There’s a concert of flavors happening with the newest treat from Goodies Frozen Custard and Treats (200 Commerce Street) in Old Town.
Owner Brandon Byrd is collaborating with local Girl Scout Troop 60132 at George Washington Middle School throughout Girl Scout Cookie season (until March 18) with their double chocolate frozen custard. The eight-ounce $8 treat has Thin Mints and chocolate syrup.
“Thin Mints and chocolate custard have the most complex flavors,” Byrd told ALXnow. “We developed this great flavor, and I thought we should take it a step further with a popup event.”
Goodies will host the pop-up this Saturday (March 2) with the Girl Scouts from 1-4 p.m.
There’s nothing like numbing your aching body with a hot toddy after a long day on the slopes.
That’s the vibe that the owners of the Aspen on the Avenue popup (2312 Mount Vernon Avenue) have in mind. There’s a two-seat gondola parked outside the restaurant and bar greeting customers as they walk into a warm environment with a fake fireplace, a fake brick wall, lots of skis and two giant backlit photos of idyllic snowy scenes.
“Our gondola doesn’t go to Arlington,” joked popup owner Bill Blackburn of the Homegrown Restaurant Group. “It doesn’t go anywhere, but it’s great for selfies.”
“Mango” Mike Anderson, who owns the popup with Blackburn, found the gondola for sale at HomeGoods in Potomac Yard.
The popup is located between HRG’s other Del Ray restaurants, Pork Barrel BBQ and Holy Cow. It was previously The Sushi Bar for eight years before closing at the end of 2021. Since then, the space has changed concepts as a popup every few months.
“We get to create new concepts and decorate new restaurants and brands without having to deal with the back-of-the-house regulatory, mundane stuff that comes with opening a new restaurant,” Blackburn said. “I think it keeps us fresh.”
The bar menu includes craft cocktails, like the ski lemon meringuetini, a concoction made from Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Meyer lemon, Grand Marnier, lemon curd, Simple and brulee meringue, which is toasted at the bar with a torch. There are 11 appetizers on food menu, the most filling of which is the chicken chili bread bowl — Pork Barrel BBQ’s white chicken chili served in a bread bowl.
The seasonal popup will be open until late March and will reopen as a new concept in early April, Blackburn said.
Aspen on the Avenue is open Sunday to Wednesday from 4 to 10 p.m. and Thursday to Saturday from 4 p.m. to midnight.
The savory Indo-Chinese food at Indochen in Cameron Station will be featured by America’s Best Restaurants (ABR) later this month.
On Feb. 28, the ABR Roadshow will stop at the restaurant at 4906 Brenman Park Drive to talk with its owner, chef Ram Thapa. The show will be aired on YouTube and social media channels and will be featured on the ABR website at a future date.
According to ABR:
Popular menu items that may be featured on the episode include the Chicken Dumpling, an appetizer served in tomato onion chutney; a variety of family-style Biryani Pots, with choice of chicken, lamb, vegetables or shrimp; Fish Mandarin, a pan-fried whole pompano with vegetable mandarin sauce; and Indian specialties such as Chicken Tikka Masala or Butter Chicken.
Kentucky-based ABR was founded as a digital marketing company in 2008. The business has featured more than 1,000 restaurants.
Restaurants wanting to be featured on ABR must apply online, where applicants are asked about what makes the restaurant distinctive and worthy of consideration. If selected, an applicant then participates in a 45-minute Zoom interview.
Washingtonian recently included three Alexandria restaurants in their food critic’s list of 19 favorite pizzas right now.
Washingtonian’s Executive Food Editor Ann Limpert included in her list “Stracci Bianca” at Stracci Pizza (106 Hume Avenue), the vodka pizza at Emmy Squared (124 King Street) and the white clam Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (3231 Duke Street).
According to the Washingtonian review of Stracci Pizza:
This Del Ray gem makes its own stracciatella cheese—hand-pulled mozzarella soaked in cream—and it’s best shown off on this Roman-style white pizza, simply accented with olive oil and flakes of Maldon salt.
According to the Washingtonian review of Emmy Squared, which also has two locations in D.C.:
The thick, soft, Detroit-style pizzas from this Brooklyn transfer can be a little…extra. This version is relatively straightforward—just sweet, creamy vodka sauce, basil, and pecorino. The sauce is also good on the Big Ang, which adds ricotta, Italian sausage, and banana peppers to the party.
