More secrets: Ripple is mum on the details about its new bakery. [Washingtonian]

Tube meat finally gets its own week. [DCist]

Which D.C. food blogger makes the best lamb dish? [Fans of Lamb]

Let Birch & Barley's Tiffany MacIsaac show you how to make a sexy chocolate mousse [Washingtonian]

Here's some food porn from D.C.'s reopened Seasons restaurant. [Dining Bisnow]

Chinito's Burritos has opened on Florida Avenue NE. [Prince of Petworth]

Fiola's Fabio Trabbochi is starting to look for his next location. [We Love DC]

The National Press Club is showcasing D.C. food trucks [PR Newswire]

Photo by Lu/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Tonight: J&G Steakhouse hosts its first wine dinner of the year, featuring Virginia's Linden Vineyards. Tickets are $115 per person. Meanwhile, Birch & Barley celebrates Scottish food and drink with a five-course meal (yes, haggis is one) paired with a dizzying array of sips from across the pond. And, observant carnivores converge on Hill Country for D.C. Meat Week, feasting on all-you-can-eat brisket, pork ribs, and barbecue chicken for $20.

Coming up: on Tuesday, the new Black & Orange burger joint opens on 14th Street NW and the Capital Wine Festival continues with a dinner featuring the elegant sips of California's Frog's Leap Winery at 2100 Prime. And, on Wednesday, a slew of local restaurants are participating in the 11th annual Sugar & Champagne event for charity.

For more info, click on any link in the Y&H food events calendar above.

Got something tasty going on? Send tips, daily specials and event listings  to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com

Megan Parisi

Photo by Tomasz Sienicki/Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

Squid ink and saffron pasta with lobster and cherry tomato confit at Elisir

Really, it's OK to slurp your noodles at Toki Underground [NBC Washington]

The new management at beleaguered Shaw's Tavern is feeling optimistic about its chances. Maybe someday soon, the place will actually be allowed to serve drinks. [Eater DC]

The couple behind Le Caprice DC in Columbia Heights aims to “make people stop saying you can’t get a good baguette in this town.” [Washingtonian]

St. Arnold's new location in Cleveland Park is opening soonish. [Prince of Petworth]

Birch & Barley/ChurchKey boss Michael Babin is a stickler for soft lighting, among other things, at all his restaurants. [Flavor]

Hunting for duck fat? Here's where to look. [Metrocurean]

Julia Child's kitchen exhibit at the Smithsonian is closing. [Post]

A love letter to Taylor Gourmet. [Borderstan]

Michael Landrum has been getting some flak lately over his portobello mushroom caps.

Landrum’s Arlington eatery, Ray’s the Steaks, offers a slew of entrées for diners to choose from, including 21 different plates of beef and four kinds of seafood dishes.

But, if you happen to be vegetarian, the ’shrooms, marinated in balsamic vinegar, grilled and plated on a recent evening with eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, grilled onions, and blue cheese, are your one and only option.

As a guy who makes no bones about his meat-centric business, Landrum would hope that the meatless crowd could simply appreciate the effort. “We’re trying here,” he says.

To the contrary, he says, some people “take great offense that someone would dare offer grilled portobello mushroom as a vegetarian option, and that it’s somehow lacking.” Landrum is baffled by this. He notes, “Twenty years ago, 10 years ago, [the portobello] was the most exciting thing in the vegetarian world.”

To a beef-focused entrepreneur like Landrum, the portobello’s burger-like shape and meaty texture probably seems like a no-brainer. To the modern vegetarian diner, however, it seems like an afterthought, what with the farm-to-table movement elevating other produce—such as heirloom squash and purple cauliflower—to newfound prominence.

But appeasing the veg-heads was never really the point, Landrum says. Putting the standalone fungus on his steakhouse menu isn’t about attracting vegetarians at all. To the contrary, it’s about not losing steak eaters.

