout is a favorite of Howard students, and it was a friend from Howard who introduced us to it when we visited him as undergrads. He walked us across Georgia Avenue at two in the morning and ordered us the same thing we......

By DCist contributor Celeste Dawn Mitchell Any time's a good time for barbecue -- it's one of the few foods I have a perpetual hankerin' for. And the saving grace in working in the outer reaches of Northeast is my proximity to Hogs on the Hill, home of "DC's Best Hickory Smoked Pit B-B-Q." The venerable "Hogs" is nowhere near the Hill, and the number "3" on the storefront is a holdover from its franchise......

By DCist contributor Celeste Dawn Mitchell In May, we bemoaned D.C.’s lack of street meat and wondered if it damaged our credibility as a legit city. While New York has enough food carts to command a dedicated blog, we stagger consumption of our precious half-smokes so as not to burn out on them. With another alternative on the scene, we can be a little less whiny about our predicament -- at least on weekends. When......

Is Linda Playing Dirty?: We all know that elections can be dirty affairs. While candidates may carry themselves with distinction, they're not immune from endorsing a dirty trick here or there to hamper an opponent's progress. This year's mayoral campaign has been relatively trick-free, until now, or so claims hard-charging contender Marie Johns, pictured at right. Johns is running behind Linda Cropp and Adrian Fenty in citywide polls, but the assumption is that every vote......

By DCist contributor Amy Monroe There’s no disputing the fierce and even patriotic love of zinfandel among certain members of the American wine-drinking public. Indeed, Carole Migden, a California state senator from San Francisco, introduced a bill in February to make zinfandel California’s official state wine. But following objections from some of the state's makers of chardonnay, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon (all of which earn more sales dollars than zin), lawmakers instead proclaimed zinfandel a......

The Nats did a nice thing for 15,000 of their closest friends on Sunday afternoon. After soundly defeating the Phillies, 6-0, on a day perfectly suited to the game of baseball (75 degrees, cool breeze, sunshine), the team had a Picnic at the Park for season ticket holders. Now I have not purchased season tickets, but I was with a friend who did, and so I went along for the ride. This sort of mass......

It seems like spelling bees are popular nowadays – recently we talked about the D.C. Bee spelling bee for adults, and before that there was the documentary "Spellbound" and the Starbucks tie-in movie "Akeelah and the Bee." But today the World Series of spelling bees kicked off, and right in our backyard. The first round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee started earlier today in D.C., with the second round set for this afternoon and......

Ah, Memorial Day. The smell of barbecue smoke perfumes the air and you can taste the promise of a three-day weekend. American flags wave in the afternoon breeze. Every hometown is putting on a parade. Your neighbors are probably making hamburgers and hotdogs in the backyard, putting away a few Miller Lites while they talk about their wasted youth. You sigh and think, "Wouldn’t it be nice to be a bit more creative and invite......

Although the advent of the real-time Gawker Stalker map has freaked out certain celebrities who would prefer that their Us Weekly-devouring public not know that they're dining at New York's Tao or taking their fruit-monikered babies out for walks on Fifth Avenue, DCist has no qualms about letting its readers know where local celebs hang out. And there's no area celeb more freshly minted than George Mason University basketball coach Jim Larranaga, who just yesterday......

FRIDAY: >> If you're not Black Cat-ed out from the Unbuckled concert last night, head over to the mainstage to catch an indie-tastic show with The Whips, Her Daily Obsession (at right), and The Hard Tomorrows, all of whom we hear will put on one hell of a show. Doors are at 9:30 p.m.; $8. >> If you missed a screening of "9:30 F ST," the documentary about the old 9:30 Club, worry not --......

This photo of an even on the National Mall called Worship for Justice, an effort to raise awareness about the crisis in Dafur, was uploaded to DCist photos by the author of Swapping Tales. Today will be partly cloudy with highs in the upper 70s. Orange Is In: After handing out press releases flirting with a declaration in May, Vincent Orange has announced he's running for mayor. The Post was at the backyard barbecue where......

Ahh, it's been so nice to disconnect from our computers this Memorial Day weekend. We hope you were able to do the same. But the DCist crew was busy this weekend. DCist not only joined Rolling Thunder on our Harley and snapped this photo, we also shared drinks with Jessica Cutler aka Washingtonienne. And then on our way to an East Carolina-style barbecue in Columbia Heights, we bumped into Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld eating at......

It's been a while since we've checked in with the Post's Animal Watch desk, but this week's list in the District weekly is filled with stuff that is more comical than the normally depressing examples of animal neglect. We perhaps shouldn't be laughing, but we find the mixture of detailed and semi-vague information from the reports to make for good reading. Oh the twisted irony in this one on Capitol Hill: Humane Society officers removed......

Just weeks after the launch of Bostonist and Seattlest, the -ist empire moves south to the capital of Texas. Welcome Austinist, which launches its beta site today, just in time for the 2005 South by Southwest Interactive. As Jen notes over at Gothamist, our publisher, Jake Dobkin will be speaking on two SXSW panels: How to Create a Compelling Community Website and How to Create a Multimedia Moblog. And our colleague over at LAist, Jason......

DCist was shocked to see this peculiar entry in the Post's Animal Report. Devoid of contextual detail, it makes us wonder what exactly is going on in the Fort Totten woods. Police reported that a male lamb had been found in the woods, in a small crate soiled with feces. A Humane Society officer found the animal and a group of men. A candle, a bottle of liquor and a bottle of barbecue sauce were......

The Post's staff has determined the best barbecue in the area. If you trust their tastes, then Rockland's in Glover Park is the place to go. Though the Post likes Rockland's BBQ, it wasn't a fan of the choice and quality of its side offerings. The Post also picked The Rib Pit on upper 14th Street (at Randolph Street) in Petworth as "the real thing" with top notch BBQ (dry, overcooked but not mushy,......