Eat DC: Cupcakes

Tuesday, 7 April 2015Monday, 13 April 2015 Starr1 Comment

In honor of Christine & Karen‘s upcoming trip to visit me in DC, I thought I’d share a little insight as to my planning process when it comes to what to show them when they are here. I am, by no means, an expert on the DC food scene, but these are the impressions I have of it. While we won’t be able to visit all of these places, I hope you will be able to at some point!

DC was not immune to this dessert trend in the slightest. In fact, DC became something of a gourmet cupcake capital (badum-psh!) because of a TLC show called DC Cupcakes. As across the nation, we had a bit of a cupcake bubble in DC: they were the HUGEST thing and then suddenly the Crumbs locations were closed. (Some have started opening up, though?) What wasn’t to love about being allowed to eat cake any day of the week in a socially-deemed-appropriate size? You didn’t have to deal with awkward uneven cake cutting, the cakes themselves are beautiful, and you can get them for any occasion really. Buy an ice cream cake just because and you’re a sad human unwilling to let go of your childhood. Buy a cupcake just because and you are treating yo self. And you know how they get you to come back? By having a rotating menu day-by-day. You want to eat Monday AND Thursday flavors? You’ll have to come in on both days.

And before you get mad at me because I’m torturing you with cupcakes but you have dietary restrictions…. gourmet cupcake places are basically required to satisfy your cupcake cravings, too. Gluten-free? Yup. Vegan? Of course. If there’s a will to eat cupcakes, there’s a way to eat cupcakes.

Let us begin with our most famous cupcake bakery. Cupcakery, if you will.

Georgetown Cupcake

Good old GC, the star of DC Cupcakes and the bane of several Georgetown residents’ existence. I say this from experience, the only time I ever visited Georgetown Cupcake. We arrived 30 minutes before the bakery had even opened and there was already a long line outside the door. (This was during the summer that the show premiered on TV.) GC sits on a corner and directly behind it is a residential area. Tourists had been waiting there for goodness-knows how long and were sitting on steps, on the sidewalk, whatever. A woman tried to get past another woman on one of the stoops; the woman on the stoop was less than pleased. “This is my house, get off my front step so I can get inside,” was the excellent response.

I do like their cupcakes, and if you play your cards right, you can even get free cupcakes, that’s right. But the hype is way too much for me and the cupcakes do not live up to the hype or the wait. I am unwilling to wait in that long of a line for cupcakes that are only good. They do have more locations now, but people love to visit the Georgetown location for Georgetown cupcakes at Georgetown Cupcake. The original remains one of the most reviewed businesses in DC. You can usually spot a GC cupcake by its smooth frosting.

Popular flavors include chocolate ganache, salted caramel, and red velvet at $3 each/$32 a dozen

3301 M St. NW; (202) 333-8448; georgetowncupcake.com

Baked & Wired

(Photo source: Coral Gundlach on trulia)

This is the name you will hear when locals scoff at your request for GC. Baked & Wired offers many baked goodies and coffee but they are famous for their delicious, LARGER “cakecups”. However, after taking a photo with their iconic pink bike with flowers growing in the basket (yep, it’s as cute as it sounds), be sure to order other items in addition to cupcakes. Reviewers would suggest the OMG Bar (next level s’mores) and the hippie crack (granola).

Go on and stop by GC while you’re in town. But don’t get more than one cupcake there; sneak off to Baked & Wired afterwards and put yourself in a food coma there. You can usually spot a B&W cupcake by how enormous it is, especially if it’s still wrapped in paper, but is NOT a muffin. Because it’s frosted!

Popular flavors include dirty chai, Elvis impersonator aka the Unporked Elvis, and menage-a-trois at $3.65 each

1052 Thomas Jefferson St. NW; (703) 663-8727; bakedandwired.com

The Cake Room

The Cakeroom is part of the Sugar Daddy’s franchise, owned by Jordanian pastry chef Fadi Jaber who just loved Western desserts. You go for the delicious pastries with just a hint of a not-from-around-here goodness as well as for the adorable atmosphere. They are White House-approved (they made the cake for the Easter Egg Roll this year!) and make a variety of really delicious looking cakes, not cup-sized but still good and available by the slice.