Landrum explains his single-veggie-entrée strategy like this: Say a family of five walks into his restaurant one night. Mom, dad, and two of the kids are all carnivores. But the third child doesn’t eat meat. If Landrum’s menu doesn’t cater to her tastes in some way, he risks losing the whole group. “I have five family members who otherwise wouldn’t be here,” he says.

There’s a term for this form of minority rule in dining. It’s called the vegetarian veto vote.

It’s an idea that Erica Meier talks up quite often. “It’s just the concept that when a group of people are choosing where to dine out, that the majority rarely rules,” says Meier, executive director of the Takoma Park-based nonprofit animal-rights group Compassion Over Killing. Part of Meier’s job involves lobbying local restaurants to include more meatless options on their menus. Earlier this year, her organization launched a new campaign providing comment cards that diners can casually leave alongside their bill to encourage restaurant managers to expand their menu offerings to include vegetarian and vegan dishes.

On a recent afternoon, Meier was on the phone with the manager of Julia’s Empanadas, asking the kitchen to trade in its traditional egg wash for an egg-free substitute in order to make the eatery’s vegetarian empanadas amenable to patrons who are following an even stricter vegan diet.

Meier takes credit for helping to convince some 35 Baltimore- and D.C.-area restaurants to create or enhance vegan menu options. For her purposes, the vegetarian veto vote is a persuasive part of the overall argument.

It’s not exactly an easy sell. Many chefs and restaurateurs are reluctant to forgo precious menu space on full-size plates of mushrooms and tofu—items traditionally viewed as loss leaders.

“I’ve only got six or so spaces,” says chef Kyle Bailey, “so I want to make sure I cover everything”—everything, that is, except a main course to please the meatless crowd, which his Logan Circle restaurant Birch & Barley entirely lacks. The restaurant does accommodate special orders for vegetarians, but those are rare. According to Bailey, the kitchen fields just one or two requests a night. “Because the majority of people want fish and want meat, we have to make sure that we cater to those people, too,” he says.

The threat of a vegetarian veto doesn’t concern Bailey nearly as much as losing money. “I think there’s also a fear,” he says. “What if you only sell two [vegetarian entrées] a night? That is a failure. That’s a failure rate for any other dish.”

But Meier contends that the numbers are moving in her favor. While only a small segment of U.S. population identify as vegetarian—less than eight million of the more than 300 million Americans—Meier notes that an additional 22.8 million are “vegetarian inclined,” according to a 2008 study sponsored by meatless advocacy magazine Vegetarian Times. This suggests that many omnivores are apt to skip the animal protein when presented with another option.

And the more vegetarian offerings that are readily available, Meier says, the more people who are willing to try them—regardless of whether those people are vegetarian or not.

“The power of using the vegetarian or vegan vote is behind the growing number of people who are looking for these options,” Meier says.

In D.C., in particular, the numbers are even more favorable to Meier’s cause. LivingSocial, the Washington-based daily-deals site, surveyed 20 major cities this past September and concluded that D.C.’s “preference” for vegetarian and vegan fare ranks number one, with eight percent of diners identifying as vegetarian or vegan, compared to just five percent nationwide.

At Eatonville, restaurateur Andy Shallal’s Southern-inspired eatery on 14th Street NW, Meier’s lobbying ultimately culminated in the addition of a vegan jerk-marinated tofu entrée sold for $15. General Manager Michael Woods says he was initially skeptical about how well the meat substitute would fare at a place better known for fried chicken and baby-back ribs. While the tofu is by no means a top-seller—accounting for about five percent of entrée sales at Eatonville this past October, Woods says—the vegan dish isn’t the restaurant’s worst performer, either, even outselling the grilled salmon.

Danny Bortnick, executive chef at Firefly in Dupont Circle, doesn’t need a lobbyist to tell him the stats on vegetarianism in the District. “We have a lot of vegetarian customers and the sales show,” says Bortnick.