According to the Washingtonian review of Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana:
I’ve lined up outside this century-old New Haven institution for its coal-fired sheet-pan pizza countless times. And now there is one at Westfield Montgomery Mall! And in Old Town! This particular pie—one of their most famous—is thin, crispy, garlicky as hell, and loaded with fresh clams.
Who doesn’t want a little bit of Willy Wonka in Alexandria?
This spring, Madame Coco’s Emporium And Everything Chocolate will open at 103 S. St. Asaph Street in the Old Town space that was the previous home to the Mint Condition consignment shop (now at 122 S. Royal Street). The creative force behind the project says that once it opens it will be a salon-styled chocolate shop for hanging out and getting Tarot card readings.
Meshelle Armstrong of the Eat Good Food Group is still designing the concept, which was first reported by Alexandria Living Magazine. She’s renting the space from building owner Megan Podolsky and partnering with Daniel and Stacey Wharam, the owners of Zuki Moon in Del Ray, Grape + Bean Rosemont and Fontaine Caffe & Creperie.
Armstrong also created the concept for Zuki Moon, which opened last October. Like the Zuki character, Madame Coco will have an entirely fictional backstory to set the tone for the hangout. She says she wants to open the shop sometime in March, and is still looking for partners.
“I’m sourcing chocolate from all over the world,” Armstrong told ALXnow. “I believe I can this can turn this into something really special. I really would like to find a small group of people who would be interested in partnering.”
Armstrong said that the Madame Coco character is one of her alter egos and that the shop will carry ice cream, an assortment of chocolates, candles, as well as serve non-alcoholic drinks.
“She’s loves fantasy, she loves whimsy, she loves chocolate and she loves socializing,” Armstrong said. “That’s basically who she is, and the shop is going to be like an old fashioned Parisian-styled salon where you can sit and eat chocolate and drink coffee and come up with ideas.”
Two Alexandria restaurants were ranked in Washingtonian’s The 100 Very Best Restaurants in Washington, DC.
At number 15 on the ranking was Japanese restaurant Nasime at 1209 King Street.
Washingtonian’s review said:
This unassuming Old Town storefront houses one of the area’s most underrated and best-value Japanese restaurants. Chef/owner Yuh Shimomura works the kitchen solo, turning out a seven-course $95 feast for no more than 20 diners at a time. Seasonal hits might include yuba-wrapped sea bass in dashi with slippery nameko mushrooms, but the menu always features pristine sashimi (with tongue-tingling “buzz button” flower, when available). The meal culminates in a bubbling pot of noodle soup, recently with oysters and matsutakes. The $60 sake pairing is a generous deal.
Only the Top 25 spots on the list were ranked, but Americana restaurant Virginia’s Darling (277 S Washington Street) also made the top 100 list.
According to the Washingtonian review:
“Our nightly dinner party” is the tag line at this Old Town wine bar, adjacent to owner Nicole Jones’s daytime cafe, Mae’s Market. Indeed, the mood in the dining room is low-key and convivial, and the wine list, which highlights women makers, is written in a breezy, conversational tone. Snack on salt-and-vinegar pistachios, charred dates, or an abundant charcuterie board, then move on to larger plates, which include a hefty “Frenchie” burger on an English muffin and an extra-lemony sole meunière that was so good we convinced the neighboring table to get it.
Alexandria had one fewer than Arlington, which had three locations. There were ten restaurants on the list in Fairfax County.
This week is the peak of restaurant weeks for the season, with both the Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week extended to this week and Alexandria Restaurant Week in full swing.
The Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week has been extended through the end of this week, thanks to the snowy weather last week, giving locals another chance to check out the seven Alexandria locations participating. Restaurant Week involves restaurants having special menus at fixed prices: $25 or $35 for lunch or brunch and $40, $55 or $65 for dinner — which still isn’t exactly cheap, but in some cases is saving at certain local restaurants, and is designed to be an approachable introduction to these restaurants.
The regional restaurant week includes restaurants from across Northern Virginia, Maryland and D.C. The Alexandria restaurants participating are:
- Evening Star Cafe (2000 Mount Vernon Avenue)
- Hen Quarter (801 King Street)
- Josephine (109 S. Saint Asaph Street)
- Laporta’s Restaurant (1600 Duke Street)
- Osteria Marzano (6361 Walker Lane)
- Rustico (827 Slaters Lane)
- Vermilion (1120 King Street)
Alexandria, meanwhile, has it’s own Alexandria Restaurant Week starting last Friday and running through Sunday, Jan. 28.
Over 70 restaurants are participating in Alexandria Restaurant Week, from Old Town to the West End, with prix fixe dinners at $30, $40 and $50.