Popular flavors include banoffee, date, and lemon lavender at $2.50 each/$27.50 a dozen

2006 18th St. NW; (202) 450-4462; cakeroombakery.com

Hello Cupcake

Hello Cupcake was actually my first DC cupcake experience, thanks to my friend Camden bringing some to campus when I was but a wee freshman. They have a super convenient location near the Dupont Circle metro entrance. I like that their cupcakes deliver just what they say they will and don’t try too hard, if that makes sense. Reviewers don’t rave about them as much as they do Georgtown cupcakeries, but it has survived the fall of the cupcake trend and has its own following thanks to its signature flavors.

Popular flavors include peanut butter blossom, strawberry fields, and dulce de leche at $3.50 each/$36 a dozen

1361 Connecticut Ave. NW; (202) 861-2253; hellocupcakeonline.com

You can count on DC for cupcakes, that’s for sure. Even though this trend has been officially declared over, the District and many other foodie cities will still continue to love cupcakes.

Do you like cupcakes? What’s your favorite flavor and place to get cupcakes?
What did you think of the cupcake trend? What do you think the next dessert trend is?

Eat DC: Tapas/Small Plates

Monday, 6 April 2015Monday, 13 April 2015 Starr3 Comments

Tapas. Small plates of yummy food, typical of Spanish cuisine.

Or, if you are in DC and not Spain, then tapas are associated with one name and one name only: José Andrés, the celebrity chef who I hear is single-handedly responsible for bringing small plates to DC and America at large.

Personally, I am not really into the tapas/small plates trend. It just seems like an excuse for restaurants to serve me very small servings of food with a side of this insult: “You can order several and share with friends.” Excuse me, this is barely enough for me and you want me to share with my friends? They will not be friends after we attempt to share these teeny portions. I prefer standard-sized portions. (I also feel slightly wrong calling dim sum “Chinese tapas”, because you’re only being charged $4 for an order versus being charged $9 for two bites of food. But I digress.)

Whether you’re a fan or not, small plates are a huge part of DC food culture, especially because we have so many José Andrés establishments here. All of these are intensely popular for happy hours — after all, weren’t small plates invented for happy hour? — and brunch, because DC is a city that brunches and brunches hard.

Here are a few that are an important part of the DC small plate scene:

Jaleo

We must start with José Andrés’s flagship tapas restaurant, Jaleo. This is THE restaurant that to be named when discussing tapas in DC. There are a few locations now in the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia), but the DC location is the original and most popular, so it helps to have a reservation when you go.

Popular items include gambas al ajillo (shrimp with garlic), patatas bravas (home fries), croquetas, and sangria

Come for happy hour aka “Jaleo hour” aka “sangria hour”

480 7th St. NW; (202) 628-7949; jaleo.com

Estadio

This Logan Circle tapas place tries to make shelling out your dinero for tapas a bit easier as the portions are larger than some other places and they are almost always a hit. It’s a treat-yo-self kind of place, but if you get really into small plates (as DC clearly has), it’s a great treat.

Popular items include manchego cheesecake, mussels, pork belly sandwich, and white sangria

Come for brunch, dinner

1520 14th St. NW; (202) 319-1404; estadio-dc.com

Zaytinya

Another José Andrés establishment (and for the sake of variety, the last one I will have on this list), Zaytinya serves Mediterranean tapas, aka mezze restaurant. Instead of Spanish tapas, the menu is inspired by Turkish, Greek, and Lebanese cuisine

Popular items include any vegetables especially brussel sprouts and baba ghannouge (eggplant), falafel, and kibbeh (burghul w/ a mince).

Come for happy hour and brunch

701 9th St. NW; (202) 638-0800; zaytinya.com

Masa 14

Deviating from the others a bit, Richard Sandoval’s (more celebrity chefs!) Masa 14 is neither a true tapas or a mezze restaurant. Rather, it is an Asian-Latin fusion small plates joint that is known for their great happy hours and bottomless brunch. It really doesn’t get more DC-trendy than that, folks. Also, this is the one spot on this list that I have actually visited! Although it is, by far, not the only small plates restaurant I have visited.