Firefly is that rare D.C. restaurant, not labeled as vegetarian-specific, which nonetheless offers not one but two meatless entrées on the menu. “For a long time we just did one and it just kind of came to mind that vegetarians come here and essentially eat the same thing every time but meat eaters have tons of choices,” Bortnick says. “It just didn’t make sense to me.”

On his seasonally rotating menu, Bortnick now generally keeps a starch-based entrée—most recently, a kuri squash and porcini mushroom risotto—and one shining with vegetables, demonstrated by late-season eggplant reuniting with mozzarella and tomato. Sales aren’t awful. Combined, these two items accounted for about 18 percent, or nine percent each, of entrées sales last month, he says.

Other D.C. eateries that offer vegetarian-friendly entrées report similarly steady, if not stellar, sales of those items. At Ripple in Cleveland Park, chef Logan Cox makes agnolotti to showcase the über-seasonal vegetable of the moment, currently pairing beets and olives with tarragon and ricotta. This rotating pasta dish accounts for about 20 percent of overall entrée sales, he says.

At Café Saint-Ex on 14th Street, where a recent kitchen expansion finally allowed chef Billy Klein enough refrigerator room to offer a permanent menu slot for a meatless plate, the sweet corn risotto cakes aren’t just taking up space. Burgers generally account for 50 percent of sales. But of the rest, the cakes represented about 17 percent of sales last month, Klein says.

At Ray’s the Steaks, meanwhile, the dubious portobello dish fares pretty poorly. The restaurant regularly cranks out between 3,000 to 3,500 covers a week, Landrum says, but only eight to 15 of those diners order the vegetarian entrée.

As much as Landrum respects the vegetarian veto, he’s not naïve enough to offer something he can’t afford not to sell. Of the portobello, Landrum says, “I could afford to run at a loss and still recover my costs on alternative uses.” Leftovers provide heft to the mixed-mushroom side dish and eggplants appear in kitchen staff meals, he notes.

“Despite public opinion,” Landrum jokes about his image as an anti-establishment restaurateur, “I think that it’s a necessary service for every restaurant to offer the most hospitable environment for all guests, even the not frequently occurring occasion of a vegetarian diner.”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

LAGERHEADS PICK: On Friday, Smith Commons is hosting a launch party for a special collaborative brew created by DC Brau and Baltimore-based Stillwater Artisanal Ales. The beer was initially referred to as "DJ Love" because Smith Commons beer director Miles Gray, DC Brau's Brandon Skall and Jeff Hancock, and Stillwater's "gypsy" brewer Brian Strumke have all spent time behind the turntables. Now they're calling it "Natas" (that's satan backwards) in keeping with the tradition of devilish names for dark Belgian ales. The event starts at 6 p.m.

As for the rest of the week Birch & Barley is hosting Ninkasi and 21st Amendment, two outstanding West coast breweries, for a massive seven-beer, five-course dinner on Monday.

On Tuesday, Neighborhood Restaurant Group strikes again, as ChurchKey participates in the Vanberg & DeWulf 30th anniversary coast-to-coast toast, featuring rare Belgian imports. Hank's Oyster Bar in Dupont Circle is throwing a beer dinner featuring Great Lakes Brewing Company. Across the river in Clarendon, Fire Works Pizza will be pouring pints of California's Stone brew and Restaurant 3 is hosting Port City Brewing Company founder Bill Butcher for a five-course dinner.

On Wednesday, all Victory Brewing Company beers from Pennsylvania will be on tap at Scion in Dupont. On Thursday, Smith Commons is partnering with Demigods LLC and Thirteen22 for a beer and music focused clothing drive featuring beers by Ommegang and complimentary small bites.

Friday and Saturday, you can sign up for a "Novemberfest" beer and brat cruise on the Potomac with Capital Yacht Charters. Oompah! Also on Saturday, join Heavy Seas Beer of Baltimore for the Capitol Bacon and Beer Bash at National Harbor.

