The night-time sound track at Patty Boom Boom is so intense, I feel it in my chest before I walk through the door. An infectious bass drop punctuated by a strumming, up-beat three chord guitar is a constant, and while Toots and the Maytals sing love is gonna let me down, I know one thing [...]
It’s 10:15 p.m. – well past my bed time – when I walk down the basement staircase and enter the U Street Music Hall. A tall blonde bartender clad in hot-pink tights takes my order. She calls me sweetie and flirts a touch, stroking my ego and inflating her tip. She does the same with [...]
This summer, back when no one worried about cops pulling guns at snowball fights, I combed the metro area looking for genuine Philly cheesesteaks as part of Y&H's occasional series, Stealing Home. It's too bad JJ's Cheesesteaks wasn't around then. I don't know if JJ's would have supplanted South Street Steaks or Philadelphia Cheesesteak Factory as my [...]
Y&H wishes he knew who produced this segment on Ben's Chili Bowl. It captures some nice moments, like this one from Nizam Ali, son of founder Ben, who died yesterday at 82. Nizam Ali talks about the struggle to maintain U Street's African-American identity in the face of gentrification: "It's a duty to be here," he says. [...]
Eatonville Chef Search episode 1 from Electric Communications on Vimeo. Eatonville, restaurateur Andy Shallal's homage to Zora Neale Hurston, is scheduled to open in mid-May, says the founder of the mini-Busboys & Poets chain. But the Southern eatery on 14th Street NW will debut, Shallal adds, without the winner of the Eatonville chef competition, held [...]
