Capital Spice

You have no idea how much fun it was to head out to our neighborhood Dunkin Donuts this morning.

When Melissa McCart tipped us off to the “Royal Wedding Donut,” we knew we would have to check it out for ourselves.  After all, what better way to celebrate British royalty getting married than with a quintessentially American treat from a New England-based company whose fans are more likely to opt for coffee than for tea?

I love how earnestly they tried to sell the connection in their press announcement (emphasis is ours):

“Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins are proud to help guests enjoy the first Royal Wedding in more than 11 years,” said Dunkin’ Brands CEO and Dunkin’ Donuts President Nigel Travis, a dual U.S. and British citizen born and raised in Woodford, Essex. “For more than six decades, Dunkin’ Donuts’ donuts and baked goods, and Baskin-Robbins’ cakes and ice cream, have been lifting spirits and bringing people joy and happiness. Whether it’s a grand celebration like the Royal Wedding, or everyday occurrences at work or play, nothing makes us happier than to help make any moment a little sweeter.”

With that iron-clad connection to the crown established, you may be wondering what goes into a Royal Wedding Donut.  Surely it must be a recipe passed down by British pastry-makers, or some attempt to mimic the types of fried dough treats popular in the streets of London.

Judge for yourself how well the Royal Wedding Donut captures the ceremony and grandeur of the occasion:

“The Dunkin’ Donuts Royal Wedding Donut is a heart-shaped donut filled with jelly and topped with vanilla icing and a chocolate drizzle. The heart signifies the love between Prince William and Catherine, and the donut is filled with jelly to represent how their lives are to be ever-filled with happiness. The white frosting is reminiscent of the traditional white wedding gown, and the chocolate drizzle is symbolic of William’s love for chocolate.”

THAT’s how you symbolize!  Nailed it.

(Full disclosure: we ate it and it was sweet, chocolatey delciousness.)

You have to hand it to Todd and Ellen Gray when it comes to naming restaurants.  Equinox, their downtown dining destination, has been offering balanced, seasonally-inspired menus for more than a decade now.  But they’ve taken ‘meaning’ to a whole new level with Todd Gray’s Watershed, their new restaurant which opened this weekend on First Street, NE.

Watershed announces itself as a celebration of the “Coastal Cuisine of the Eastern Seaboard,” with special emphasis on ingredients and recipes found in the Chesapeake watershed region.  Walking up to the restaurant (entered through the lobby of the new Hilton Garden Inn), it’s easy to find a second interpretation of the name.  This IS a watershed moment for the area developers branded as NoMA (North of Massachusetts Avenue), as it brings sit-down dining and a chef’s touch to a neighborhood previously served only by fast-casual chains and coffee shops.

We had the chance to take a look at Watershed a few days before its official opening on Friday night, and we stopped in again yesterday to see how things are going.  We found a raw bar with an impressive if choosy selection, a dining room with a warm and inviting palette, and a killer patio.  Oh…and the food we tried last night was a great reminder of Chef Gray’s respect for the quality of his ingredients, too.

So what can you expect to find when you have your Watershed moment?  Check it out after the jump. (more…)

It’s still “tomorrow morning” somewhere, right?

Thanks for your patience as we set up a system to select our winners at random.  Each of these commenters will receive a copy of David Lebovitz’s “The Sweet Life in Paris,” and we’re going to take advantage of their culinary tweets to try out each recipe.  Watch for our results…on Twitter, of course!

And the winners are:

Molly: “Split best croissant, add dark choc square, marshmallow, pinch of fleur de sel in middle. Grill until melty. Parisian s’more!”

French Twist DC: “Oh, and a recipe of course. It’s an original perfected over years of making crepes.  Crepes: 2 1/2 cups of flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 6 eggs, 2 tbps vegetable oil, 1 1/2 cup of milk & 1 1/2 cup of lager beer. Combine & cook in pan!”

MagneticDynamo: “Toast baguette & spread w/brie. Chop up strawberries, then add balsmc vinegar, sugar and torn basil. Spread strawberry mix over bread.”

