Washington, D.C
Best Dishes Eater Editors Ate This Week: August 12
With Eater editors frequently dining out all over town, we come across lots of standout dishes, and we don’t want to hold back any secrets. Welcome to Eater DC’s new rotating roundup of the best things we ate as of late.
Fugazzeta at Mercy Me
Tucked inside D.C.’s Yours Truly hotel lies Mercy Me, a South American-styled escape from bustling downtown. Fugazzeta is Argentina’s answer to a deep-dish personal pizza, built with Comté, provolone, and squirty, ruby-red roasted tomatoes that scream summer. The popular order currently plays a starring role on its summer Restaurant Week tasting menu. During a weekend visit, I thought my heaping helping of chaufa (fried rice, shrimp, and heirloom corn) did the Peruvian dish justice. A big central bar made of marbled cosmic swirls is a prime place to soak up the lobby-level setup surrounded in swaying palms, giant disco balls, and a vinyl record studio. Follow the neon green-lit toucan in the back to stumble upon Tropicalia, a dreamy outdoor cocktail garden led by Minibar alum Al Thompson. 1143 New Hampshire Avenue NW — Tierney Plumb, Eater DC editor
Oysters at Petite Cerise
Between its Olympics and Bastille Day celebrations, Shaw’s year-old Petite Cerise is having a hot French summer. Window paintings of the Eiffel Tower recently led the way into the chic corner brasserie, where flickering votive candles and fresh flowers help set the mood at each table. Chef Jeremiah Langhorne, who runs Michelin-starred the Dabney a few blocks away, gives diners a close-up view of prepping and plating from a long open kitchen planted in the middle. His new four-course menu ($58) feels like a quick trip to Paris, starting with juicy Island Creek oysters dressed in diced golden beets and a yellow Chartreuse mignonette. Fluffy ricotta gnocchi got a summery upgrade with sweet corn and cherry tomato. A beautiful bowl of zucchini “noodles” also swings seasonal with help from Chesapeake blue crab. Black garlic-infused escargots double as its logo (and reminder to slow down); a gold snail-shaped paper clip attached to the tab was a cute cause for pause. 1027 7th Street NW — T.P.
Buñuelos at Pascual
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I finally checked out Capitol Hill’s months-old Pascual, award-winning chef Isabel Coss’s polished love letter to her native Mexico City fueled by an open-fire hearth. Fabulously fresh guac paired with tostadas was a great way to start. As was a symmetrically pleasing plate of sliced Asian pears and sunflower seeds doused in guajillo oil, followed by a vibrant bowl of yellow squash blossoms, minty herbs, dollops of pureed avocado, and hearty tomatoes. From there, I skipped over the meaty mains and went straight for dessert. Coss flexes her pastry muscles with colossal cinnamon-dusted buñuelos, which arrive as advertised alongside delicious chocolate and caramel sauces served with adorable wooden spoons. Down in the pretty pastel-pink bathrooms, it’s hard to miss Coss’s latest accolade: a blown-up Food & Wine cover naming her one of America’s best new chefs in 2023. 732 Maryland Avenue NE — T.P.
Cheeseburger by Steeze Burger
I’ve had my eye on Steeze Burger ever since Tim Carman named it his favorite burger last year; the photo (from Eater’s own Rey Lopez) just made it look like my platonic ideal of a cheeseburger: the gooey American slices, the pickles, the soft sesame bun, the crispy smashed patties. But while the operation is generally mobile, they spend more time in Maryland than anywhere else, which is kind of a trek for me to grab a burger. Luckily, they recently did a pop-up at Arlington’s Sloppy Mama’s BBQ, so I made my way there to sample the burger. It hit all the right notes — if I had one suggestion, I could use a touch more seasoning in the patty itself, but a complete bite with the bun and toppings struck just the right balance. Plus, the location meant an excuse to take home some pork rinds and smoked turkey (the best of the barbecued meats) for another meal. Multiple locations — Missy Frederick, Eater cities director
Roast beef sandwich at Ned’s New England Deck
The tricky thing with beloved regional dishes (celebrated in our No Taste Like Home package last week) is that they can be hard to find outside the region they’re from. I’d heard of North Shore roast beef sandwiches due to our Boston site, but I don’t spend a lot of time there so I’d never tried one — until I made my way to Ned’s New England Deck in Fairfax. Their version is great: the roast beef has the thin slicing of an Arby’s sandwich, but with better quality and a delicious sauciness. This was also my first encounter with “fluffy” lobster bisque — its butter-drenched appearance surprised me a little, but it definitely was rich and nuanced in flavor. They make a mean lobster roll, too — love that they offer the buttery Connecticut-style, but given I’d had enough butter in my soup, the Maine-influenced, lightly mayo-dressed version worked just fine for me. 10655 Fairfax Boulevard, Fairfax, Virginia — M.F.
Pita at Yellow
I only got one chance to stop at Yellow’s Navy Yard location before it closed, so I’m going to try to make more of an effort to patronize its Georgetown outpost for great pastries and interesting coffee drinks (the peanut dalgona is an excellent combo of sweet and creamy). But the thing I keep thinking about is the pita bread. Soft, chewy, and dusted with za’atar, it’s the perfect complement to a morning sandwich stuffed with soft scrambled egg, salad, kashkaval cheese, and labneh (the half pita-sized breakfast sandwich is also the right amount to keep you full but not overly so). It’s worth the $15 semi-splurge to bring a six-pack of the breads home with you — I’ve already filled some with turkey kofta and pumpkin hummus, and see some sesame za’atar cutlet sandwiches in my future. 1524 Wisconsin Avenue NW — M.F.
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Washington, D.C
Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C
Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
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You can learn more and book your table here.
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