Lost Dog Cafe: Carry-Out in Falls Church

Revisited. I’ve already posted my initial visit to Lost Dog, but last night Jenna and I decided to go the delivery route. 

Well, that’s how it started at least. 

We originally decided to reward our hour-long run with some good grub, and grub that we wouldn’t have to move to get — hence the delivery. We decided to go pick it up if it was going to take much longer than 30 minutes though, because one-hour runs make you hungry. 

I ordered the lasagna and Jenna the eggplant parmesan. I also wanted to order a Victory Old Horizontal – they deliver beer!

They didn’t have that, but I still wanted a barleywine (been on a kick lately) so I ordered a Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. It was going to take 45 minutes so we decided to just pick it up. 

Got to the store and they didn’t actually have the Bigfoot, but they already rang me up for a Sierra Nevada single so I had to pick a Sierra brew. Annoying. What were they planning on showing up at my door with? I went with the Torpedo, which I think of as a revved up Sierra Pale Ale. It’s nice.

Anyway we got back, with our very heavy bag, and I really wish I had a picture of this lasagna. It’s the closest thing to the now defunct Rathskeller of Chapel Hill’s “Bowl of Cheese” lasagna that I have had. It’s hard to imagine anything topping the Rat’s, but this sure did satisfy. 

It came in a tin tray, of which the slice of lasagna took up about 60 percent. The other 40 percent, however, was full of sauce and cheese. It was hard to tell where the slice was because the tray was just a level layer of cheese across the top. It came with some garlic bread so I was piling on the excess cheese and sauce onto it. There was some good sausage and ricotta in the layers that were really well done.  I will be getting it again. 

The bite or two I had of Jenna’s parm was also delish. 

The beer situation was the only bone I had to pick. And that’s weird because Lost Dog has probably one of the finest selections in Falls Church, Va. 

Also, I was glad we phoned it in. When we picked it up there was a huge standing line waiting to get seated. I’m a big believer in the logic that places with big lines are the places you probably want to be, and this would hold true of the Lost Dog.

Bierria Paradiso

I went to the original, and in my opinion much better, location of Pizzeria Paradiso and its basement bar Bierria Paradiso tonight in Georgetown. 

Went with a couple of friends and we all got pizza. I got the special, which was a pie with buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto and basil. Awesome. Their pizza is always good, especially for around here, but the ingredients were great on this one. I can never really complain about the pizza there, it’s consistent. Not saying it’s spectacular and out of this world, but for DC it’s one of your better options. I haven’t yet ventured to one of “the” DC pizza places (2 Amys I hear is really great, among others) but in my five months here Paradiso has it down. 

I coupled my pie with a New Holland Golden Cap, which is their seasonal saison. It definitely pulls it off, not too estery but enough, and spicy. It tasted like it was probably pretty simple as far as the ingredients, and it let the yeast do the work on the flavor. There wasn’t the uber compilation of tastes as much as there were a few very refined ones. I liked it is what I’m trying to say.  It was my first New Holland beer and I will definitely be picking up some more. 

I read in the most recent issue of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News that the Dupont Circle location of Paradiso will be moving up P Street to a larger space, a very good move as the current location is on the small side and doesn’t offer near as much beer. They are planning to expand the number of taps and bottles with the new space to (from memory) I think 10 and 300 respectively.

UNC Wins ACC

It’s time to feed the blog. Other than general laziness, I haven’t updated because I’ve been consumed with the Tar Heels win on Sunday, and subsequent ACC regular season crown. Friends and I once again patronized (as in were patrons of) Crystal City Sports Pub for the game, which has proven to be a great place because of all the UNC fans it attracts. (It’s the alumni association’s bar – go figure)

We wanted to make sure we got some good seats so we got there about four hours before game time. Needless to say we were some of the few people there that early, and our tab was exorbitant. You can do a lot of damage in about six hours of drinking.

Hansbrough’s senior speech was apprently long and misty, and I wish I could have heard the whole thing. Let me know if any of you readers can find it online. Ty Lawson I think solidified himself as ACC player of the year by almost logging a triple-double – eight boards and nine assists! After the countless blue cups and cheers and curses, order had been restored. The Heels won the ACC and took over the No. 1 ranking in both polls.

Now as for that elusive No. 1 overall seed, it’s tough to say whether the Heels will get it even if they win the ACC tourney. It could be argued that if Pitt or Louisville manages to win the Big East Tournament that they should be the No. 1 overall. Pitt because they would have beaten UConn three times (once in BE tourney) and then possibly Louisville, the regular season champs, and Louisville because they would have pulled off winning the toughest (arguably) conference’s season and tournament. UConn should get a No. 1 seed, but I’m not sure they can get the No. 1 overall anymore after getting swept by Pitt in the regular season. So much to think about, and only a week until March Madness.

