Really, wasn't it only a matter of time? Among the many food trucks that have debuted in recent months, at last one of them is taking on zombies. Pho Junkies, which serves Vietnamese pho soup, is the "brain"child (Y&H apologizes) of high school buddies and Virginia natives Woo Jin Lee and Luan Vo. (Tagline: Better than Brains.)

Vo's parents own a Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Viet Flare in Alexandria. After struggling to find jobs post-graduation, Lee and Vo decided to take Vo's parents' cooking and translate it to a food truck. As for the zombies, Lee tells Y&H they didn't want to just paint the truck a bright color and slap on a name.

Lee and Vo grew up playing zombie video games like Resident Evil and are really into AMC show The Walking Dead right now. They wanted the truck to reflect their interests. And those interests just happen to be zombies. Read more At Last! A Zombie Apocalypse-Themed Food Truck!

Study says buying organic food may make you a jerk [Time]

Online petition opposing a liquor license moratorium for the 14th St. corridor has more than 650 signatures so far [Borderstan]

Tax troubles for Sushiko [Washington Post]

Craft cocktail bar and restaurant Quench now officially open in Rockville [Eater]

Food porn from Mike Isabella's Bandolero, opening Thursday [Washingtonian]

Former Ben & Jerry's in Dupont rumored to become Jamba Juice [PoP]

What the heck is meat glue anyway? [Eatocracy]

Veggies photo via Shutterstock

Looks like brothers Eric and Ian Hilton won't be opening a restaurant on H Street NE after all.

The Hiltons' restaurant group's spokesman Sheldon Scott tells Y&H that the restaurateurs have sold their lease at 1337 H St. NE, but he wouldn't say who bought it. They've had the lease for about a year and used the space for some one-off arts events. They had hoped to turn it into a tavern with live entertainment but have since decided to drop the project to focus on four other restaurants coming to the U Street area.

"With everything we have going on and the concentration of where things are, we figured it would be a little bit out of reach," Scott says.

This is the second property the Hilton Brothers have let go of in recent months. They had a letter of intent (but not a finalized lease) for the former HR-57 jazz club space at 1610 14th St. NW. Initially, they planned to turn it into an Italian gastropub and "arts incubator," but after receiving neighborhood opposition to the liquor license, they decided not to pursue the project further. (Scott says 67 people initially signed on to protest the license.) Acqua al 2 chef Ari Gejdenson, who planned to partner with the Hilton Brothers, has since signed a lease for an Italian restaurant of his own there.

"When we apply for a liquor license, that's the first step in the process," Scott says. "It could be a make or break." He adds that the liquor license was not a reason for giving up the H Street property.

So what are those other projects they'll be focusing on, all near U Street? The Hiltons plan to open a diner/burger joint called Satellite Kitchen in late June or early July and British pub The Brixton before July 4. Next up will be El Rey Taqueria and an unnamed space next to the Montserrat House.

Photo via Google Maps

Ingredient: Turnips

What: My instruction for this week: Purchase the vegetable I could least imagine serving. At the opening day of the Bloomingdale farmers market, I visited the new stand on the block—Mountain View Farm, an organic outfit located in Purcellville, Va. (For market regulars—they are replacing Snow Bear, which closed over the winter.)

How to buy: Shawna DeWitt suggested I try the Hakurei turnips ($3/four, each plum-sized)—a thin-skinned, white-fleshed Japanese variety. “Tastes like a cross between a turnip and a pear,” she told me. “And definitely don’t throw away the greens—they can be sautéed; try them with ginger and garlic.” She serves the turnips sliced raw (to the delight of her toddler), and suggested fermenting or pickling them. DeWitt will have the Hakureis for two more weeks; they will return in the fall and be even sweeter after the first frost.

How to eat: I’d be pressed to tell you what most other raw turnips taste like, but the fruity, radish-spicy flesh of the Harukeis was fantastic. I was a little bored by them sautéed, but the greens—cooked with olive oil, dried ginger, and salt and topped with thin slivers of the raw white bulb—were a smashing success with my visiting vegetarian. If you’re going to cook the greens, cut them off as soon as you get home—they’ll last longer.

