Doing Some Dining in D.C.

To say that Justin and I have been dining around D.C. might be an understatement. I guess you could even call it pigging out. eek. But it was for a good reason! I had a bunch of daily deal coupons that were on the verge of expiring (leave it to me to wait until the last minute) so we had to use a bunch of them in a short amount of time. First up, Il Capo.

Before I go further, let me just tell you I actually had a coupon for Mi Vecindad for two drinks and two entrees. However, before my coupon expired, management decided to to change the restaurant concept. Instead of Mi Vecindad, a Mexican/Central American joint, it is now Il Capo, an Italian food eatery. Luckily, they still accepted my Mi Vecindad coupon, but we would dining of food other than what I had originally intended. Nevertheless, we decided to give it a shot.

Per the coupon, our meal started off with a margarita. Kind of odd for a new Italian place (I thought they might give us wine instead), but it was good and strong. 

We started off our meal with salad and calamari which were good, but they were nothing special...



For our entrees, I had the clam pasta and Justin had the spaghetti and meatballs. Again, nothing special. Justin and I are pretty picky when it comes to Italian food since it's something we cook ourselves quite often. I personally wish they had stuck with their Latin menu, but since this restaurant is so close to our house, I hope they are able to improve. Il Capo's old incarnation was always able to attract large crowds on their outdoor seating during the summer, so I wonder if they'll be able to get the same large crowds with their new menu.

The next place we tried was Boundary Road on H. St. Again, I had to use another coupon before its expiration and the caveat that came with this coupon was that I could only use it during lunch. On this particular day, I took a half day and picked up Justin from work.

We started off our meal with the lunch-sized portion of the quark (a type of cheese) and black pepper pirogi appetizer. It was delicious! We plowed right through the starter and were glad we opted to get the larger portion!



 Justin ordered the cheesesteak and I got the charcuterie sandwich which can be seen below. Having all of the different types of meat in one bite made it super tasty! The only gripe that I had about this sandwich was that the bread was so crunchy it kind of scraped the roof of my mouth! #firstworldproblems

The next place we dined at was Art and Soul, one of Art Smith's many restaurants. You may know him from his appearances on Top Chef Masters, Barbecue Wars, and of course he was Oprah Winfrey's personal chef for a decade.

We started off our meal with the scotch eggs which already had us reminiscing of our London trip...

Then for our main course we opted to get the fried chicken dinner for two, which came highly recommended. It was perfectly brined, seasoned, with super crunchy skin. It came with a side of collard greens and mashed potatoes. Here's  Justin eyeing the meal, wondering the best way to tackle it. We didn't manage to finish it (hooray for leftovers!) but I had to leave room for dessert!

For dessert we had these fig tarts, topped with powdered sugar with a side of vanilla ice cream. It's always a good sign when a restaurant has something different than the usual creme brulee, cheesecake, chocolate cake, etc.



So that's my review of three of the places we've eaten at. How about you? Did you do a lot of celebratory dining out during the holidays?

Eating Good in my Neighborhood

No, I'm not talking about Applebee's.


The past few weekends Justin and I have been checking out some of the restaurants in our neck of the woods, Capitol Hill.


A couple weekends ago we went to Zest Bistro because it was Restaurant Week.


I took part in the Restaurant Week menu and had the seared foie gras bilini, pear habanero jam, with balsamic reduction as an appetizer:   

The chocolate porter braised short ribs, cauliflower puree, kabocha squash, kale, and mushrooms as an entree:

And for dessert I had the milk chocolate bread pudding with espresso caramel anglaise:

Justin, on the other hand, had the lamb shank on the regular menu calling his name, and boy did it look delicious!

Last weekend, I used my Open Table Spotlight $20 for $40 coupon at Bistro Cacao. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures, but the food was delicious! I had the venison and Justin had the rack of lamb.  The service was was excellent the ambiance was very romantic! The lights were dim and we were sat in a curtained area with wing back chairs. Very luxurious! I almost felt bad that Justin and I weren't celebrating something! 


Right when we thought we were too stuffed for dessert, we opted to go to another Capitol Hill establishment, The Sweet Lobby, for some french macaroons! There were so many different flavors it was almost hard to choose, but we tried the pistachio, chocolate, lavender, salted caramel, and mint chocolate. Yummy!


Lastly, we went off the beaten path and had some Italian food with friends at Bistro Italiano. This place is a cute storefront amongst rowhouses near Union Station. The food was solid and reasonably priced. I had the pasta and clams and I love how the spaghetti was cooked to a perfect al dente.


I can't believe that I've lived on the Hill for almost a year and it was my first time at all these places. I really want to make a point to eat at all the restaurants on the Hill...or at least come close to it :)

It's Official: We're Homeowners!