God, I love my birth month.

I’ve got some homebrewing mishaps to talk about another day when I’m not as busy.

Stomping Grounds

Went back to Chapel Hill over the weekend for an awesome time with some family and friends. I stayed with my brother, who’s a junior at UNC, and my parents came up for the game and some dinner Saturday.

Hansbrough set the NCAA record for free throws made. People think he goes to the line too much, and they’re jealous, but it’s still impressive to have actually made that many charity tosses. Just because you go to the line doesn’t mean you’re given those two points.

 After that rousing 30-point win – making my record 1-1 in games attended this year (CURSES!) – dinner was at the famous Mama Dip’s. Typically our family doesn’t go crazy when it comes to eating out, but the parents were so happy to see us that we went for it. I don’t think we’d ever ordered three appetizers before Saturday night. We got sweet potato biscuits and fries, and some hush puppies. For entree, I got my favorite thing that Mama’s serves up, fried chicken “smothered” (as they say there) in gravy. Desert was chocolate pecan pie.

It took some time to recover from that one, but it didn’t stop me from making sure I went out on Franklin St. both nights I was there. Went out with some buddies who still live there and even some that don’t. We went to Bub O’Malley’s (my first time there even after four years) and were kicked out – not for drunkeness – but for our unorthodox method of foosball playing. (long story) We also went to a new bar that wasn’t there when I attended UNC that was in the old Hector’s space. It made me wish Hector’s was still there. I was notorious for going there late night even if I went by myself. Also made it to Deep End.

Work’s kind of busy so I really should get back to it. That will spare ye readers the hellish story of my return trip to Washington on the Amtrak. Let’s just say it involved an unfortunate car accident, a subsequent three-hour delay, multiple delays from being given second priority to the tracks, about five loud children under the age of three  and a total of about 12 hours of ordeal.

At least it’s snowing today.

DC Beer Bars

I picked up the latest copy of The Washingtonian on an impulse when I was getting lunch this week. It lured me in with its cover story, “75 Best Bars.”

I have been a fan of bars on the Washington Post’s Going Out Guide Best Beer Selection bars – wow, that was a mouthful – and noticed that under the category “Beer Heaven” in the Washingtonian, there were many of the same places. So here is a cross-referenced list with all the bars from both lists in no particular order:

Birreria Paradiso
Brasserie Beck
Granville Moore’s
Magnolias at the Mill (Purcellville, Va.)
RFD*
The Brickskeller*
Rustico (Alexandria, Va.)
The Red Derby
The Saloon*
Franklins (Hyattsville, Md.)+

*Bars I have already been to
+Franklins was the only bar in the Washingtonian, but not in the GOG

It’s clear my new mission is to visit all of them. My other first instinct is to rank them, but it’s kind of hard to rank them, because I am sure they couldn’t all fit in the same category of “beer bar.” For instance, the Saloon has a great German and Belgian draft selection, but not a great American micro selection, so depending on my mood the Saloon could be very high or very low. RFD and the Brick have a much better American micro selection (even if they don’t always have it *cough*brickskeller*cough*). So whether or not I rank them, at least I have a list to begin crossing off. Hopefully I can find some more to add to it as well.

Three-day Vay Cay

The general lack of posting can be attributed to the fact that some good friends of mine paid me a visit over the weekend. We started off the festivities with the UNC/Maryland game in College Park on Saturday. It had been really hard to score the tickets, and apparently it wasn’t so hard to score on Carolina. In what for many of us was the first time we had gotten to see the Heels live this season, we watched a 16-point lead dwindle to force OT, and then saw our boys collapse in extra time.

Now there are a great many things that went wrong, a couple of debatable coaching decisions regarding some timeouts and our defensive effort and mindset, but c’mon guys, I came to see you! I wish we would have pulled out the win, but it was nice to see the team playing. When they actually were playing well, they looked good. There is a definite air of confidence that you can see in them when they’re rolling, but once that confidence gets broken, they look like any other team. Maybe it takes a dramatic situation, like the Duke rivalry (and hopefully the ACC and NCAA tourneys), that makes this team take on pressure and come back. It’s been these past few games against so-so ACC teams that have really been bothersome. Letting teams like N.C. State and Miami make runs on us isn’t good for our psyche. We need to develop a killer instinct and just put teams away down the stretch, not fall asleep and let them inch back into the game. Anyway, I’m over it. If I feel up to the task I might post up some pictures from the game as we scored some nice lower level seats in the Comcast Center.