Popular items include the mushroom flatbread, yucca fries, crispy shrimp,and fried rice.

Come for happy hour and bottomless brunch

1825 14th St. NW; (202) 328-1414; richardsandoval.com/masa14

Cure Bar and Bistro

Let’s veer even more away from the traditional Spanish tapas or even from Mediterranean mezze into small plates of classic American fare, which is what Cure Bar and Bistro offers. This hotel lounge has an emphasis on cured meats (as the name indicates) and pairing your food with the right drinks. Also staying with another food trend, Cure uses locally sourced and sustainable food.

Popular items include mac and cheese, chicken pot pie, roast chicken, and pork belly BLT

Come for lunch and dinner

1000 H St. NW; (202) 637-4906; curebarandbistro.com

That’s just a tiny sampling of our booming small plates scene in DC. If you visit and you haven’t been offered a small plate, you are kind of missing out, to be honest!

Do you like small plate restaurants? Tapas? Mezze?
What are the big food trends in your city? Even if your city is DC, what do you think it is?

The Great Washington Bucket List

Sunday, 5 April 2015Sunday, 5 April 2015 StarrLeave a comment

A few weeks okay, The Washingtonian published “The Great Washington Bucket List: 50 Things Every Local Needs to Do“. Reading through this list, I realize I have been missing out on a lot of great DC activities and foods, even though I’ve visited as a tourist and as a semi-local.

So why not try to make my way through the list?

Starting today, 5 April 2014, I’m going to try to do all 50 items on this list. With the Cherry Blossom festival upon us, I can make some festival-related ones happen very soon. (Although I have already missed the kite festival, so that’ll have to wait until next year!) Again, some of these I have done before, but I figured it’d be nice to try to do them as part of a little blog series here, if you will.

Here are the 50 things on the list, with links to the Washingtonian’s description of each activity. As I complete each bucket list item, I will add a [x] with the link the the blog post recapping that experience.

It would be hasty to just try to dive into this list in this alphabetical order, so I’ve broken it down for you all in the following categories:

Free, year-round, in DC proper
Occur once a year, during certain months, etc.
Need to travel outside of the District
Food/drink

GWBL Free

GWBL Outside

GWBL Food Drink — Look up “Obama eating” if you’re ever feeling down.

The only items not on these lists, I believe, are:

City Sights — From a Metrobus
Frederick Douglass House
Kennedy Center
President Lincoln’s Cottage

This won’t be an easy list to accomplish, and it’ll take at least a year. I just missed the kite festival and the sculpture garden ice rink is already closed. Also, how am I supposed to get into the Correspondents’ Dinner?

Anyway, it’s nice to give some structure to my goal of getting to know The District a little bit better. Most of these items I have never done before, so I’m really excited!

How many of these activities have you done?
Which ones do you think are the must-do DC activities?

Do You Hear the People Sing?

Thursday, 2 April 2015Thursday, 2 April 2015 Starr1 Comment

First of all, huge shout-out to MyTix, which gives people ages 18-30 or who are active duty members of the armed forces access to crazy discounted tickets to performances at the Kennedy Center.

These are not some dinky $2 discounts, either. You can see shows at something like 75% off the regular ticket price, in really great seats, for really amazing shows. You can look at a show and see that tickets cost $50-$150 depending on your seats, but then buy them on MyTix for about $20.

What’s the catch?
You might have to fight for these tickets. ~~To the death.~~

My friend Annie told me that the NSO Pops was doing a tribute to musical theater duo Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg (you may know them from their most famous musical, Les Miserables) featuring the flawless Lea Salonga (you may know her as the singing voice of Disney’s Jasmine and Mulan).
For a measly $19. Say what?! Pause that spending freeze, I needed to get in on this.

