Terrible news!

I'm so sorry to break this to you, but we will soon be loosing one of those things that makes DC great. When searching for an adorable, unique, and well priced store, you can find nothing better than Pop, and in a few short weeks it is going to be leaving us. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. And it was conveniently located near my apartment for effortless splurging! The owners apparently also have a shop in Williamsburg (the Brooklyn one), and since they have moved up there, they find running the DC shop from afar too difficult. O wooooooooooooe is me! I am loosing one of my favorite stores ever. (If you're imagining me now rolling on the floor holding myself and crying, you'd be totally right. I am crushed.) I guess the only thing any reasonable girl could do to raise her from the depths of her despair would be to bust out that credit card she has been guarding with her life and let the proprietors know just how much they will be missed (aka scoop up the awesome sales)! You all should join me there. You do not want to miss these clothes or these deals.

Search for J Street is back from being a lazy bum over the holiday...

Happy belated fourth to everyone! So I've been off having a lots of fun doing lots of city exploring, but sadly that translated into me sleeping most of the time when I am actually home and not passing along any gossip about the cool things I've stumbled upon. I'm hear to make up for my negligence, though. So rejoice!

So the weekend started off with some fro-yo deliciousness. DC finally answered my wishes and imported a Pinkberry-esque joint in Dupont. The outpost is called TangySweet, and it's located on P between 20th and 21st. I ventured up during my lunch break on Thursday with a friend because I desperately needed a reason to escape the increasingly suffocating feeling that my cubicle was causing. TangySweet was just what the doctor ordered. The frozen yogurt is that delicious actual yogurt flavor that I discovered when I was in NYC, as opposed to the frozen yogurt stuff you find in the grocery store which is really just like low fat ice cream. The toppings are pretty much just the Pinkberry standards (some nuts, a bunch of fruit, and some random cereal), but there is one awesome difference from Pinkberry (aside from the way improved architecture): a new flavor! TangySweet sets itself apart by stocking pomegranate fro-yo. I haven't actually tried it yet because I was craving the green tea flavor when I went, but I can't wait to! Has anyone gotten the pomegranate flavor yet? Is it as delicious as the others? I have to know! I am definitely going to have to start factoring in multiple trips to TangySweet in my biweekly budgets, especially now that we are getting into the peak of DC's swampy summer! If you have tried it yet, you must get over there. Everything tastes awesome, there are only 175 calories in a medium serving (which is huge), and if you play your cards right, you might even cram in your daily fruit requirement with your dessert! It's so good, you feel like it must be bad for you, but it's totally not! Win win!

If you're single, there is always one thing you should take with you on a Saturday night...

...your friends! (What, did you think the answer was condoms? Don't be silly! That's a Carrie Bradshaw quote, not a Samantha Jones quote.) When the Sex and the City movie came out, hit the town with some of my favorite girlfriends at some trendy spots in the most fabulous outfit I could pull together is exactly what it inspired me to do!

The showings at Chinatown had all sold out by the time I got around to buying tickets. So my coworker and I went to see a 5 o'clock showing in Georgetown instead. Even though the Gtown theater was considerably more arduous to travel to at 4:30 when rush hour traffic had descended upon K street, it ended up all working out. We sat down just as the previews were beginning, and when the movie was over (2 1/2 hours later), it was a perfect hour for cocktails.

We went to Mie N Yu for drinks after. I feel like every time I find myself in Georgetown, I wind up at Mei N Yu. So I was about to veto it, but since my friend from work lives pretty far outside the city, she had never even heard of it. I couldn't let her pass up a chance to go! Mie N Yu is one of a handful of places I've been to in DC that seems very posh and classy without feeling like it was ripped directly out of New York. I think it might have to do with the way they use the some of the original architecture in defining their layout. The rooms (or birdcages) all seem to be nestled in their own corners. This time around, we found a little nook by the windows with our name on it.


I haven't ever actually gotten a meal here. Their cocktails tend to be on the pricey end. This is Georgetown. So it's to be expected, but I'm still a struggling 20-something. So I try to cut back on the bill by just sampling some of their less expensive appetizers instead of ordering an entree. 2 of the apps we ordered that night were phenomenal! I'd order them again in a heart beat! My friend got the veal wraps. They were by far the best appetizer I've ever had there. I got the duck wonton tacos, which were not quite as good as the veal, but they were a close second. Sadly, the taco portion was very small. So even though they were really tasty, the veal wraps were an all around better deal if you're trying to get a bang for your buck. I also got the lemongrass mussels. They were pretty good, but not particularly memorable. My friend splurged and got the duck breast entree, which was also decent but not special. Both the mussels and the duck were done pretty well but their sides (sauce and rice, respectively) were not up to par.