Photo by Phoebe Connelly

Gourmet ice cream sandwiches are so hot (so cold?) right now. The latest eatery to introduce its high-end version of the childhood classic is Café Dupont. The restaurant is teaming up with The Styleliner, a former potato chip truck retrofitted into clothing boutique on wheels. Giving new meaning to the term "good taste," the vehicle will sell both couture and gold flake-topped s'more ice cream sandwiches curbside on select days (May 23, 30, June 6, 13 from 5-8 p.m.).

The $9 off-the-menu ice cream sandwiches—made with Valrhona dark chocolate ice cream and bruleed white chocolate marshmallows on house-made graham crackers—will also be available upon request at Cafe Dupont every Wednesday through Friday from 5-8 p.m. throughout the summer. They debut tomorrow.

"A lot of those items that have been forgotten a little bit are coming back," says Cafe Dupont chef Silvan Kramer, an ice cream lover who grew up in Switzerland, where there were no ice cream trucks. "People are looking for something that reminds them of their childhoods."

Bar Dupont isn't the only spot serving up ice cream sandwich nostalgia. Sugar Magnolia, the sister bakery to Ripple in Cleveland Park, has several rotating varieties including a strawberry ice cream sandwich with lavender sponge cake and chocolate ice cream with peanut butter cookies—all $3.50 each.

Poste Moderne Brasserie is also making house-made ice cream sandwiches using seasonal infusions from its garden. And let's not forget the long, skinny chocolate cookie hazelnut ice cream version from José Andrés' flautas food truck, Pepe. Know of any others? Add 'em in the comments.

UPDATE: Poste no longer has ice cream sandwiches on the menu, although it is serving a rhubarb-stuffed shortbread cookie topped with strawberry ice cream.

Some other noteworthy examples: Firefly has a peanut butter ice cream "sandwich" made with flourless chocolate cake, bananas foster sauce, peanut brittle, and sea salt. A commenter also points to a classic chocolate cookie vanilla ice cream sandwich at Central. It's $9.

One night Sri Lankan pop-up dinner at the Montserrat House [PoP]

Pork Barrel BBQ hosts pop-up lunch at Living Social's 918 F Street this week [Living Social]

The 25 best vegetarian dishes in the DC area [Washingtonian]

What cuts of meat to grill from which Virginia butchers [Northern Virginia Magazine]

Full run down of the Fojol Brothers' turban-gate controversy [Eater]

Food porn from The Pig in Logan Circle [Huffington Post]

Richest Man in the World Carlos Slim spotted at The Palm [Reliable Source]

Jackie Greenbaum's 11th Street Mexican eatery, El Chucho's, set to open in June [DCist]

Montserrat House photo by Jessica Sidman

After leaving his high-profile post at BLT Steak in March, chef Victor Albisu is finally re-emerging with a new project: an authentic Mexican taqueria in Falls Church. The dressed-down restaurant will be located two doors from a Latino market his mother owns called Plaza Latina on Pimmit Drive (right off Route 7). The 20-30-seat spot, which he's tentatively calling Taco Bamba, is expected to open in about a month.

The no-frills menu will include $2-3 tacos filled with odd bits like sweetbreads and tongue as well as pork and pineapple, chorizo straight from his mom's butcher counter, and more. You'll also find grilled corn and sopes, as well as a "really kick ass Cuban sandwich" to pay homage to his Cuban roots. (As a kid, Albisu sold Cuban sandwiches behind a "Victor's Deli" sign in his mom's market, then in Alexandria.)

"Tacos are one of my very favorite foods," Victor explains. "I have nothing else to do right now, so it better be pretty good."

He tells us he's taking inspiration from his favorite taco stand: R&R Taqueria, located in a gas station in Elkridge, Md.

"These things are the real deal," Albisu says. "I want to take that kind of authenticity and make it accessible to people."

Though it's still in the beginning stages, Albisu is already thinking about opening other taquerias elsewhere. And it isn't the only concept he has in the works, but he says it will keep him occupied while he gets a bigger project off the ground.