Tickets for “Do You Hear the People Sing?” went on sale for MyTix members at 10 AM. So you best believe I was on the website at 9:55, ready to refresh at a moment’s notice. I was armed and ready. I had coordinated with Annie so that my seat was next to hers when…
… I never got a ticket confirmation. I looked at my ticket page and the ORDER DIDN’T GO THROUGH. Panic mode engaged.

I must have typed in my credit card number wrong (typical) and luckily for me, my seat was saved. I made it. I did not think I would ever be able to afford Kennedy Center tickets before a more respectable age but here I was, going to my first show at this amazing venue.

Kennedy Center at night from DC Metro Arts (source)

First of all, there is a free shuttle that goes to the Kennedy Center, and on the shuttle ride I was able to listen to classical music and smooth jazz. I mean, honestly, I could’ve just sat on that shuttle bus and rode around DC if not for how crowded it was.

Second of all, the venue is spectacular. I didn’t manage to snap a photo of the main hall, but there are flags on either side and a paper cut art installation at the end when you walk in:

Bronze bust of namesake President John F. Kennedy by artist Robert Burke

The ceiling of the main concert hall features these bubble chandeliers that make it look I moved my hand while taking the photo, but the crisp hexagonal pattern defends my basic photography competence.

Oh friends.
The show itself was so marvelous. It was so well-structured, the transitions were done very nicely. The orchestra was, of course, superb, as was conductor Steve Reineke.

But let’s talk about the ineffable Lea Salonga for a moment. Oh Lea. There was so much talent on that stage over the course of the show but Lea demonstrated the best vocal control up there. In my head, I reasoned that these other Broadway stars were just intimidated being in the presence of Lea Salonga because, well, I would! Save for Terrence Mann, who is such a seasoned performer that he doesn’t need to feel nervous around anyone ever, the other singers didn’t seem to have the same control of their voices that Lea did: strained verses, losing control and going sharp, little things that I’ve come to expect Broadway performers to not do. No one is perfect, so I don’t think I really would have taken notice if Lea Salonga wasn’t so incredible and on her game. (But I’m a biased fangirl. What do I actually know?) (Answer: Nothing. I don’t know anything. What is a blog?)

Boublil and Schönberg are best known for Les Mis as well as Miss Saigon, two shows that I would say Lea Salonga is also best known for starring in, so our tribute concert began with some pieces from Miss Saigon, came around with La Révolution Française and The Pirate Queen, and finally indulged us with Les Mis.

What I really loved about the show was the insights to each musical and song that we got. It wasn’t just “Here’s a song from Miss Saigon, enjoy!” Someone on stage (the maestro or one of the singers) would explain the context of the writing of the musical, the context of the song within the musical, the background of the singer performing, and more. Truthfully.. <leans in close> I’ve only seen Les Mis. But I could still appreciate that a naïve 17-year-old Lea Salonga was taught how to make love to a man onstage by her male director for Miss Saigon. And that The Pirate Queen was conceptualized after a suggestion from Riverdance.

The entire program was excellent, marvelous, spectacular, magical. The best part was at the end. We had this amazing surprise:

Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg came out!!!

Literally, I gasped in unison with the theater. We did not expect the composers themselves to be there! They popped out for just a brief moment and then ducked back out, but I mean… I actually stopped breathing. What a surprise. Their music brought us all here, and it brought them out as well.

L to R: Terrence Mann, Kathy Voytko, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil, Steve Reineke (a bit behind Boublil), Marie Zamora, Eric Kunze, and Lea Salonga

Super magical spectacular evening. And my friend was so worried that “Do You Hear the People Sing” wasn’t in the program. Come on. It’s the name of the show, it’s obviously the encore piece. 🙂

What are you favorite Broadway musicals?
What are your favorite concert/arts venues?

Natural History Museum Instameet

Friday, 20 February 2015Friday, 20 February 2015 Starr4 Comments

(Photos in this post are mine unless otherwise indicated.)

I was selected to attend my very first Instameet today at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History!