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the contest – we’ll be doing a few more of these in the near future so there will be more opportunities for those who didn’t win this time around.

And be sure to check back with us soon as we unlock the secrets of baking baguettes courtesy of the master bakers at Paul.

In the spirit of today’s extended tax deadline, we wanted to let everyone know that there are just a few short hours remaining to enter our contest to give away three paperback copies of David Lebovitz’s The Sweet Life in Paris. We’ll be announcing the winners tomorrow morning, selecting them at random from all entries received by midnight tonight.

We made one of the recipes from the book, a delicious absinthe cake, for dessert last night and it met with rave reviews.  Not even Mike’s rookie failure to remove the cake from the pan after pulling it from the oven could ruin the deep sweetness.

You know you’re just dying to try it.

If you haven’t done so already, please enter by leaving a comment at the end of the original contest post.

Thanks, and bon chance to all!

With all the group-buying websites out there now, we’re starting to think that we may never pay full price for a meal again.  Unless, of course, we forget the deal certificate.  Don’t laugh – it’s happened to us more than once and it stings every time.

Well you’re (we’re) in luck.  The deal sites are going out of their way to come up with innovative ways to enhance and streamline your experience.  You can redeem some sites’ discounts via iPhone or Android-capable smart phone.  Others remind you when you’ve got a coupon that’s about to expire.

At LivingSocial, they’ve found a way to make it easier for you to take advantage of their specials in the first place: Instant Deals.  These real-time coupons offer deep discounts to nearby establishments, and they can be purchased and redeemed immediately, unlike traditional deals that can only be accessed and used after the sales period has ended.

Sounds like a brilliant way to save some cash at lunchtime, doesn’t it?  Well that’s what the folks at LivingSocial think, too.  They’re test-marketing the concept here in DC (their hometown) prior to taking it to other top markets.  And to give you a taste of just how well it works, they’re launching a massive promotional campaign today.

From 11 AM to 2 PM, more than 100 vendors will offer lunch deals for just ONE DOLLAR EACH.  Log in to LivingSocial via your mobile phone, and they’ll hook you up with a list of participating restaurants within a half-mile of your current location.  You could eat more than 5 meals for the price of a certain sandwich chain’s daily foot-long special…assuming you can hit them all in that three-hour window.

Deals vary from restaurant to restaurant, with most coming down in the $10 to $20 range, with a few standouts giving away as much as $25.  And they only cost you $1 each.  Just remember to tip your server (where appropriate) on the full check, not the amount after discounts and coupons.

The full list of participating restaurants after the jump. (more…)

Take a second and think about the seven people you hang out with most often.  Where did you meet them?  How long have you known them?

Chances are “work” and “school” figured prominently in your answers, especially here in Washington.  It’s hard to strike up a meaningful conversation with a random person in a bar that doesn’t start with “So, what do you do?” and end with a hookup attempt.  The guy looking over your shoulder every five seconds at that networking event doesn’t seem likely to want to grab a burger or see a Nats game next week, either.  But we all have to eat, and many of us eat out more often than we cook at home.

Enter Grubwithus.  The brainchild of two California entrepreneurs who found themselves without a social circle after moving to Chicago, Grubwithus negotiates deals with local restaurants around town for small group dinners.  Participants, or “Grubbers,” sign up through the Grubwithus website and pre-pay for their meals.  Then they show up and enjoy an evening of good food and (hopefully) good conversation with as many as seven strangers.

Think of it as blind group dating without the romantic overtones.

Grubwithus (@grubwithus) has already taken off in Chicago, San Francisco and New York, and today they announced their inaugural DC dinners.  In preparation for the launch, we sat down with Sen Sugano and Tricia Sabido for a better understanding of what Grubwithus brings to the table.

Details, including the first five DC dinners, after the jump. (more…)

We’re not ones to repost every announcement we receive here at Capital Spice, but there are some times when the opportunity is just too good not to share.

This is one of those times.

On Thursday, May 5th, Eric Ripert will be signing copies of AVEC ERIC at Hill’s Kitchen.  The signing will take place at 6 PM, but you can bet that the line will start quite a bit earlier than that.

