Buried at the end of today's Marc Fisher column is an exciting bit of news for baseball fans and half-smoke lovers alike: Fisher says that Ben's Chili Bowl is going to have an outpost in the new Nationals Stadium. Unfortunately though, co-owner Kamal Ali tells DCist that the Ben's stand at the stadium is far from a done deal. "We are in a good faith conversation with them, but it would be premature to say......

As we mentioned in the Morning Roundup, the murder count in D.C. for 2007 stands at 169 as of today, which is the same number of total murders the city saw in 2006. The Post is reporting further that the 169th murder occurred over the weekend, and its victim was 25 year-old Timothy Spicer, a short-order cook at legendary U Street eatery Ben's Chili Bowl. Spicer's murder looks to be the result of a carjacking......

Against Me! – the most accessible folk-punk band in the world – took the stage around 7:30 yesterday and were all business, plowing through twenty or so samplings of their fierce, Guinness-fueled brand of melodic rock in around an hour and a half. Those who managed to sneak out of work early to catch a good spot in the not-quite sold out crowd left drained and ready for the caloric replenishment that only the......

So where does Anthony Bourdain – chef, writer, traveler - spend his night after bumping elbows with six of D.C.’s top chefs? Unsurprisingly, at Ben’s Chili bowl. Keeping true to his inclinations for “adventurous” eating, Anthony Bourdain visited famed Ben’s Chili Bowl Tuesday night after having MC’ed D.C.’s annual Capital Food Fight. “I loved it, it’s the kind of food I like,” responded Bourdain to a question during the Q&A session of his sold-out talk......

>> No Reservations star Anthony Bourdain was reportedly at Ben's Chili Bowl last night, so if you're heading to his reading at GW's Lisner Auditorium tonight, be sure to try to ask him what he thinks of the chili half-smoke. For more information & to check on ticket availability (it's nearly sold-out), call Smithsonian Associates at 202-633-3030. $28, $14 for GW students at the Lisner box office. 7 p.m. >> Philadelphia quintet Dr. Dog......

This post is from DCist Contributor Joe Viola Located in the heart of Adams Morgan is the Little Fountain Café. The menu is quaint but extremely sophisticated, the ambiance quiet but romantic, and the service is friendly but unobtrusive. There’s no elevator music while you eat. Bono, Coldplay, Billy Joel, and smooth jazz covers by Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald enhance an already private affair. Walking downstairs into the Café you pass by the little......

FRIDAY: >> Palace of Wonders is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a literal circus of performers both tonight and Saturday. Acrobats, burlesque performers, magicians, freaks and rope trick artists are just some of the acts that will take the stage, and fortune tellers will be on hand near the bar. Tickets are $15 in advance (click here), and $20 at the door. 7 p.m. to midnight tonight, 7 to 2 a.m. on Saturday. We recommend......

>> Ben's Chili Bowl is set to expand. [Examiner] >> Tickets to see David Beckham play with the L.A. Galaxy versus D.C. United go on sale Monday. [SoccerInsider] >> Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso was robbed of his briefcase, cellphone and wallet at gunpoint last night in Takoma. Reinoso was uninjured and his briefcase was later recovered, but he had a hard time gaining access to the Wilson Building this morning without ID.......

Good morning, D.C. It was an eventful weekend across the District, with big to-do's tying up traffic in every direction. We hope you didn't spend too much time stuck in it. While we're genuinely thrilled to hear that Oprah Winfrey's commencement speech at Howard University was a big hit and was reported on all over the world, we're pretty disappointed to have it be Monday morning and still have zero reports from any of our......

Most Washingtonians are accustomed to participating in guided tours only when entertaining out of town guests. We all know we'll have to trek out to the monuments with family and friends at least a few times a year, so being a tourist in our own city voluntarily at other times might not sound terribly appealing. But try not to think of the tours being offered in this coming weekend's WalkingTown DC, a series of 60......

Greetings, Washington. Welcome to yet another shortened work week. With no less than three abbreviated work weeks (four for some) in the past month, the prospect of an unmitigated series of five-dayers looms large. So enjoy a back-to-work Tuesday while you can, but don't forget to wear a coat. That's right, January really is a winter month and today will see temps drop throughout the day accompanied by blustery winds, remnants of the deadly winter......

Call us slightly obsessed. Yesterday we responded to a recent Pitchfork news piece in which +/- (Plus Minus) lists Ben’s Chili Bowl as one of their favorite hangouts whenever they are performing in D.C., with recommendations of some of our preferred local eateries. We thought even more about the subject and came up with a better idea. Who would be better at recommending pre- and post-show hangouts than local musicians? So we e-mailed a few......

While we are happy to see cool bands who play D.C. offer up some of their favorite post-show food spots, as +/- did for Pitchfork this week, we'd like to suggest that there's more to life than Ben's Chili Bowl. In fact, much more, in terms of taste and variety. While the institution on U Street was hot long before the "new U" was a part of our vocabulary, and is full of multicultural ambience......

What was the hullabaloo at Ben’s Chili Bowl last night? Sources tell us it was a video for Capitol Records artist J. Holiday, an R&B singer from D.C. determined to rep his city on screen. Passersby report they got the cold shoulder from the video shoot's official sidewalk blocker and were sent car-dodging into U Street to get around. From DCist Andrew: Andrew: "What's going on?" Sidewalk Lady: "What does it look like!?" Andrew:......

