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Cider @ ANXO
DC’s first production cidery, ANXO Cidery & Pintxos Bar, will open on Wednesday, July 13th at 5pm.
Located in Truxton Circle (300 Florida Ave. NW Washington, DC 20001) and across the street from Meats & Foods, it will feature Basque style cider and food and produce small batch quantities of its own cider.
Pintxos is a style of Basque food (in regions of Spain and France). Basque culture and food was also featured in this year’s Folklife Festival.
Eater DC previews the space here.
Eater DC highlights the Game of Thrones Watch Parties:
What: Game of Thrones fans rejoice that watch parties have returned. Watch it on the big screen upstairs. There is a one drink minimum and seating is first come first serve.
When: Sundays at 8:00-11:00pm
Where: Little Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar, 1104 H St. NE
Winter is coming. #housestark
Union Station (Photo by: Norman Maddeaux)
Union Station is expanding and getting a face lift. You can learn more about it tonight in an open forum.
The forum will be held on March 30, 2016, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in Washington Union Station’s Presidential Room in the East Hall.
From Greater Greater Washington:
“Changes to Union Station: Big plans are in the works to expand and modernize Union Station. Learn about the project at a forum this Wednesday, March 30, in the East Hall of Union Station (50 Massachusetts Avenue NE). There will be an open house from 4 pm to 8 pm, with two presentations, one at 4:30 and one at 6:30.”
Read more about the project here.
If you haven’t heard, Right Proper is expanding to the Brookland neighborhood. Their new production brewery and tasting room was meant to open this Thursday, December 3rd, as reported by the Washington Post.
But according to Right Proper’s Twitter, it opened early on Saturday, November 28th. Good news for beer lovers and fans of the trendy Brookland neighborhood!
SURPRISE again! Tasting room at Right Proper Brookland Production House open today from 1PM – 5PM tours every hour beging at 1:30 PM
— Right Proper Brewing (@RightProperBeer) November 28, 2015
“The tasting room will eventually offer charcuterie and other foods prepared offsite at the brewpub. Other plans in the works include a front patio with tables, bike racks, and planters that will be functional as well as decorative, letting Zeender grow herbs to use in his beers.
The brewery and tasting room will be open from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and from 1 to 9 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
Right Proper Brewing Company, 920 Girard St. NE.”
Several DC area bar owners alerted us to the fact that the Food Network recently toured some DC bars and picked out a dozen recommended for visiting.
You can read the full feature, Capital Cheers: The Best Bars in Washington, DC, as a slideshow on the Food Network website.
To peak your interest, Food Network blogger Laura Hayes visited the following establishments and offers light commentary on them:
Cocktail Bar: 2 Birds 1 Stone (1800 14th St. NW, DC)
Brewpub: Bluejacket (300 Tingey St. SE, DC)
Speakeasy: Dram & Grain (2007 18th St. NW, DC)
Date Night: Iron Gate (1734 N St. NW, DC)
No-Frills Bar: Tune Inn (331 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, DC)
DC Haunt: Off the Record (The Hay-Adams, 800 16th St. NW, DC)
Sherry Bar: Mockingbird Hill (1843 7th St. NW, DC)
Beach Bar: Pop’s SeaBar (1817 Columbia Rd. NW, DC)
Wine Bar: Flight Wine Bar (777 6th St. NW, DC)
Beer Garden: Dacha Beer Garden (1600 7th St. NW, DC)
Brewery: 3 Stars Brewing Co. (6400 Chillum Pl. NW, DC)
Distillery: One Eight Distilling (1135 Okie St. NE, DC)
We at Parklife DC have visited them all personally except for the Flight Wine Bar and One Eight Distilling. Perhaps it’s time to change that before the summer is over?
Looks like the large vacant lot at 150 M Street, NE, in NoMa next to the future home of REI, is turning into a pop-up beer garden and park this spring, called Wunder Garten.
The owner hopes to open in mid-April, but the long-term future of the beer garden is still an open question.
‘Business partners, including the owner of L’Enfant Cafe in Adams Morgan, are planning a hybrid beer garden and park that will cater to guests of all ages (and will likely allow dogs as well). The fenced in lot will be leveled and landscaped in a way that maintains a large open area for recreational activities. The partners in Wunder Garten are working closely with the NoMa Business Improvement District on the design to maximize the park area as NoMa currently has a deficit of parks. There will be beer benches like one would find in a German beer garden and a significant portion of the space will have a tent over it for rain. They will have multiple beers on tap at the bar they will build on site that will mostly be German and Austrian, but they do plan on having a few local microbrews as well. The space will not have a kitchen (the nearby Harris Teeter that is technically on the same land restricts what kinds of food can be sold in the space); however, there will be 2-3 food trucks in the space that will rotate. High end portable restrooms will be available for customers. In all, the space will be designed to fit 200-300 people inside.