What saved the whole experience from falling somewhere between the meeeh and mediocre category was the belly dancer they had working that night! She was very friendly with the crowd and great at what she did. (I've decided after my hip hop class is done, I need to take a belly dancing class immediately! Belly dancing is hot. Way hotter than the bunny hops we do in hip hop.)


However, as hard working as the belly dancer was, she couldn't make up for the fact that every successive cocktail I order was weaker than the last. So around 9:30, we decided to head out. Erin had seen a 7:30 showing of SATC in Chinatown which worked out perfectly because by the time I got back downtown, her movie had just let out. We wandered over to Zaytinya's for more cocktails and general fabulousness. Zaytinya's really deserves an in depth Search for J Street report of its own some other time, but I will say that it's uber trendiness has waned to a degree and I couldn't be happier about it. The bar crowd was a good size. The servers had time to get around to everyone. And there were open seats for feet tired of their SATC inspired heels!

au contraire.bon appetit.c'est magnifique.excusez-moi..... O those French

I know there's a divergence of opinion on the French, but I happen to be a firm believer in their awesomeness. France gave the world fashion! romance! art! Where would we be without them? Well I know where I'd be. I'd be in my own personal hell, a world in which the bubbly, deliciousness of champagne had never been invented. Damn the Freedom Fries! A world without the French and their champagne is not a world I can live in. Good thing Napoleon, the sister restaurant of Cafe Bonaparte, is around! They are entirely willing to make sure I never have to face a France-less day in my life.*


*Aka they are there to serve me tons of champagne.

Now I know I always say that Erin and I were dyyyyying to check out every restaurant I ever write about, but really we were dyyyyying to go to Napoleon! Their website was so chic! (How très French of them.) It seduced me into loving everything about it before I ever walked in the front door. Once I did finally get around to walking in the door, I realized Napoleon is not quite as glamorous as the website makes it seem, but it is still thoroughly enjoyable.

The seating inside tries to be decadent (and succeeds to a certain degree) while the seating on the patio retains that quintessential
street cafè feel. So before I ordered anything, I was excited by the 2 classic French vibes going on. Then you get around to ordering your drink. This is when
Napoleon sold me. They have a great list of champagne cocktails, and because that is their specialty, lots of the cocktails are more creative than what you would find elsewhere. They even have a cocktail that mixes champagne and Campari! (Eeee! Campari's my other favorite summer drink! It's like they read my mind and made the drink just for me!)

After recovering from the shock of discovering what has now become my most favoritest drink in the whole wide world, I was ready to take a look at the menu. There was a lot that looked good, but both Erin and I had to go with the crêpes (seeing as that is what Cafè Bonaparte is known for). They were not at all disappointing. In fact, my crêpe made me regret getting the mussels for an appetizer. The mussels were good and all, but they were just no match for the crêpes. In future trip to Napoleon, I will not waste precious tummy space with anything but the French pastry goodness.


When it came time for dessert, there was no resistance on our part. We both splurged that night and ordered coffee (or hot chocolate in Erin's case) and a sweet to finish of the meal in true Parisian style. Erin went for the crème brûlée trio while I tried the lemony crêpe. In case you were worried, fear not! The sweet crepes lived up the the expectations built from the savory crepes! However, if I had to choose between Erin's dessert and mine, I'd have taken hers in a heart beat. She wasn't 100% crazy about it because of the espresso flavored crème brûlée, but I thought the whole thing was pure heaven!

The bill came (eventually... our waitress was certainly giving us authentic European service... the kind where they often ignore you during various crucial points in the meal), and was fairly painless. For 3 drinks, 2 apps, 2 entrees, 2 coffees, and 2 desserts, the total came to around $90. Not too bad at all. If you looking for an even bigger financial incentive to try out Napoleon, Erin and I also discovered on a later trip that they have a happy hour in which all champagne cocktails are $5! This place is quite the little Adams Morgan jewel.

