The pie-maker at Seventh Hill Pizza is named “Anthony,” an employee tells me at the pizzeria on Capitol Hill. Try as I might to secure his surname, I can’t get the job done because no one, the following day, will pick up the damn phone at the place. No matter. Anthony is a show all by himself. He has style to burn. Every move he makes with the raw dough — flipping, spinning, stretching, securing the round on his peel — has more flair than your average NFL end-zone celebration.

Read More “Dish of the Week: The Navy Yard at Seventh Hill Pizza” »

Montmartre’s monsieur: Put some cheese on that mofo.

This has happened to all of us who’ve become fans of a particular restaurant: The place lets us down.

Sometimes the disappointment is (relatively) minor, like when the kitchen runs out of a favorite dish or drops the plate entirely from the menu. But then there’s the kind of disappointment that I encountered this weekend at Montmartre on Capitol Hill: During Sunday’s brunch service, the operation seemed to have shed its thick, fatty bistro skin and adopted the mantle of every other joint catering to America’s fear of calories and offal.

I know what you’re thinking: “Relax, Tim, it’s just brunch, pandering to the easiest of all restaurant-goers, those people who think four-cheese omelets are sophisticated.” I would agree with you if it were any place other than Montmartre, where I have previously enjoyed brunch plates as righteously rich as liver and coarsely ground country pâté shot through with lots of flavor-heavy fat. Yesterday’s brunch, by contrast, was a hollow imitation of a bistro lunch.

Read More “When Good Restaurants Go Bad: My Montmartre Experience” »

If Spike Mendelsohn had ever wondered whether his recent run-in with the law had put him in dutch with Michelle Obama, a documented fan of his burgers, then the First Lady answered it today when she revisited Good Stuff Eatery on Capitol Hill.

Obama Foodorama, Eddie Gehman Kohan’s indefatigable blog, reported that the First Lady made a return appearance to Good Stuff today, along with daughters Sasha and Malia and some White House staffers. It was Michelle Obama’s first public tasting of Good Stuff burgers since news broke in late May that Mendelsohn, along with business partner/roommate Mike Colletti, had been evicted from a Capitol Hill property for failure to pay more than $8,000 in rent and penalties.

The First Lady had previously hit up Good Stuff in early May, shortly before the eviction.

But perhaps Mendelsohn’s moves to make restitution were enough for the First Lady? Or maybe Michelle Obama feels some loyalty to Good Stuff because, as Obama Foodorama reported, Mendelsohn has been keeping the President stuffed with a steady supply of burgers?

Noted Ob Fo:

Read More “Spike Mendelsohn Is Still on the First Lady’s A-List Despite His Recent Legal Woes” »

CORRECTION: As Capitol City has pointed out to us, our post below includes sloppy language that we regret. We cited “a patron” telling the Washington Post that the odor was that of sewage. In fact, the complaint came from a customer of the post office. The odor, now known to have been grease build-up in an old pipe, appears to have been confined to the mail sorting facility downstairs from Cap City. Furthermore, we’re told that the problem has been resolved. Again, we regret the error.

Literally. We have no problems with Capitol City’s beer. In fact, it’s one of the great pleasures of DC’s beer culture to be able to drink fresh brews next to its beautiful fermentation tanks. To be clear: we love fresh beer. But when it comes along with a foul-smelling odor, the experience is considerably diminished. The Washington Post reports that Cap City, located upstairs from the US Post Office facility on Massachusetts Avenue on Capitol Hill, is indeed a stinky place lately. From the Post:

Kelvin Nwosu, general manager of Capitol City Brewing Company, a restaurant on the floor above the post office, said the smell is the result of a leaking pipe somewhere in the bowels of the building, known for its round-the-block lines come annual tax deadline time in April. Read More “Capitol City Stinks!” »

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.

As the name suggests, Market Lunch is a place famous for its…breakfasts. Seriously, if you read the published record on this popular Eastern Market spot, that’s exactly the impression you walk away with. The blueberry pancakes. The crab cake benedict. The Brick breakfast sandwich. Each has its charms, of course, but Market Lunch really lives for the noon hour and its twin odes to mid-Atlantic cuisine: the crab cake and the fried whiting sandwich. The former is a fried mound of crabmeat, short on filler and long on fresh, sweet flavors. The whiting is, without a doubt, the best interpretation in the area—two long fillets, each lightly breaded and fried, which are slapped onto a bun so that the fish flaps out over the edges, as if the fry cook tried to stuff a gull into your sandwich. By the way, those house-made buns are half the reason your sandwich tastes so fine; they’re fresh from the oven, soft, and full of flavor.

 Market Lunch, 225 7th St. SE, (202) 547-8444

photo by katmere via Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License

Tucked into a secluded corner just north of the Capitol, Washington’s best sushi joint boasts an appropriately monumental view. Momoyama’s chopstick-wielders look out upon a huge concrete slab supporting I-395. Crane your head to the right, and you can just make out the huge concrete slab supporting an off-ramp, too. In order to reach the obscure commuter pit, sushi-seekers must pick through an equally mind-numbing sight—a sidewalk spillover of Capitol Hill debauchery provided by neighboring happy-hour joints My Brother’s Place and Hamilton’s. Thankfully, Momoyama’s food compensates for the unsavory visual feast. The Miller Lite crowd rarely filters into the joint in search of post-binge tempura; instead, Momoyama rolls its succulent white tuna, sweet eel, and Korean bulgogi sushi creations for regulars and Capitol Hill tour groups gone astray. The Samurai Roll, a confluence of eel, white tuna, salmon, cucumber, and caviar, is enough to lift anyone above the concrete jungle outside.

Momoyama, 231 2nd St NW. (202) 737-0397

As promised, Eastern Market re-opened today after a $22 million renovation, following a fire in the Spring of 2007. Mid May, I (or rather a designated construction official, who said I couldn’t come onto the site due to my footwear) snapped some photos of the inside of the building.
Read More “Eastern Market Reopens” »

Let me tell you how the Hill Rag, a free monthly, cost me $2 this morning.

I stopped on the Hill today to eat breakfast and buy a cup of Joe from my current favorite, Peregrine Espresso, located in the former Murky Coffee spot, site of the late unpleasantness. I ordered a to-go cup made from beans imported from Burundi, a country better known for its ethnic violence and its brain-numbing level of poverty. Coffee exports, it seems, have given this poorer-than-dirt-poor country some hope. (Just don’t tell that to the women during bean-picking season.)

Read More “How a Free Copy of the ‘Hill Rag’ Set Me Back $2″ »

While Y&H was peeking into civil court records and poking around a chef contest, others were actually hunting down news about restaurants that are opening and closing. Here’s a quick run-down of what we’ve missed — or what I’ve missed:

• Tom Sietsema reports that the guys behind the mini-Matchbox chain are planning a small, personal comfort food restaurant on Capitol Hill.
• Sietsema also has the scoop on the Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s latest offering, a chop house in Old Town.
• Metrocurean breaks the news about Cork Wine Bar opening a new market on 14th Street NW, not far from the popular restaurant.
• A poster on DonRockwell.com notes that the Gaithersburg branch of El Tapatio has closed down.

Last time Eastern Market was all over the news, it looked like this:

(Of course, let’s not forget this either.)

However, today was about moving forward.  Construction workers and officials gathered at the building and discussed its upcoming re-introduction into D.C. life. Crews expect to complete the project on June 9.

Eastern Market will officially reopen on Friday, June 26. A community celebration will be held the following day on Saturday, June 27, according to a press release from the city. Here’s a sneak peek of how the recovery’s going:

Read More “Eastern Market to Reopen on June 26″ »