Wunder Garten will be open weekdays from early afternoon through 10 pm and on weekends from noon through midnight.’
Stanton Park, Northeast DC
A new cocktail bar and bistro, Stanton & Greene, will soon take over the space previously inhabited by Pour House.
The name gets its inspiration from Stanton Park (in the NE, blocks from my home) and the dichotomy between the name of the park (named after Edwin Stanton) and the statue in the middle that instead honors General Nathanael Greene.
Fritz Hahn (of Washington Post’s Going Out Guide) reports:
‘The owners of three different bars on Pennsylvania Avenue SE are harnessing their talents to create a new bistro, cocktail bar and event space at 319 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, the former home of the Pour House. Stanton & Greene, which could open by the end of the month, is a collaboration between Sonoma owners Eli Hengst and Jared Rager, and August Paro, one of three partners behind Beuchert’s Saloon.’
‘…the cocktail list, for which Stanton & Greene’s partners tapped Erik Holzherr, the owner of Wisdom, the gin-centric drinking den near the Potomac Avenue Metro, and H Street’s Church & State and Atlas Arcade.’
Chef Alex McCoy, one of Duke’s Grocery’s three founding partners
Alex McCoy, former chef and founding partner at Duke’s Grocery, left the Dupont Circle-area gastropub in December and plans to open a new restaurant focused on southeast Asian food, Tim Carman of The Washington Post reported Monday.
On his Facebook page Monday, McCoy said, “Friends, after a year and a half of working with my awesome partners over at Duke’s Grocery, I am excited to announce that I will be leaving to work on a new project in the DC area. You guys and gals have been legends and I appreciate all of the amazing support you have given myself and the Duke’s family. The team is still working hard in the Duke’s kitchen and the burgers are still flippin’! 2015 is going to be a very tasty year!”
Carman delivered the scoop on McCoy’s new project: “a restaurant that will focus on Southeast Asian cooking, continuing the District’s trend of opening eateries that channel the authentic flavors of Thailand, Laos and other countries.”
McCoy vowed to travel throughout southeast Asia over the next few months to refine his menu, which comes as no surprise to me, as the chef is very fond of traveling to a dish’s country of origin before he perfects it, as he told me a few months ago.
Daniel Kramer, another co-founder at Duke’s, announced Rick Koplau, who has been overseeing the late night food program at Duke’s Grocery, will become head chef. Koplau previously worked at Ritz-Carlton Hotels in Lake Tahoe and Sarasota, along with stints in England, Germany and Poland.
Future site of REI
Looks like REI, that fantastic but oh, so expensive purveyor of sporting goods based out of Seattle, is coming to DC in the current Uline Arena in NoMa.
‘The former Washington Coliseum, which has sat in disrepair and neglect for decades and has most recently served as parking lot and backdrop for a play about the old neighborhood, was acquired by Douglas Development in 2004. At last night’s ANC 6C Planning, Zoning and Environment committee meeting, the development company announced that REI will anchor the ground floor of the building.’
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9LsxRfsv28&w=640&h=360]
The Esquire Network’s television series Weekend Fix will feature DC in its new episode premiering on Wednesday, Nov. 26, at 10pm on the cable channel.
Here is a description of the series from the Esquire website:
“Actor Omar Miller and fashion designer Andres Izquieta of Five Four Clothing know that the best travel experiences don’t come from following a schedule—they come from following advice. And a good Wi-Fi connection. In each episode of Weekend Fix, Omar and Andres travel to a different city, using every social networking tool at their fingertips to seek out recommendations from friends, locals and strangers alike for the go-to hotels, off-the-radar restaurants and can’t-miss local experiences that the guidebooks just can’t tell you about.”
In the clip above, Omar and Andres visit the Dram & Grain Speakeasy in the basement of Jack Rose Dining Saloon (2007 18th St. NW, DC), where they experience some rare drinks thanks to Mixologist Trevor Frye.
If you catch the episode, let us know what you think about the places featured on the show and if it did a good job of fulfilling its objectives.