RSS FeedRAMMY Award Winners Include Four Five PQ/Downtown Restos
DC foodies (including us) eagerly await the RAMMYs about this time of the year as it is the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s equivalent of the Oscars or the Grammys awarding accolades to the top restaurants in Washington for the year’s efforts. As usual, there was a slate of nominees from the Penn Quarter and downtown with four five restaurants emerging as the winners from that pool. We’ve eaten at all four of the winners who grace our neighborhood and want to say congrats to them all! Well deserved, we say!
Chef of the Year: Vikram Sunderland – Rasika, 641 D St NW
Rising Culinary Star: Ed Witt – 701 Restaurant, 701 Pennsylvania Ave NW
New Restaurant: Fiola – 601 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Pastry Chef: Fabrice Pendano – Adour (in the St. Regis Hotel), 923 16th St NW
Ed. Note: Not in our original post, we need to mention that McCormick & Schmick’s was the WHERE Magazine Visitors’ Choice Award. The steakhouse has locations nationwide with three locations in downtown DC.
Athletic Drinking
I’m not much of a sports fan, but even I can admit that gathering together at a neighborhood favorite with a bunch of die-hard sports fans makes drinking (and sports) more enjoyable. Here are just a few winning combinations to enjoy this week.
Euro 2012 Semis: Spain vs. Portugal
June 27 at 2:45pm
Jaleo (480 7th Street, NW) is showing the game and offering a free glass of sangria if Spain wins. Hint: Plan to cheer for Spain.
Fado (808 7th Street NW) is also showing the match today, as well as all of the matches in the Championship.
Pilates on the Patio
Poste Moderne Brasserie (555 8th Street NW ) – a little stretching followed by bending of the arm with a cocktail.
Saturdays at 10:00 am
June 16 through July 21
$19.00
Reserve your spot here.
Wimbledon
Invite your friends over for strawberries and cream and Pimm’s Cup on July 7 and 8 for the Wimbledon championships (on ESPN (live) and ABC (delayed))!
Penn Quarter/DC Link Roundup: Heard In The ‘Hood
Follow PQ Living via Facebook here and Twitter here. Our Flickr tag is pqliving.
A lot happened this week in Penn Quarter this last week. Here’s what we were reading recently about neighborhood news in DC. Have something to add? Leave it in the comments!
Tips? Send them in confidentiality to: pqliving [at] gmail.com
Penn Quarter – The Riot Act (8th and E St NW) just could not make a go of it as an all comedy venue. They’re switching formats to be come Penn Social, what looks to be a mix of indoor bar games run by United Social Sports, performance acts of some kind on the stage, and a plain old bar. Please, no wagering. [WaPo]
Penn Quarter/Downtown – Zola (8th and F St NW) and Potenza (14th and H St NW) of the Stir Food Group will be shuttering those operations on June 30 and August 18 respectively. Potenza’s space will see Vidalia’s restauranteur take over that venue. Both were “go to” restaurants for us so we’re sad to see them go but look forward to a new incarnation. [Washington CityPaper] & [Washington Business Journal]
Penn Quarter – As expected, Minibar officially announced their moving into the former Zola Wine & Kitchen space at 9th and E St NW. [Eater DC] & [WaPo]
Chinatown – The Verizon Center signage legislation had its day in front of a DC Council Committee. It must have risen to a certain level of importance because it made it onto Ted Leonsis’ calendar. [WaPo]
Chinatown – Capital Q on H St NW between 6th and 7th is closing. This BBQ joint is the least expensive BBQ option in the neighborhood, is a pre-2005 boom business citizen, and we’re sad to see it go. [Eater DC]
Penn Quarter – We long for the days that we could play Putt Putt Golf (mini golf) and it used to be that a quick drive to Ballston would do the trick to get to the nearest windmill hole. Now, the National Building Museum comes up with an indoor pop-up mini-golf course for fun the whole family can enjoy beginning July 4. (Side note: Putt Putt, founded in 1954, is still in business…the closest course to DC is in Charlottesville.) [Huffington Post]
Mount Vernon Triangle – Buddha Bar on Massachusetts Ave NW closes abruptly after two years of being in business. [The Triangle]
Penn Quarter – It doesn’t have a name yet but Daisuke Utagawa weighs in on what the Japanese cocktail bar will and won’t be at 6th and F St NW. He also updates on Daikaya, the ramen/izakaya project on 6th Street NW next to Graffiato. [Eater DC]
Real Estate Corner: May’s PQ Market Data
MVTResident is a realtor in the Capitol Hill office of Long & Foster who lives in the Mount Vernon Triangle and is experienced with downtown DC real estate.
Most buyers looking for condos in Penn Quarter become quickly aware of the fact that the inventory is not large. My company, Long and Foster, looks at the real estate market on a monthly basis by neighborhood (combining Penn Quarter with Shaw). I will be sharing the market data monthly in this post as a focus on this neighborhoods housing market.
The number of units sold in May was 52. This number is down 12 percent from the same time last year. Also down a great deal is the active inventory which was 86 units -46 percent lower than last year. And with the lower supply has come an increase in prices with the median May sales price in the neighborhood of $508,705 – up approximately 18 percent from last year’s median price of $432,600. And, sellers will be happy to know that May sales showed a decrease in the number of days homes stayed on the market – down 30 percent from last year’s average of 50 days to our current average of 35 days on the market.
In May, Penn Quarter and Shaw had 1.7 months of supply. This number demonstrates how long it would take to sell the current properties on the market if the current rate of demand stayed the same. The average sales price for our neighborhood in May was 100.2 percent of the average list price.