Here are the details as we just received them:

MEDIA ALERT:

Chef Eric Ripert, star of the PBS series “Avec Eric” and author of the recently-published cookbook of the same name, will sign copies of his book at Hill’s Kitchen on Thursday, May 5 at 6pm.

Venue details:
Hill’s Kitchen
713 D Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
202-543-1997

We’ve been big fans of Leah Daniels and Hill’s Kitchen since it opened – even if she did beat us to the name – and we’re thrilled that they’ll be hosting Chef Ripert for this signing.

See you there!

Last year, Old Town was colonized for a second time.  The settlers came swiftly, establishing beachheads on King Street before many people even realized what was happening.  The fact that they came bearing brick-oven pizzas probably didn’t hurt.

We wrote about the impending arrival of RedRocks Pizza Napoletana and Pizzeria Paradiso back in March of last year.  As it turns out, both DC-based pizza purveyors ended up delaying their grand openings from the dates we originally reported, with RedRocks ready to go in August and Paradiso not long after that in October.  Since then, both have been drawing in King Street customers and sending them home happy.

Pizza, by its nature, practically begs to be experienced as part of a group.  If you’re trying a place for the first time as a couple, you’re likely to get more than a few raised eyebrows if you try to order more than one or two pizzas.  That kind of limited taste is not exactly a great way to get a feel for a menu, but get four or more people ordering at once and you can cover far more flavors simultaneously (assuming your dining companions are willing to share, of course).

So we checked out RedRocks Pizza Napoletana with our friends Itty Bitty Betty and the Bacon Terrorist; we even brought Baby Spice along for the meal.  At the first sight of our car seat, the hostess sprang into action.  She recommended one table, but she indulged us when we requested a large booth instead.  We ended up moving to her original recommendation after determining that the booth just wasn’t going to fit the car seat, but to her credit she didn’t even hint at a “Told you so…”

We proceeded to divide and conquer the menu, and I’m so glad we did.  A rundown on some big flavors and a few crackly crust shots after the jump.

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About a year and a half ago, the Washington Post’s Joe Yonan wrote a profile of a former Chez Panisse pastry chef who dropped everything and moved to Paris in 2002.  We loved it, and it led us to David Lebovitz’s blog, twitter feed and dessert books.  When we broke out our ice cream maker that season, one of the recipes we tried was Lebovitz’s salty-sweet combination of Roquefort and honey – and the results were an unqualified success.

One of our dreams is to experience the sights and sounds (and smells and tastes) of the City of Lights via an extended stay.  Call it a crush – we’re enamored of what could be.  Now that Lebovitz has been in Paris for almost a decade, his relationship with the city is more like a tried and true marriage.  He can see the flaws of his adopted home, but he also appreciates it in ways that tourists never can.

We added his memoir, The Sweet Life in Paris, to our holiday wish list in 2009 and flew through it upon receipt.  Lebovitz’s dry humor makes for easy reading, and the anecdotes in the book provide a glimpse into the reality of Parisian life from an ex-pat perspective, from the painful to the sublime.  The Sweet Life in Paris is subtitled “Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious – and Perplexing – City,” and that should give you an idea of Lebovitz’s loving tone.  And the recipes he shares throughout are likely to have you storing your copy with your cookbooks for easy access.

Now Broadway Books has come out with a paperback edition, and we’re proud to be able to offer three copies of The Sweet Life in Paris to our readers.  Whether you’ve never read the book, borrowed it and then grudgingly gave it back, or wore through your first copy from frequent use, all you need to do is leave a comment at the end of this post.  We’ll choose three winners at random, but you know we love to ask you to be creative with your contest entries.  In honor of David Lebovitz’s prolific tweeting and tasty desserts, give us your best 140-character, Parisian-inspired recipe.

An example: “Combine 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp H2O, 1 tsp lemon juice & 1/2 tsp salt. Whisk in 1 cup oil. Take your time!”  Et voila – mayonnaise.

We’ll still consider comments that don’t include a recipe, but we’re eager to see what you can come up with!