A full list of participating restaurants in Alexandria Restaurant Week is available online.
Photo via Hen Quarter/Facebook
Sister Aniliza Juan’s days of hauling boxes up from a cramped basement to offer food to those in need are over.
The new food pantry at 4725 Eisenhower Avenue opened on Nov. 1, giving Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington a much larger, better-equipped facility to better provide for Alexandrians struggling to get by.
Earlier today, Bishop Michael Francis Burbidge visited the new facility to offer a blessing.
“It is here in this place that we reflect our love for God by serving his beloved children, our brothers and sisters,” said Burbidge. “Those who come through these doors experience and encounter the compassion of Christ, but all those who work here and volunteer here see the face of Christ in our brothers and sisters who are poor and needy.”
The pantry is open two days a week, but staff said they can extend the hours if they receive more volunteer support.
Juan, volunteer coordinator for the Catholic Charities Alexandria Food Pantry, said since the start of November and throughout December, the food pantry has been busier than ever.
“The price of commodities is getting higher,” Juan said. “Some of our people are newly arrived and trying to settle, but they cannot get a job right away.”
Juan said some work three jobs but can’t afford rent in the area.
In the third week of December, Juan said the food pantry served 150 families — a new record for the pantry, which normally serves around 80-120 families in that same week each year.
For the first week of January, the pantry has served 95 families, higher than the usual 60 families for the same timeframe.
An annual report showed that Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington provided $8.2 million in support, from $3.4 million in food assistance to $900,000 in rental assistance.
St. Lucy Project, which runs the pantry, fulfilled more than 59,000 food requests over the last year and distributed $2.2 million in food. Christ House in Old Town distributed 17,627 free meals, a 42% increase over 2022 figures, a diocese representative said.
“The good news is that there is a more spacious place to serve even more people,” Burbidge said. “But the sad reality is the need is just as great too.”
The new pantry is a significantly larger space than the previous location in the basement of Christ House in Old Town. Volunteers there had to retrieve food from a cramped, narrow basement with a low ceiling. At the new location, those in need can grab a shopping cart and pick what they need from the shelves.
“We reached a point where we were really injuring ourselves trying to carry food up and down the stairs,” said Catherine Hassinger, director of community services. “Our poor sister did that for many years.”
Hassinger said it took five years, but eventually, Catholic Charities was able to find the new location on Eisenhower Avenue.
Those working at the pantry said the new layout helps give more dignity to the process for those in need of assistance.
“For us as a Catholic organization, it’s about dignity, and dignity comes with choice,” said Stephen Carattini, President and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington. “What kind of cereal do they want? What kind of bread? We have that as a luxury, but most people don’t have that choice.”
“It’s a kind of relationship built with our clients that makes a difference,” Juan said. “It’s about how we serve them; with respect and dignity and friendship.”
An inferno at a commercial warehouse on 4407 Wheeler Avenue Tuesday night could have a ripple effect on local seniors.
The fire, which was reported at 9:20 p.m., raged for hours and spread across three buildings. Over 1000 firefighters were called in from multiple jurisdictions and one firefighter sustained minor injuries.
The Alexandria Fire Department (AFD) said in a release that one of the businesses affected is Jeffrey’s Catering, which provides a significant amount of food for the local Meals on Wheels program.
According to AFD:
Among the affected is Jeffery’s Catering, a key provider for the “Meals on Wheels” program. The Alexandria Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) and Senior Services of Alexandria are working together to assure continued delivery of meals to participating residents. For the most current information or to request assistance, please direct inquiries to the Division of Aging and Adult Services at 703-746-5999.
In addition, Alexandria Health Department (AHD) is working with affected food vendors to ensure that all temporary and repaired workspaces are permitted and can serve food safely as soon as possible.
AFD said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Alexandria restaurant Thompson Italian, which also has a location in Falls Church, was voted as the second-best restaurant in Virginia by Washingtonian readers.
Thompson Italian took over 1024 King Street in 2022, formerly Hank’s Oyster Bar. The restaurant features a variety of dishes, from squid ink bucatini to crispy brussel sprouts.
“The newer Old Town location serves carefully crafted pastas, like the Falls Church original, but adds brunch and an attention-getting cacio e pepe gimlet,” Washingtonian wrote.
Thompson Italian beat out classic regional favorites, like three-Michelin-star restaurant The Inn at Little Washington, but couldn’t top Ruthie’s All Day in Arlington.
Andy’s Pizza, which has a location in Old Town, also got a slice of the action as the number one favorite pizza spot.
Image via Thompson Italian/Facebook