The rest of the weekend was a success.

We effectively “raged” at Front Page in Dupont Saturday night, needing to drink away our sorrows from the afternoon. It’s typically not one of my favorite bars, actually it never is, but it was the best time I’ve had out in quite a few weeks. There was much dancing and  merry making.

Sunday was more or less a recovery day. We ate brunch at Cafe Luna. The eggs benedict were outstanding and very affordable. This was my second brunch experience there and it pretty much cemented Luna as my go-to place for breakfast on the weekends. It helps that it’s two blocks from my house as well. Sunday afternoon we took a tour of the monuments around and between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Didn’t make it over to the Jefferson.

Sunday evening/night was fun because after we had some grub at RFD, we went back to my place and had a session until sometime close to 3 a.m. I felt Lew Bryson would have been proud. No drunks this night. Just friends staying up to the wee hours talking.

Monday I took off from work to spend time with my visitors and two of us made a trip to the newly renovated American History Museum. The rest of the night consisted of enjoying a few choice beers and a Mos Def concert at 9:30 Club.

I cracked that bomber of Stone Old Guardian that I mentioned in a previous post. Wow! A really hefty barleywine with a very mellowed bite. This is perhaps because the bottle has been aged a year on the shelves of Cairo Liquor.

We made it to the show in time for some approximately third row seats that were great – once Mos finally made it. We had to wait two hours for him to arrive, pushing the 7:30 start time to 9:30 p.m., guess that’s how the place got its name.  Good thing they have Old Rasputin on tap at the club, one of the reasons it has to be the best place in the city to see a show.

For all the waiting we had to do, Mos didn’t disapoint the sold-out crowd. He was on from the start and played a great set list of some classics and some new stuff. He did a two-song Black Star medley in which he rapped the Talib Kweli verses, nice. My roommate attended the added late show, which didn’t start until 12:30 a.m., and said that it was just as much talking as singing and rapping. I really had a great time at our show (except for the wait), so I’m glad I went to the early show.

Annnnnnnnd back at work on Tuesday. Nice three-day vacation, though.

Pizzeria Paradiso, Dupont Circle location

Found out that I’ll be gainfully employed for at least another five months so went out to celebrate. I’ve been to the other location of Paradiso (in Georgetown)  before and really enjoyed myself – probably because I got free booze!

Jenna and I had decided to try said Georgetown place out and went in to find a great beer selection awaiting, which I did not know would be there because I was not familar with DC at the time.  I ordered a St. George IPA, and Jenna, a Coke.  As our server carefully made sure to not spill a drop of my St. George, he lost control of his tray and bathed, yes bathed, Jenna in cola. This, needless to say, is how we ended up getting free drinks. I used it to my advantage and had a bottle of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA, which was like $14 a pop. Momma did not, as they say, raise no fool. (double negative intended)

Last night we went to the Dupont Circle location, a much smaller and very much cheesier venue. The what-looked-like-finger-painted pizzas around the walls and the faux stone ceiling that was painted to look as if it weren’t complete were less than cool, but the pizza was still great.

We ordered a large (12-inch so kind of small compared to other larges) Bosco pizza, which comes with no tomato sauce, but tomato (I prefer it that way), and mushrooms, spinach, red onion and real mozzarella.  They also had a special on DeKoninck so I had one and the malty sweetness went great with the ’za.

Substracting the small – not cozy or atmospheric, just small – space and cheesy decor, the Dupont location still produces the ultimate goal successfully, which is good beer and good pizza.  It’s a little pricey for what you get, but delicious, and the best pizza I’ve had in Dupont since living here. I’ll probably be back, but not every weekend.

Games tonight

Going to Carpool to watch the dook/wake and UNC games tonight. Will try to take photos and get some beer content.

Barack Obama Inauguraton Blog #1

So, as I live in D.C., I did go to the inauguration today. I just spent the last two hours or so writing up a little column for my hometown paper, The Salisbury Post. (In N.C.) I’ll link to it tomorrow and start posting pictures once I get home hopefully. I’m posting from a friend’s house who happened to live close to the Capitol and I don’t have my camera cord. I think when I venture out tonight I might head to the Brickskeller for a pint of Ommegang’s Inauguration Ale. I read on Apellation Beer that the beer was originally titled “Obamagang,” which is one of the most awesome names, but Obama’s peeps said no to that. So unofficially, I’ll be attempting to get some Obamagang tonight. Great speech, Barack.

Free at last

So we just got back to work from our press event that has consumed my life for about 5 days now. I worked 16 hours yesterday and then got four hours of sleep before getting up today. Awesome to be done. I believe a liquid lunch is in order.