Food Bloggers Gettin LOOSE!!!

We'll be getting a taste of China's Sichuan Province next week because Jason "Foodgeek" Yaskoir of DC Füd is hosting September's DC Food Blogger Happy Hour at Mala Tang in Arlington. If you write about food/drink or simply love to talk about it, this event will feel like home. The festivities begin at 6:00 pm sharp. And don't forget to bring your business card. 

Kitty O'Shea's: “Saturday, August 27, is our last day of operation..."

"Feel free to express your displeasure with Schupp Companies – Park Street Development.”

(hat tip: ARLnow.com)

Next Song for the Jukebox

The DC Craft Bartender's Guild Presents The 4th Annual Rickey Competition at Jack's Rose: "Don't Drink Too Many..."

Image: David Wondrich via Twitter

Jack's Rose in Adam's Morgan hosted this year's DC Craft Bartender's Guild's Rickey Competition. Each drink from each competitor could have been the winner and the finale took place in one beautiful saloon. Last year, Alex Bookless became the district's queen of the Rickey. This year, Gina Chesevani went home the champion.

A couple of personal favorites for me were Julia Hurst's Rubarbra Streisand and Alexandra Nichols' Riquitita. 

Congratulations to Gina for her winning drink, Rapture of the Rickey! She had a wonderful cocktail and continues to churn out delicious tipples.

Slate's Farhad Manjoo Is Sick of Your Restaurant's Terrible Website

Farhan Manjoo really wants restaurateurs to bring more common sense to their restaurant's web presence. He begins his Slate piece (titled "Overdone: Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad?,") by chopping at Fleur de Lys' obnoxious website. He writes:

"The first thing that pops up when you visit the website of the San Francisco restaurant Fleur de Lys is a nearly full-screen animation of celebrity chef Hubert Keller's autograph. That makes sense—when I'm choosing a restaurant, the first thing I want to know is, Can the chef sign his name?"

BURN. Read up on the other scathing website critiques by Manjoo as well as those websites that he gives a solid passing grade. They are quite entertaining.

"The pisco people believe that a rising viscous tide will lift all ships..."

"In that spirit, Peru's de facto pisco ambassador to the United States is one Johnny Schuler, who is hustling Pisco Portón as an 'ultra-premium' brand and product-placing bottles adjacent to Shakira's authoritative writhing in music videos. This is not to slight the efforts of Peru's actual ambassador to the United States, whose office is helping to promote Macchu Pisco and who, just the other night, plied the noted trendsetter Antonin Scalia with pisco sours."

Our Adventure at Iberostar's Grand Hotel Rose Hall Resort in Jamaica. "Ya Mon!"

Thousands of gallons of water pressed down and around me at the decompression stop. Bubbles rushed around my face from the air regulator in my mouth. I was feeling ill but calmly designed a plan of action in my mind for the moment I couldn’t take it anymore. “How did I get here,” I thought to myself as that moment approached. My eyes, sealed behind a diving mask, frantically locked with Nicole’s only a few feet away. Here I was, scuba diving in the middle of the ocean in Jamaica, and we were a long way from home…

Everybody Loves Rickey

Tomorrow night they announce the winner for the DC Craft Bartenders Guild's annual Rickey Competition. The party is at Jack Rose on 18th street in northwest at the edge of Adam's Morgan and it starts at 6:00 pm. I'll be very excited to try some of the new approaches to DC's native cocktail. I'll also be interested in checking out Jack Rose which has gained a healthy buzz in the city lately. 

The DCist posted the finalists which I've reposted below.

- Riquitita, Alexandra Nichols (Estadio)
- Rapture of the Rickey, Gina Chersevani (PS7's)
- Plum Rickey, Jason Strich (Rasika)
- August Rickey, Chantal Tseng (Tabard Inn)
- Rhubarbra Streisand, Julia Hurst (The Passenger)
- Summer Lovin' Rickey, David Fritzler (Tryst)

Congratulations to all of the finalists and good luck.

Readers can look for my report on this event in the coming days.