In case you missed our Facebook/Twitter/4Square statuses, we closed on our first house on Monday, right after we got back from Kentucky.  We are super excited, but it hasn’t really hit me yet—probably because we haven’t moved in yet.

Monday was pretty hectic (just like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when I tried to leave at noon and ended up leaving two hours later). I was scared I wouldn’t leave in time.*   Luckily, I was able to make it to the bank to get a cashier's check for our down payment and closing costs.  Let me just say that the amount of money I cut for the check could have bought a sweet 2011 BMW…wow…It’s by far the largest check I’ve ever made. I digress…

Anyways, we did the walk through which was pretty straightforward.  Since we were able to negotiate the price waaaayyyy below the seller’s asking price at the time, the seller sold us the house “as-is.” 

Then we went to the title company for closing.  Everyone kept telling me about how much my hand would hurt after signing my name multiple times on the closing papers.  To be honest, after signing paperwork for five rejected offers and filling out paperwork for loan approval, this process was a breeze!  The sellers handed us a bunch of keys (many of which we still have no idea what door it opens) and then we were officially homeowners!



Homeowners, at last!

We got a bottle of champagne from the title company and a really generous gift card from our realtors, Greg and Christina.  I didn’t know you got gifts for buying a house. How cool is that?

On Tuesday, we invited a few friends over to have a little “pre-housewarming” get together, so people could see the place before we started the renovations.  We even got to meet our neighbors on each side of our house.  Hopefully, we didn’t freak them out.  Even though there were only ten of us we got a little raucous, probably due to a couple cases of beer, a few cans of Four Loko, half a bottle of bourbon, and several bottles of champagne loud.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to make a better impression as good (somewhat), quiet neighbors once we move in.

Although we’re not moving into our house for another two months (hopefully earlier), our life on the Hill has already begun.   I’m very lucky to have Justin to share in this experience, and I know the two of us can’t wait to explore what the Hill has to offer.  In the meantime, we’re going to enjoy Capitol Lounge’s 25 cent wing special…

*I always do this. As opposed to taking a half-day, sometimes it’s just better to just take the entire day off. Work can’t keep you longer if you’re not even there, right?

Home Sweet Hill

As many of you know, Justin and I have been looking for a house for quite sometime (about a year to be exact).  I am happy to report that we’ve finally found our first place! It’s a cute Federal-style porch front row home, located on the edge of Capitol Hill (some might call this area “Hill East”).  This adorable house has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and needs some TLC. Justin hates it when I use the words “fixer-upper,” but I feel that there’s no better way to say that it needs a little fixing up!

Yes, that's us in front of our lovely house. Excuse the window unit (we'll be getting rid of those soon enough)...and excuse the the various signs, the random ladder (it was the inspector's), etc...

While the house is generally in good shape, the kitchen is atrocious.  It seems like an afterthought to whoever built this house; the kitchen doesn’t seem to be fully integrated with the total layout of the house.  Located in a closed-off extension of the house, the kitchen has very low ceilings and little room to move around, to even make the smallest of people want to complain. We knew we wanted to put our own personal touch on our first home; however, the amount for renovations and the down payment for our mortgage posed a huge challenge.

Our realtor Greg told us about the FHA 203k loan program, in which home buyers are given a home renovation loan, combined with the mortgage.  The unique characteristic about this FHA loan is that you only have to make one monthly payment, for what actually is “two loans rolled into one”.  We figured this would be a great way to get the kitchen renovation we wanted, along with some other things (e.g. energy efficient windows).  The added bonus with this loan (or with any other type of loan we could have used) was that we locked in a great mortgage rate. 

Upon buying our first house, I never thought we would be in charge of a major renovation.   Neither of us had experience in planning home renovations, but here we are doing everything from obtaining contractor estimates/bids to examining floor plan sketches.  There’s also the endless amount of paperwork to fill out that makes me feel that we’re providing the same information over and over again.

We are hoping to close next month at then end of the month, but we still have to complete some requests from our lender.  Our lender has given us about nine to ten questions, all regarding our personal information.  For example, some of these questions include: “Why were you living at addresses x, y, and z during this time period” Uhmm…I didn’t think it was that unusual to be living at my parents house, a sorority house, and then an apartment within a four to six year time span, but apparently it raises some red flags.  Another question, wanted Justin to clarify whether he was an independent contractor or whether he worked for a Federal agency (Justin’s company’s client).  In my mind, I’m thinking that whoever asked this question is not from the DC Metro Area and familiar with the large amount of government contractors EVERYWHERE in the area, or the actual concept of a government contractor. Around here, almost everyone I know works as a government contractor; if not, they’re a Federal employee themselves, or an attorney, or a Hill staffer, or....  Hopefully, we’ll be deemed credit worthy after we complete this laundry list of demands to explain the last twenty to thirty years of our lives. J