A kajmak cheese sampler plate is surrounded by spreads at Ambar Clarendon, which is offering their unlimited plates Balkan Experience for $25 to celebrate their opening. (Courtesy of Ambar)
While pumpkin flavoring in fall foods has jumped the shark, a pumpkin pesto pizza you can get next week at Pizzeria Paradiso, paired with any number of autumn inspired beers, sounds mighty enticing. There are also opportunities to snag pintxos, Taste of DC, seafood paella, and an indulgent night of all the Balkan food you can fit in your tummy in the week ahead. Plus, a popular chef is pushing to become a local pig luminary, encouraging farm-to-table restaurants and consumers to put their money and habits where their mouth is in support of delicious, pasture-raised pork.
This Week’s Food Events
Taste of DC, Rainy or Dry
You can probably take advantage of rain-induced shorter lines at Taste of DC, along Pennsylvania Avenue tomorrow afternoon. You could also wait until what is likely to be a drier Sunday, but then you would miss the Ben’s Chili Bowl Military and World chili eating contest. It kicks off at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, featuring Joey Chestnut and other competitive eaters. Musical entertainment, culinary demonstrations, and sponsor tables punctuate the activities. There is a $10 admission charge to enter the festival, and tastes run between $1 and $3 for items from over 60 restaurants. The MGM National Harbor is a leading sponsor of the festival as they ready for their December 8 opening, with executive chef Jason Johnston showing attendees how to make burrata at home on the culinary stage and José Andres and Bryan Voltaggio on hand at a VIP tent to showcase their planned restaurants at the hotel and casino complex.
Armenian Food Festival
For a different type of tasting event, the St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church (4125 Fessenden Street NW) will hold their 68th Annual Fall Food Festival this weekend. The Friendship Heights church beckons with homemade kebab platters, their “famous” eggplant delight blugher side dishes, and sticky Middle Eastern sweets.
Brooklyn Beer, Adams Morgan
Brooklyn Brewery’s nine-city Mash Tour stops in Washington this weekend. You’re too late for a beer dinner that happened at The Royal on Thursday night and their Saturday night Beer Mansion party at Blind Whino is sold out. But there are still $25 tickets available to Sunday afternoon’s Adams Morgan Neighborhood Immersion, which includes a lunch, drinks, and shopping discounts around the neighborhood, plus a pop-up bar and shop called The Timberland Trailhead at Mellow Mushroom. It’s hard to understand what all is going on; get out to 18th Street and figure it out!
Pizzeria Paradiso Autumn Fest
Next week, all Pizzeria Paradiso locations will feature over 35 seasonal beers and ciders. They will be available along with an Autumn Fest pizza from Chef Ruth Gresser with pumpkin pesto, roasted mushrooms, thyme, butternut squash, arugula, toasted pumpkin seeds, parmesan, and speck.
Chopped Viewing Party
Demetrio Zavala of Declaration is the next D.C. chef to hit the airwaves. An episode he filmed for television cooking competition Chopped airs on Thursday, October 13. Declaration (804 V Street NW) will host a viewing party for the 9:00 p.m. episode with complimentary slices of their American history-themed pizzas and happy-hour priced cocktails all evening.
Slate Paella
Slate Wine Bar + Bistro (2404 Wisconsin Ave.) chef and sommelier Danny Lledó traveled to Los Angeles for a Paella Wine & Beer Festival earlier this month. He came back as the overall victor, awarded for his seafood paella. The winning, naturally gluten free dish with its shrimp, clams, mussels, calamari, and bomba rice is now featured on the wine bar’s dinner menu for $26.
Special Pinxtos at SER
SER restaurant in Ballston (1110 N. Glebe Rd.) is in the middle of celebrating their second annual “Gastronomic Week,” focusing on Spanish cuisine and culture. Through Sunday they are hosting a pinxtos specialist from Spain, Sarah Perez, who is teaming up with the kitchen to create the small snack foods popular in northern Spain.
Openings
Dirty Habit Opens in Hotel Monaco
Earlier this year, the Hotel Monaco’s Poste Moderne Brasserie was shuttered, the space completely gutted to make way for something new borrowed from San Francisco. Their Dirty Habit concept got wind under its wings at a boutique property there before opening in the in Monaco’s iconic Gallery Place space this week. Chef Kyoo Eom stayed on from Poste, keeping the truffle fries on a new menu focused on globally influenced, shareable small plates of duck and foie gras meatballs, tempura calamari, and guinea hen dumplings, inspired by an Eom family recipe. A cocktail program from Sarah Ruiz mixes Asian inspired ingredients like in distinctive serving vessels. The hotel calls architectural design elements of the restaurant “a playful, artistic nod that speaks to the mystery and insanity of Gotham.” But they’ve taken some heat in the press for making light of mental illness and insane asylum imagery in their decor.
Ambar in Clarendon, $25 Promotion
Balkan restaurant Ambar opened this week in Clarendon (2901 Wilson Blvd). Popular on Barracks Row since 2013, Ambar has a sister restaurant in Belgrade, Serbia, making The Arlington outpost their third. Look for some new menu items: rotisserie lamb with dried cherries and a veal roulade with a horseradsih sorbet. One of the joys of Ambar’s D.C. location is it’s unlimited small plates deals. In Clarendon, the deal is normally $35. But through October 13, you can work your way through their menu for an amazingly low promotional price of $25. An offer on their Facebook page extends the Balkan Experience offer until Sunday, October 16 if you send them a message via the contact form on the restaurant website.
Plan Ahead
A Virginia Epicurience
The 4th annual Epicurience Virginia wine and farm-to-table food festival will be held at The Barn at One Loudoun on Saturday, October 15. $75 tickets include tastings of dishes from Bryan Voltaggio of Volt, Jim Drost of Matchbox, Chris Edwards of the Salamander Resort & Spa, and farmer Andrew Crush of Spring House Farm and pours from some of the region’s best wineries and distilleries.
Pigstarter
Chef Kyle Bailey of Sixth Engine (438 Massachusetts Ave NW) is going extra miles to help restaurants use local pigs and get into whole animal butchery. He is working as a “pro-bono pig-broker” to promote the pasture-raised swine coming to Spring House Farm, even helping chefs that lack the knowledge or kitchen space to break down whole or half animals from the Loudoun County purveyor (a great pork article on Bailey and farmer Andrew Crush appears in the City Paper this week). To that end, Bailey will host an epic Pigstarter party next Sunday to support his piggy middleman mission where seven chefs will butcher and serve up dishes from a whole hog provided by Spring House. Drinks are provided by 3 Stars Brewery, One Eight Distilling, and Wild Hare Cider. Tickets are $75.
