If there’s anything that grips Y&H readers, it’s tragedy, and it doesn’t get much more tragic than the homicide of Nori Amaya, the co-owner of Coppi’s Organic on U Street. People were obviously desperate for information on the strangulation. Even our negligible little item was widely visited.

Here’s how the week shook out:

1. Nori Amaya’s Friends and Fans Express Their Grief on Her Facebook Page
2. A Certain Goddamn Budweiser Beer That People Can’t Stop Reading About
   
3. Birch & Barley Opens Today. What’s Inside? (This item is quickly entering Select 55 territory.)
   
4. Tom and Derek Brown to Channel Spirits and Iggy Pop at the Passenger
   
5. D’Acqua Shutters, Ping Pong Dim Sum Set to Open Next Month
   

Mark Furstenberg may be finding it a challenge to sell the world’s best street foods to Washingtonians, but at least he wasn’t hawking hand-held snacks in China during Chairman Mao’s reign. Some Chinese street foods were apparently lost forever under Mao.

This fascinating segment, from Al Jazeera English, doesn’t really explain why the foods were lost, but it does look at contemporary Beijing street foods, which date back centuries. That’s right, centuries. One vendor says his family has been selling street food for “234 years.”

But the wide-ranging segment also looks at the Chinese diet and how it has been affected by the country’s massive economic growth. In short, as China has opened its borders to Western fast-food chains like McDonald’s and KFC, the citizens have opened their mouths and gobbled down the American junk food. Their waist lines, like ours, are suffering from it.

Mark Furstenberg’s vision for his new G Street Food was simple: He wanted to bring some of the world’s greatest street foods to a city that has some of the worst. It’s too bad that Washingtonians don’t seem to appreciate them. Or at least don’t seem to appreciate them as much as Furstenberg and his partners had hoped.

The master baker says that revenues at G Street Food, in the first few weeks of operation, are down at least 40 percent from projections.  It’s enough to cause concern for the owners of the place, the Choi family, who “expected it to do well from the beginning,” Furstenberg tells Y&H.

Read More “Furstenberg Is Forced to Expand Beyond Street Foods” »

Tom and Derek Brown have pour, mixed, and stirred drinks at some of the best spots in the District: Komi, Citronelle, Palena, the Gibson, Corduroy, and Cork. But when the brothers decided to open their own joint, The Passenger, they didn’t want anything as formal as their former places of employment.

“I wanted a place where I could drink wine and play Motörhead,” says Derek Brown, the younger of the two siblings who grew up in Olney. “I’ve grown in my tastes. I haven’t grown in my want for a laid-back environment.”

True to their word, the brothers Brown are building a watering hole high on quirkiness — and low on pretension. It begins with the very building in which the Passenger is housed: the former bar/cafe space at the Warehouse at 1021 7th St. NW.  The space, co-owned by Paul Ruppert (who’s also a partner in the Passenger), dates back to 1890 and once was home to Ruppert Hardware, a fixture in D.C. for nearly 100 years.

Read More “Tom and Derek Brown to Channel Spirits and Iggy Pop at the Passenger” »

how dim sum is made from pingpongdimsum on Vimeo.

You’ll have to forgive Y&H for posting a video that’s so promotional in nature, but I found this inside look at Ping Pong Dim Sum quite fascinating, and not just because the London-based chain will open its first U.S. outlet right here in the District.

I mean, look at those knife skills! I can’t stop watching that dude with the Chinese cleaver as he shaves off pieces of dough, presses them into perfect little dumpling circles, and then flips them onto the finished pile.

It’s a problem that coffeehouses everywhere have to deal with: What to do with squatters who camp at tables all day, their laptops locked into the free wifi, as they nurse a cup of Joe and live in some fantasy world where their very presence somehow helps the owners pay the bills. It’s a particularly pressing issue as the economy continues to stall and more folks join the ranks of the unemployed, eager to exploit a shop’s free wifi for their own gain.

Tryst in Adams Morgan believes it has a unique solution. But before we get to that, I wanted to throw the question out to the friends and colleagues and followers on my social networks. Are laptop squatters a problem for you, I wanted to know, and should coffeehouses try to limit surfing hours or enforce a minimum purchase or charge for wifi? Below are some of the responses:

hillrat: People who squat at coffee shops for 3+ hours don’t care, they’re selfishly living off the fat of the land.

Cancemini4: Totally fair [to establish minimum purchases or time limits]. It’s hard enough to turn a profit in a coffeeshop, if people don’t want to pay they should go to the public library.

Sacha: yes! drives me crazy when someone buys a cup of coffee and sits at Tryst for 5 hours. I don’t know how these businesses survive.

Read More “Tryst Encourages Laptop Squatters to Socialize” »

Comerford and Flay get fresh (veggies) in the White House garden.

Jeesh, speaking of predictions, Y&H should have guessed this would happen as soon as the White House broke ground on its kitchen garden in March: Iron Chef America has trotted out three of its, ahem, heaviest hitters to cook a meal from ingredients plucked from the hugely symbolic garden.

The special two-hour episode of Iron Chef America, dubbed with a stunning lack of subtlety, Super Chef Battle, features Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse, who take on Bobby Flay and White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford in the competition.

The episode has already been filmed, and according to The New York Times‘ account, First Lady Michelle Obama laid out the ground rules to the teams (they had to cook five dishes using ingredients from the White House kitchen garden) and put in a good plug for her Healthy Kids Initiative.

The show will air on Sunday, Jan. 3, on the Food Network.

Not surprisingly, the air date is politically tinged. So says Y&H’s virtual friend, Obama Foodorama, who writes:

Read More “Should Have Seen This Coming: ‘Iron Chef’ Visits White House for ‘Kitchen Garden’ Challenge” »

Dave Chappelle is a comedic genius, and his skit for Samuel L. Jackson Beer compares favorably with any of the fake commercials produced by SNL. 

I wonder if Greg Engert at Birch & Barley/ChurchKey can add this to his 500-plus beer list? Maybe even hire Chappelle to do his Sammy Jackson shtick? It might actually clear out enough people at the Logan Circle hotspot so that I could get a seat.

Baum + Whiteman has been a restaurant consulting group since the ’70s. The dudes know a few things about the hospitality biz, so when the company releases its annual food and dining trends for the coming year, restaurateurs tend to listen. (Or razz B+W for predicting “tongue” meat would become huge.)

Restaurateurs may want to hide under the covers after reading the No. 1 predicted trend for 2010: New priorities for beaten-up consumers.  Check out this strong language:

Read More “Baum + Whiteman’s No. 1 Food and Dining Trend for 2010? Lots of Economic Fear.” »

You have probably heard this awful news by now, but Coppi’s Organic co-owner Nori Amaya was found dead yesterday in her apartment. D.C. Police Department spokeswoman Traci Hughes confirmed to Y&H this afternoon that Amaya’s death has been ruled a homicide. The cause of death is strangulation.

The horrific news has inspired an outpouring of grief on Amaya’s facebook page. Below is a selection of the comments on Amaya’s Wall:

• Nori, I had the pleasure of knowing you for years and am better to have had you in my life. We will all miss having you as a part of our lives. This is a tragedy and a shame. I wish you peace.
• I’AM SO SICK AND FUCK UP ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU BABY I LOVE YOU AND I’LL MISS U MY FRIEND , YOUR SMILE WILL ALWAYS BE WITH ME R.I.P ………………

Read More “Nori Amaya’s Friends and Fans Express Their Grief on Her Facebook Page” »