Send submissions for the D.C. Beer Events calendar to thelagerheads@gmail.com.

Follow The Lagerheads on Twitter | on Facebook

Kyle Bailey

Photo courtesy of ChurchKey

Chicken a la Can: Boundary Stone’s beer-infused bird

There’s a very subtle flavor lurking amid the bright dollops of foamy sunshine that surround some juicy cuts of venison on my plate at Ripple in Cleveland Park.

It’s hard to put my finger on it, even as I dip that digit into the bubbly yellow glop and dab it on my tongue repeatedly. Beneath the creamy sweetness, somewhere under the distinctive hits of ginger, lies a certain malty quality.

It’s beer.

“We take whole ginger root and cook it down with lager,” says head chef Logan Cox—a specific kind of lager, mind you, brewed specially by Delaware’s Dogfish Head Brewery for a recent beer dinner at the eatery on Connecticut Avenue NW.

“We’re the only restaurant that had it outside of the brewery,” Cox says. “It was very spicy. I got lots of notes of ginger from it. It was almost like a hefeweizen or witbier. But it was a lager.”

The beer and ginger is cooked down with sugar and bay leaves until it becomes quite syrupy. It’s then combined with soft boiled eggs, pureed and melted into olive oil. The result, Cox says, is this “very beery, spicy, fatty” mixture.

“We put all of that into a whippet canister like Easy Whip, so it lightens it up almost like a foam,” the chef continues. “It’s almost carbonated, so it reminds you of beer and you get the taste of beer. But there’s also the heavy ginger influence in it.”

It’s hard to dismiss the tender, deep ruby-colored slices of meat on the plate, but Cox’s ginger-beer emulsion sort of steals the spotlight.

Lately, the District’s enduring craft beer explosion has given him and his fellow chefs an ample and diverse array of the frothy liquid to play with. And, with a handful of local breweries now producing beer here for the first time in 50 years, D.C. toques have a whole new reason to infuse their cooking with suds—one that even suits their preference for locally sourced ingredients.

“There’s just so much of it,” says Thunder Burger chef Ryan Fichter, pointing to some two dozen shiny beer taps behind the bar at his Georgetown restaurant.

Around town, you find beer in all sorts of dishes, both good and bad. I once made the horrendous mistake of ordering the Corona-battered fish and chips at Grand Central in Adams Morgan; it isn’t particularly appealing, but on second thought, it’s probably better than actually drinking a beer that watered-down. And I have previously penned several scathing lines on the Argonaut’s ill-conceived chocolate stout chicken wings—which, I discovered during a recent visit, are no longer on the menu. Far better: the Argo’s signature honey-drizzled onion rings, battered in the house “Booty” beer.

Some better, recent additions to the District’s expanding beer-infused eats scene include the savory Guinness-basted burger topped with whiskey pan gravy at The Big Board on H Street NE and the delicious bean-less chili con carne at District Commons in Foggy Bottom, which executive chef Jeff Tunks describes as a more of a “cross between a mole and a goulash,” given that the ingredients include both chocolate and Smuttynose Old Brown Dog.

At Thunder Burger this past summer, Fichter, who has become best known for his weekly wild game specials, braised baby alligator ribs for four hours in Stoudt’s Smooth Hoperator doppelbock to soften up the tough meat. His regular menu also features Maine mussels sautéed in Stone Brewing Co.’s Stone Levitation Ale.

Some chefs don’t even need the actual beer to whip up something tasty out of brewery goods. At a beer dinner last week, Birch & Barley pastry chef Tiffany MacIsaac incorporated leftover wort, a malt extract used during the brewing process, into a roasted pear dessert.

In some cases, you might never know the beer is even in the food you’re eating, unless you ask. At Ripple, for instance, the menu makes no mention of the alcoholic ingredient in the ginger emulsion. “I use it more secretly,” Cox says. “I think it gives it a nice subtle note, something that people can’t really put their finger on.”