While those residing in D.C. proper rely on Ben’s Chili Bowl for their half-smoke needs, Arlingtonians have long had their own classic half-smoke purveyor: the Weenie Beenie. We’d been foolishly ignoring the Weenie Beenie for years until a recent conversation with a co-worker convinced us that we’d been missing out on a genuine slice of old-school Arlington. He clinched it for us when he noted that his old man used to hit the Weenie Beenie......

So many establishments abuse their signage with superlatives such as "World’s Best Cup of Coffee" that we typically ignore any such boasting when searching for quality grub. But occasionally some joint will be just dingy and dilapidated enough that a rusted sign proclaiming “Famous Roast Beef” will cause us to reconsider our position. Hodge’s Sandwich Shop may be barely more than a shack, but it easily deserves as much acclaim as other classic slices of......

Our email list is blowing up this morning with tips to check out this piece in today's New York Times, a feature taking a look at the once again bustling U Street drag. The Times claims it can hear hipsters sneering in the opening paragraph, and a few of our favorite locales are omitted, but they avoid calling the area the U District, Hipster Handbook style, and overall it's a pretty neat little read. NYT......

Vince Scheuerman, eat your heart out. This morning, DCist's inbox contained a press release announcing an upcoming party kicking off a campaign to adopt a city song for Washington. The effort calls itself, "Come to Washington: A Song for the City," and it's thrown its support behind "Come to Washington," a treacly bit of civic pride penned by Lincoln Ross, a longtime D.C. musician whose past work has included stints with Count Basie and Donald......

What is D.C.'s motto? Any idea who's always riding a horse in Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park? More importantly, who doesn't love a good online quiz? They are spectacular for passing the time as the hours creep and crawl towards the weekend. Today's D.C. edition of Daily Candy brings us a little "How much do you know about D.C.?" quiz. It's a mix of classic questions (when was D.C.'s flag adopted?) and ones that are slightly......

On Sundays, DCist publishes opinion pieces about life in D.C. Today's column comes to us from reader John Heaton. If you have an opinion to share, please email us. Almost every city has it; some local delicacy that represents the roots or fabric of the area. NYC has cheesecake and pizza, Philly has cheesesteaks, and, going out to the left coast, the Seattle area has coffee and smoked salmon. What does D.C. have? Nothing. Some......

If you want an idea of how bad the city's educational infrastructure is, consider this -- it's going to take the equivalent of the Marshall Plan to bring it up to snuff. The D.C. Council's Committee on Finance and Revenue recently passed legislation that would direct $200 million a year to much-needed school modernization, capping a months-long campaign in and out of the council to improve the state of the city's schools. But education activists......

Good morning, Washington. Now that the Roe v. Wade protests and street closures have calmed down, your commute to work may be a little more worry-free. Here's is a look at today's news in the region. Is it a Bird, a Plane?: If you hear or see some low-flying jets this morning, don't fret; it's not time to evacuate the District just yet. WTOP reports that NORAD is conducting Exercise Falcon Virgo as a......

It wasn't three days ago the D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams ebulliently announced that he had won a bet with Philadelphia Mayor John Street over last Sunday's Redskins/Eagles match-up. Now four cheesesteaks richer and riding a wave of confidence, Williams is betting that the Redskins will defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday's first round playoff game. Should he go two for two, he'll pick up six Cuban sandwiches from Tamba Bay Mayor Pam Iorio, should......

A lead story in the Post's Metro section this morning is the stuff to either make you queasy or curious. It involves one house, eight entomologists, and 70,000 bugs of assorted variety. It also features a man paid $11 to sit in a lawn chair with a patch of skin exposed for up to eight hours a day, a guinea pig for testing insect repellants. This isn't the stuff that real news is made......

District residents are particularly immune to motorcades. There isn't much that will make us stop and crane our necks these days, especially not the site of the traffic-inducing, gas-guzzling lines of cars that ferry the country's leaders to and from home and work. But for the next three days, one of those motorcades could be carrying royalty. Yes, we near jumped out of our skin when we found out that Britain's Prince Charles and his......

Last night over 250 District voting rights activists attended an event they probably all wished they wouldn't have to celebrate -- DC Vote's Champions of Democracy 2005 award ceremony. Held in the Madison Hotel along 15th Street, attendees came together to share in food, drink, and mutual indignation over an undeniable and odious injustice forced upon the city's 600,000 residents -- the inability to vote for members of Congress. Beneath the pleasant social atmosphere ran......

Economically ruinous scheme or social justice imperative? Well, tonight you'll at least hear the latter argument over whether or not the District needs a living wage. D.C. for Democracy is hosting a meeting tonight at which three speakers -- MacKenzie Baris of D.C. Jobs With Justice, Ed Lazere of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, and several students from the Georgetown University Living Wage Campaign -- will discuss legislation currently before the D.C. City Council mandating......

The morning after the United States celebrated 229 years of independence, the General Assembly of the 55-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) voted to endorse a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress to pass the legislation necessary to granting District residents full voting rights. The move represents an international endorsement of the District's voting rights cause, spearheaded by a coalition of activist organizations known as Team D.C. Democracy who last Friday took......

Amazon.com and their search engine A9 has announced they have completed photographing many of the streets in D.C. for the "block view" feature of their online yellow pages. (Our friends at Gothamist wrote about their New York photos in January) Users can now view photographs of the storefronts of many District businesses alongside their telephone number and address. Like most online mapping, the photo alignment is far from perfect and sometimes requires scrolling down......

We've always thought of D.C. as a great place to live (we write for this site, so we kind of have to). But we were intrigued when we saw that in a recent study of health in the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas, Washington, D.C., came in as the second-healthiest city in the United States, beaten only by San Jose. The study, conducted by Sperling's Best Places and Centrum, ranked the health of cities based......