More Good Stuff

A video segment asking diners of their opinion on the new “Good Stuff Eatery.” Pretty much confirms everything I said here…not that that makes me a better blogger or anything. </smugness> [Best Bites Blog]

News You Can Eat: Weekend Farmer’s Market Update

• A starter: the WaPo’s interactive map of all DC-area farmer’s markets. [Washington Post]
• Thursday: FRESHFARM Penn Quarter has Charlie Palmer Steaks Chef Mat Hill from 5pm-6pm. The market itself runs from 3pm-7pm. [Penn Quarter FRESHFARM]
• Saturday: Annual Salsa Contest at FRESHFARM H St. Market. Final day for sign-up is today! [Rules at Food Rockz, FRESHFARM H St.]
• Saturday: IMPACT Silver Spring will be talking about community and food, 9am-11am. The market continues until 1pm. [FRESHFARM Silver Spring]
• Saturday: Vienna Farmer’s Market, 8am-12pm. Visit their blog to see what’s fresh. [Vienna's Farmer's Market Blog]

DC Sales Tax Holiday

This may be way off topic, but thriftiness is thriftiness, wherever you can find it. Next week, all clothing, shoes, back to school items and more are exempt from DC’s 5.75% sales tax. I’ll personally be at Filene’s Basement – yeah I’m quite chic. [DC Tax and Revenue, via Shop Around Blog]

Bad Pizza

As we’ve maintained, there is both good cheap and bad cheap. Prince of Petworth is searching out the worst take-out pizza in town. I’ll second the first comment and say that the jumbo slice next Tabaq’s on U St. is some truly foul stuff, not nearly redeemed by the techno dance party vibe of the store itself.[Prince of Petworth]

Restaurant Week Menu Update

Washingtonian is collecting RW menus. Check it out their latest update. [Best Bites Blog]

Milkshakes and Food Celebrity at Good Stuff Eatery

Update: Now with the magic of citizen photojournalism, after the jump!
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Happened to be Eastern Market last night, eating sushi and people-watching. For the five of you who happen to be reading this and not personally related to me, Good Stuff Eatery, the new burger/shake counter own by Top Chef runner-up and hat aficionado Spike Mendelsohn, opened in Capitol Hill on July 17th. (See the red-carpet opener, complete with fellow “Cheftestants” Lisa, Antonia and Stephanie, here). Reviews have been mixed, with some people chalking it up to recent-opening jitters and others being somewhat less charitable (the comments in the previous post run the whole gamut).

We weren’t looking for burgers, but we thought, “Why not ruin a nice light meal with a couple of milkshakes,” milkshakes being the one thing that everyone seems to complement at Good Stuff. So we walked over – the restaurant is at 303 Pennsylvania Ave SE, down the block from Tune Inn, Hawk and Dove and Pour House – and hopped in line. Yes, I said line. They actually hold a line outside the door, which is a little annoying – “are they doing it to drum up buzz?” We wondered – and there was still another line inside. It is, however, a brand new restaurant in a town where a little celebrity goes a long way (see red carpet opening party for a burger joint), so maybe a little crowd was to be expected. We watched various bocce teams, all in their various color coordinated team T-shirts and talked about the previous season of Top Chef; “If Spike’s inside, how much will you give me to knock off his stupid hat?” I joked.

Cheap Cheesecake!

The Cheesecake Factory in Clarendon is offering $1.50 cheesecake tonight. BREAKING: DC food bloggers torn between natural cheapness, scorn for all corporate restaurants. [Apples and Bananas]

Home Cookin’: Make the Most of Summer

One of the nicest things about the District is the abundance of neighborhood farmer’s markets. Of course you have the king of the heap – Eastern Market – which still rules the farm fresh scene even in its somewhat diminished post-fire digs. But you also have the Penn Quarter FRESHFARM market on Thursdays (even Anthony Bourdain visited during his recent Washington trip), and its Wednesday-Saturday-Sunday sisters in Dupont, Foggy Bottom and H St./NoMa. Right now, as we enter the height of summer, the markets are overflowing with fresh produce: greens, squash, peppers, peaches, nectarines and the first tomatoes of the season.

Of course, there is a downside to this: in our climate, food seems to rot almost instantly. I’ve grown used to buying bananas at their greenest and still having to cut spots off them a couple of days later. So how do you use up the bounty of a morning at the market?

This Sunday, I spent the morning at the Dupont market, in preparation for a planned premiere dinner for “Mad Men” season two (more on the “planned” later). So I had plenty of produce to use, and not a lot of time to use it. So, after a little Google time (and a fortuitous email from Ma t/e), I came up with a quick menu plan, perfect for summer fresh, light (mostly) and most of all easy. After all, who wants to spend a lot of time in a hot kitchen during a DC July?

Quick Bites: Free Events

A weekly list of “Free and Easy Events” from the Washington Post. Enjoy the fringes of DC culture (and occasionally the uber-tourist mainstream) without opening your wallet. [Going Out Gurus]

Other Reviews: Lotus Café

“Generous, reasonable bowls of pho”? Sounds like our kind of place. [DCist]