Cox has been cooking with beer since he was a teenager, boiling blue crabs in cheap brew out in his backyard. (Shhhh! Don’t rat out his underage culinary exploits to the cops!) More recently, at Ripple, he’s been braising fresh Virginia peanuts in beer and sugar and serving the mix as part of a ragu with mussels.

“I think it’s a great substitute for wine,” Cox says. “You get the nice alcohol that you get from wine, but you also get that malty-ness, which is a huge flavor for fall.”

On Saturday afternoons, when area craft beer aficionados come to DC Brau’s facilities to fill up their half-gallon growler jugs with locally made suds, you’ll sometimes see chef Nate Anda’s cart outside selling “Brau Dogs,” all-pork weiners made with the brewery’s own Atlas Fest beer.

And, at Boundary Stone in Bloomingdale, chef Vincent Campaniello makes a pretty mean sandwich with dry-rubbed chicken that’s been slow-roasted with half-full cans of DC Brau Public Ale crammed up its butt.

“When you stuff the beer can into the chicken, standing it up to roast it, it keeps the meat inside very tender and moist and imparts a really nice flavor throughout,” the chef says.

The beer, mixed with natural juices, makes for some rich pan drippings, which Campaniello uses as a sauce for the sandwich. It’s so juicy that the runoff can quickly cause the bottom of the sandwich bun to disintegrate into mush. My suggestion: Eat it fast.

* * *

To taste what is maybe my favorite beer-splashed dish around, you have to cross the Potomac. Every Friday night at Arlington’s Bayou Bakery, chef David Guas runs a special on New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp.

The plump headless prawns are prepared a la minute, sautéed in a rich brown gravy loaded with garlic and Creole seasonings. The sauce is ideal for sopping up with some of the crusty French bread that comes served on the side.

It’s a classic Big Easy recipe, pioneered at Pascal’s Manale restaurant and perfected at countless other Cajun country eateries.

Guas’ personal twist: adding healthy doses of Louisiana’s own Abita Turbodog dark brown ale to the mixture.

“Think about it,” Guas tells me as I hungrily mop up the remaining traces of the savory sauce in my bowl. “You drink a Turbodog, what flavors do you get? You get that malty, sort of rich, rounded Guinness Stout-y kind of flavor, and so you bring that into a really spicy, bold, black-peppery, heavy garlic dish and it just sort of balances everything and mellows it out. Turbodog, believe it or not, has got a sweetness to it. Just like Guinness has got a sweetness to it. When you taste the head on a Guinness, it tastes sweet. I mean, it’s got that black strap, molasses-y sort of snap at the end, that bitter roundness. But, still, there’s a complexity to it. I just think it makes [the dish] bolder and sort of reinforces the flavors you’ve already put into it.”

Key word: roundness. With all this beer-laden eating, I seem to be developing a similar quality.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Ripple, 3417 Connecticut Ave. NW, (202) 244-7995

Thunder Burger, 3056 M St. NW, (202) 333-2888

Grand Central, 2447 18th St. NW, (202) 986-1742

Argonaut, 1433 H St. NE, (202) 250-3660

Birch & Barley, 1337 14th St. NW, (202) 567-2576

The Big Board, 421 H St. NE

Boundary Stone, 116 Rhode Island Ave. NW

Bayou Bakery, 1515 North Courthouse Rd., Arlington, (703) 243-2410

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Wendell Jenkins

Neighborhood Restaurant Group, owners of Birch & Barley/ChurchKey, among other area eateries, is one of the companies that plan to supply Jenkins with used oil from its fryers.

D.C. Department of Public Works director Bill Howland, though, is skeptical, the station reports: "Howland said while he would love to use bio-diesel – in part to satisfy alternative fuel requirements – he needs more time and more data to make sure bio-diesel is reliable, particularly for public safety vehicles."

Photo by Edward Betts/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Photo courtesy of Neighborhood Restaurant Group