Photo by Jessica Sidman

Hi, I'm Jessica Sidman, your new Young & Hungry columnist. As you may have heard, I'm also the first person in this position not to attempt anonymity.

This fact has already caused quite the stir. The Washington Post devoted more than a thousand words to the subject, followed by a story in the Huffington Post (complete with a poll!) and a lengthy interview with WCP editor Mike Schaffer on Eater.com.

Now, it's my turn to talk.

My hope is to be less traditional critic and more reporter. Yes, you will occasionally get my opinions, but I plan to steer away from the straight-up reviews you might find from Post critic Tom Sietsema or Washingtonian critic Todd Kliman.

My goal is to make Y&H the first place you'll hear about restaurant openings and other breaking food and booze news. I also want to tell you stories beyond the dining room. Restaurants are much more than places where people eat; they're businesses, economic drivers, neighborhood transformers, home to insanely creative and occasionally wacky people as well as newsworthy examples of ambition, hubris, criminality, and cultural exchange.

The purpose of anonymity is to be able to relate the experience of the "average diner." But you don't need a professional critic for that anymore. There are thousands of "average diners" sharing their experiences every day on Yelp. What a good food writer can give you is hopefully something more: storytelling, analysis, context, and news.

The fact of the matter is that the role of the food writer has changed. We're expected to get scoops and deliver on details of all aspects of the industry. That requires face time. And the Zorro mask? Kind of weird in real life.

In my previous gig as editor of Dining Bisnow and in my time at Washingtonian before that, I made a point of doing most of my interviews in-person and attending as many industry events as possible. As a result, a substantial portion of the chefs, restaurateurs, and managers in D.C. know what I look like. I'm not going to bullshit you and pretend otherwise.

Even the big name critics in town who've gone to great lengths to conceal their identities by purging the internet of photos and using credit cards and reservations with false names are not nearly as anonymous as they might have you believe. Many restaurants, especially the top ones, know exactly what they look like.

In a few years, this whole conversation will likely be obsolete. The next generation of food writers will not have the option of anonymity. We've lived too much of our lives online and posted too many photos on blogs, Facebook, and a million other sites. While anonymity may be dying, the appetite for a good story never will.

Hope you're hungry.

Name tag photo via Shutterstock

Yesterday Flying Dog Brewery tweeted an image poking fun at D.C. Councilman Marion Barry's former improprieties. The poster, which features Barry alongside the phrase, "Crack one open D.C.," uses memories of his 1990 drug arrest to promote a release party this weekend for the Maryland brewery's first ever canned beer, UnderDog Atlantic Lager.

Perhaps not surprisingly, today a lawyer representing the former mayor called Flying Dog to ask the brewery to cease and desist. Fair enough. The party is this Saturday from 2 to 7:30 p.m. on the roof deck at Jack Rose, so the poster will be obsolete within 24 hours anyway.

In addition to cans of UnderDog, a 4.7 percent alcohol-by-volume light lager, there will be six other Flying Dog beers featured on draft. Wise-cracks and decades-old jokes aside, sounds like the perfect summer party.

Image from Flying Dog

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The District's budding local craft beer scene has been full of firsts over the past year. Here's another one: 3 Stars Brewing Company, a production brewery set to open in Takoma in early June, will house the District's first home brew supply store. Co-founders Mike McGarvey and Dave Coleman announced today that the brewery's on-site tasting room will offer their fresh craft brews as well as "an assortment of high-quality ingredients, production kits, tools, literature and other supplies necessary to home brewers of every skill level."

The growing number of District residents taking the do-it-yourself approach to beer currently have to shop online or schlep out to Maryland or Virginia for provisions. Now D.C. home brewers, or at least the ones who live near the tippy-top of the diamond and close-by Maryland suburbs, will have a more convenient location to shop and gather.

Starting as early as Memorial Day weekend, the home brew store will be open Thursdays from 4 to 8 p.m., Fridays from 3 to 8 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

3 Stars Brewing Company, 6400 Chillum Pl. NW.

Photo courtesy of 3 Stars Brewing Company

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