I was so surprised to be selected because I really only applied as a “couldn’t hurt!” type of deal, trying to go for opportunities and really get myself into the DC community. I only recently opened my own Instagram account to the public and, spoiler alert, the content isn’t really great. I know that I’m not a cool photographer on #igdc but hey, a girl can dream! So imagine my shock when I got the email confirming my attendance! At first I thought “Maybe not enough people applied so everyone who applied got in!” But I saw some people lamenting not being chosen — some of whom had way more followers than me and way better content. Who knows what made them pick me but I’m glad they did!

Even though it was ridiculously crazy cold. Remember polar vortex season from last year?

That is degrees Farenheit. Don’t even look at what that is in Celsius; you’ll cry and then your tears will freeze right on your face.

I’ll admit, I was pretty intimidated when I showed up. A lot of these Instagrammers were very familiar with the DC Instameet scene. Several brought their DSLRs. A handful had multiple cameras with them. One even had a vintage twin-reflex camera with him!

Featured: Dave (@beingdave) Photo credit: Adil (@elektron9)

Along schleps me, in my panda hat and my Android phone. (Creative types always seem to have iPhones, so I was definitely in the minority here…) In answer to the most DC question you can hear (“So what do you do?”), people’s responses were wildly impressive: working for Facebook or Instagram itself, social media at NatGeo… and then there’s Starr and her panda hat.

I got some good shots though, and I’ll be sharing ones that I didn’t get to put up on my Instagram account because you are all very special to be putting up with my posts.

“Happy Year of the Goat, mofos!” – what I imagined this one was thinking

The famous Hope Diamond. Could’ve used a polish and shine, but I guess it’ll do.

This is the African Moon Moth. It has no mouth when it emerges from its cocoon, doomed to face death after just one week of life. During that week, their only purpose is to mate.
I guess I’d look pretty sassy and mad if that was my fate, too.

The Butterfly Pavilion is easily one of my favorite parts of this museum. It’s warm and humid to keep the butterflies and moths comfortable, and they flutter by freely. People are generally really respectful of the butterflies, and I like that we as a species acknowledge the delicate majesty of these little creatures.

Plus, you get magical moments like this!
Featured: Andy (@andymstone) and a lacewing. Photo credit: Sarah (@smithsonian)

We were given time to roam about the museum freely, but it was nice to have the whole group gathered in the Butterfly Pavilion. It paved the way for us to see what Instagrammers are really like to get the perfect photo.

Instameets, am I right?
Featured: John (@johntassparker) and Priya (@onomatopriya)

This fella is pretty popular at the museum because a) he’s always willing to share and b) he’s in front of a bench.

Some Rothschild moths doing like they do on the Discovery Channel. The rest are awkward third wheels. (Third and fourth wheels?)

If I didn’t make it clear earlier, I was incredibly intimidated by everyone else in attendance. I have a “lifestyle” blog and Instagram account, just little tidbits from my life that I feel like sharing. I’ve never been a very visual or artistic person, so seeing these folks roll up with their DSLRs and their #igdc status (the founders of @igdc were at this Instameet, by the way) made me really nervous. I was also nervous that they’d be just so ah-tistic that they wouldn’t be terribly friendly. While some folks were quieter than others, there were plenty of extroverts and everyone was generally really nice! Phew!

Here are a few photos from the #NMNHphoto Instameet from my fellow IGDCers (check the caption for their accounts):

Henry the elephant welcomes all to the museum.
Photo credit: Joe (@jbano1)

Got buns, hon?
Photo credit: Holly (@golightly) (what a great name!)

Photo credit: Andy (@someguy)
Check out his great photography site: ihitthebutton.com

Starting to get overwhelmed by the photos so I’ll leave you all to discover the rest yourselves. I’m sure more will continue to be uploaded as folks edit their beautiful photos. (I felt like I was obligated to upload as I went along, it was pretty stressful. I wanted to read all the signs!)

I had a really great time and am looking forward to getting more involved with the DC Instagram community and beefing up my photography skills!

Not sure who took this one, but it’s up on the @smithsoniannmnh account with loads of other great photos. This is the closest we got to a group photo.

Have you ever been to an Instameet? If so, how was it? If not, where would you like to attend one?
Have you ever been to the National Museum of Natural History? What are your favorite exhibits?