Dishes We Dug: Maine-style lobster roll (pictured) at Luke's Lobster; baked beans with burnt ends at Hill Country; chapulines (sautéed grasshoppers) at Oyamel; fried zeppoles with rum crème anglaise at Policy. Dishes We Didn't: Slow cooked beef brisket on a potato roll at The Diner–dry enough to qualify as jerky. Venues Notably Missing From City [...]
Attention tequila and mezcal fans: Mark your calendars for Oyamel's fourth-annual Tequila and Mezcal Festival, which is coming up next month, March 14-27. From a press release: Oyamel will also be offering guests the opportunity to learn about and sample Mexico’s famous spirit through complimentary tastings led by the restaurant’s knowledgeable staff and talented guests [...]
Let me acknowledge from the start that this is an unfair comparison. You can't begin to compare the costs and value of a Penn Quarter Mexican restaurant run by a celebrity chef with a suburban taqueria designed for Latinos. Still, look at the difference in these photos: The top one is the pancita de puerco [...]
José Andrés will be the first to acknowledge that his part in the nationwide Dine Out for the Gulf Coast fundraiser amounts to, essentially, a "little gesture." Four of his Penn Quarter restaurants in the THINKfoodGROUP — Jaleo, Zaytinya, Oyamel, and Cafe Atlantico —will donate the proceeds from a selected dish that is, according to [...]
If you're not the type who wants to hug Michelle Obama for spreading the joys of local produce, then maybe you're the type who can appreciate this fact: The First Lady really loves those salt-air margaritas at Oyamel! She loves them so much, she mentions them twice in this interview with WJLA. She also mentions [...]
First it was a Penn Quarter chatter who wanted to know why everyone kisses José Andrés' ass. Now it's Restaurant Rater, DanniZ, who takes down the celebrity chef for charging for chips and salsa at Oyamel. (To be clear, the first round of chips and salsa is free here; after that, you pay $4 per [...]
Much like the "news" that IndeBleu has closed and that chef Michael Hartzer is apparently looking for work, this bit of information arrives with mold encrusted on its edges: Reston native Richie Brandenberg, former chef at Urbana in the Hotel Palomar, has found a comfortable gig inside José Andrés' ever-sprawling THINKfoodGROUP empire. Apparently comfortable. I [...]
Get Enzo Fargione's cooking, at discounted prices, through Jan. 24 at Teatro Goldoni. I know, I know. You've got a million excuses why you haven't been able to do Restaurant Week. Your kid's sick. You've got too much work to do. Your car needs repairs. Your stars are out of alignment. Well, a number of restaurants are giving you a second chance [...]
Yaku to swim with the (raw) fishes We interrupt Y&H's Home Cooking Day to pass along this news: Yaku, the Latin Concept restaurant dedicated to chifa cuisine and other Peruvian specialties, will close in January and reopen as a rock 'n' roll/sushi establishment. Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld, founder of the Latin Concepts group of fashionable restaurant/lounges, tells [...]
As I wrote nearly two years ago — ah, back when blogging was an occasional joy, not a daily slog to assault you with info and insults — fresh huitlacoche is almost impossible to find in restaurants, let alone purchase for home use. You can get good huitlacoche at Oyamel, but even the great José [...]