If you're trying to escape the typical drunk zombies that roam the AdMo strip or if you are looking for a date spot that won't break the bank (or, in my case, max out the credit card), Napoleon is a great option for the summer. The food is great, the drinks are great, the prices are great, the service is kind of meh... but the bartenders are super cute! So that makes up for it, oui?



Afterward: I hope some French kid reads this and totally appreciates how I tried to use all the correct vowels with their funny squiggle marks!

DC's Hipster Scene: Adventures at Rock and Roll Hotel

So I'm not really a Smith Point type of gal. I can't say that the thought of Ronald Reagan or reliving his presidency does anything for me, but at the same time I can't really consider myself a hipster gal. In large part because I look teeeeeeeeeeeerible in skinny jeans, but also because I lack tattoos, artistic talent, and a general distaste for consumerism. (Quite the opposite. I loooove shoes. And bags. And dresses and... well you get the idea.) So although the hipster genre fascinates me, I just never felt starved or drugged out enough to really be a part of it. For this reason (and also for sheer laziness), I never ventured out to some of the notorious hipster hubs in H Street, although I'd been dying to give them a try.

One day, however, I could no longer resist the temptation of drunk Jenga, and some friends and I decided it was high time we get our butts out to Rock & Roll Hotel to participate in that most American of pastimes (which they host every Thursday!). I was a little nervous that we would totally stand out at R&R. Back in my waitressing days, I sort of fit into that scene, but I am law firm Cara now. Would they be able to smell the stench of corporate greed on me? Would they intuitively sense I spent 40 hours + a week helping corporations escape any sort of culpability for their actions? Would they know I'd sold out on the hipster life I could have had waitressing for good benefits and a steady paycheck?

Maybe they did know all that, but they didn't care. The staff at R&R is cool as shit. No one judges you for not looking good in skinny jeans. (Sigh of relief.) They served us icy cold PBR's to accompany our Jenga as quickly and politely as they served the big biker dudes who looked like regulars. (Side note: if you play Jenga, the PBR's are only $2! Sooo cheap!) The punky bouncer type guy, who was wandering around, turned out to be super friendly and chatted with us for a bit on how he was very careful of his spiked bracelets when he was in charge of crowd control. Then when Erin lost the second round of Jenga, the penalty was to ask the bartender his interpretation of the "bases," something we had been debating all night. As embarrassed as Erin was, the bartender totally took it in stride and gave us his honest opinion. Then he decided to help us in our quest for consensus on the subject and asked his friends sitting at the bar their opinion on the matter as well.

We all ended up having an awesome time just playing Jenga and pinball together. There wasn't too many people there (kind of surprising for a Thursday). So there was plenty of room to spread out and be all giggly and silly. I'm looking forward to going back (as soon as I overcome that laziness factor again) and come up with even better dares for the Jenga losers!


Another side note: the decor at R&R is awesome. It's like abandoned warehouse + Victorian haunted house + rock band haven + kookiness. There's the vintage (aka falling apart) brocade couches, the winged guitars hanging from the exposed steel beams, and the gilded frames containing creepy ass pictures with cut out head imposed on... say... a family portrait of the Kennedy's. The scenery is nothing short of entertaining.

NoMA Bond Film Festival... The Ghetto Cousin of Screen on the Green

Last night Erin and I finally ventured out to NoMA for their James Bond film festival and picnic-ed it up. I had meant to come home and help her put our little spread together, but like usual when I have plans, I got stuck at work. Erin came through for the team despite having to prepare the picnic alone! She made guacamole and pita chips (all from scratch), picked up some champers, and re- membered the blanket and cups. I was so thankful. (Thanks again, Erin!) It was exactly what I needed to keep work from putting me into a pouty mood.

I'd been wanting to check it out for awhile, but I had been pretty skeptical of a neighborhood. Not because it is suppose to be a little ghetto, but more because it doesn't really exist yet. NoMA is the brain child of a bunch of developers, and they plan to turn it into a hip, artist-friendly place to live... by 2012. As of June 2008, though, the only things that are out there are some offices (FedEX, XM Radio), the soon-to-be-empty building that did house Artomatic, a McDonalds, a Wendy's, and some abandoned looking buildings and land plots. I thought maybe the venue would be some awesome, hidden plot of land that would give the movie goers a glimpse of what NoMA might be one day. Nope. It's totally just a random plot of land in the midst of all the nothingness and fast food. It is the exact opposite of Screen on the Green (which starts in less than a month!). Instead of well cut grass, you sit on some trimmed down weeds, instead of museums flagging both sides of you, you're squeezed between the intersection of Florida and NY Ave and the Union Station train yards. Instead of the Capitol as your back drop, you've got the glowing view of cars speeding along an overpass. As you take in the environment around you, it just seems pretty blah.

