Standard, the upstart Logan Circle barbecue spot and beer garden that earned two stars and a place in WaPo critic Tom Sietsema's Fall Dining Guide, is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday for most of this week. On Friday, however, proprietors Tad Curtz and David Rosner are "firing up the smoker and the patio heaters again" [...]

Urban Bar-B-Que's David Calkins calls his smokehouse version the Two Step Chili because the ingredients come in pairs, sort of like the Noah's Ark of stews. Two different kinds of meat (ground chuck, chopped brisket), two styles of beans (pintos, black), and two sources of heat (chipotle, jalapeno). What Urban's chili lacks in presentation — my [...]

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return. Laugh if you [...]

Tell people that you've found good wood-smoked barbecue at the Whole Foods store in Fairfax, and they'll no doubt ask to revoke your critic's license. (Believe me, I know a number of you who would love to phone up some agency, if you could, and ask them to revoke my license.) But trust me (or [...]

As promised, a group of meat eaters gathered last weekend at Urban Bar-B-Que to test drive the brisket, ribs, pork, and chicken that co-owner David Calkins was pulling from his new Southern Pride smoker. I can't speak for the rest of the crew, but from the moment I walked in the joint, I knew things [...]

David Calkins, co-owner of Urban Bar-B-Que, called this afternoon to tell me that the Rockville location of the two-store chain had just installed a XLR-600 Southern Pride smoker, which is a significant improvement over the joint's previous equipment. The Southern Pride machine can handle about 600 pounds of meat on its self-basting rotisserie racks, but [...]