Yet somehow, the whole NoMA film screening owns its crappiness and makes it awesome. There's not too many people there (although more came than I expected) and there's not too many volunteers and you're all united in the fact that you bothered to come out to NE even if you did only venture a block from the metro. It gives the whole thing a fun little community feel. The volunteers walk around offering their own bug spray to anyone who might have forgotten to load up on their own. Then they host an Odd Job contest where anyone who wants to participate can try their luck at throwing 3 old bowler hats at a delapidated Venus statue. Both Erin and I tried, and neither of us got anywhere close to the statue. (Actually, Erin hit a speaker. She was waaaay off.) But just for trying, they give you a little NoMA hat. If you actually ever made the hat land on Venus' head, you'd get a t-shirt, but that is no easy feet. They definitely save money on their t-shirt budget because I imagine they might only give out half a dozen at the most over the whole summer. The free bug spray and the contest aren't even the best parts! When the movie finally starts, they hand out free popcorn to everyone! They don't do that at Screen on the Green. So yea, the Bond Film Festival is kind of crappy, but it's crappy in a great way. They embrace their subpar film screening venue and make it fun anyway. Plus, they keep the subtitles on during the movie so no matter what train or bus or truck comes rolling by, you'll still never miss a word of Bond. I will definitely be back in future weeks!*

*Just for the free popcorn... ok maybe to try my hand at the Odd Job contest again but mostly for the popcorn. Mmmmm buttery.

Dinner at Rice... It appealed to the Asianess in my roomie

So a few weeks back a Julia came down from Baltimore to experience life outside the ghetto. (J/k Julz, you know I just like giving Baltimore a hard time.) So Erin and I figured having Julia in town was a perfect excuse to try a new restaurant. We decided on Rice, which Erin has wanted to eat at basically since the day we moved down to DC. (Erin's a total rice fiend. I wasn't kidding about Rice appealing to her Asianess.)


Rice, like it's sister restaurant Simply Home: Eat Drink, doesn't take reservations so we showed up hoping it wouldn't be packed. Of course it was, but fortunately the staff at Rice moves fast to clear tables and seat new people. A 30 minute wait turned out to be barely 10 minutes. Erin and I had only just ordered a drink by the time we were sat (a testament to how fast the wait staff and hostess were turning tables and to how slow the bartender was in getting to us... boo! stinky bartender!).

Sitting down to the menu turned out to be much harder than getting a table. The menu wasn't huge, but everything on it looked amazing. On top of all the regular meals, there was a list of specials that seemed even more appetizing if that's possible. None of us could decide on just 1 thing! So basically we sat here staring at the menus like this for at least twice as long as it took us to get our table. Finally we decided on some appetizers and various curry entrees.

Julia went with a ginger soup to start, which she adored. Erin got some ginger, fried veggie app. She liked it a lot but was overwhelmed with the portion size. I went with the dumplings filled with crab and other stuff. They were alright, but not particularly crabby. I think next time I would go with a soup. Julia's constant lip smacking and finger licking seemed to indicate that it was waaaay more flavorful than my dumplings.

When the entrees came out, my faith in Rice was completely restored. I went for the green curry chicken. Not only was is it dirt cheap by DC standards (a mere $12), but the portion was great (if only I hadn't wasted some of my appetite on the less than crabtastic dumplings). It was a perfect level spicy, enough to make me pause after every bite and let the heat curl around my mouth before I could take another. Double plus, the rice they give you as a side is suuuuuper delicious. I mean, it makes sense. If Rice was going to do anything right, it should be their rice, and when it comes down to it, they don't disappoint. It's a little sticky and has a nice coconut flavor to it. I'm nowhere near the rice fiend that Erin is, but I'd still have spent all night there finding excuses to have another order of that rice.


Search for J Street's final verdict? Rice has its flaws, but it has a cool ambiance and does Thai food better than probably any other Thai I've had so far in this city. If you go, do not pass up some of their more classic Thai dishes and definitely don't pass up the rice... Mmmmm... riiiiiice.