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Year in review: A taste of Washington

Sampling many of the new restaurants in D.C. this year kept one food fan busy

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Grassroots Gourmet, dining, gay news, Washington Blade
Grassroots Gourmet, dining, gay news, Washington Blade

A sampling of the array of baked goodies available at Grassroots Gourmet (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

New restaurants, new chefs, new menus and new food all kept a food lover and restaurant column writer busy this year in D.C.

Every day a new place was opening, some I was able to review, others are still on my list. When all was said and done however, I had the opportunity to dine in some of the best restaurants in town and enjoy some of the finest food offerings available. And in the process I got to expand my own horizons.

Since taking on this project, friends and family have asked how such a picky eater has taken on the task of reviewing restaurants. The answer is always the same: “I fell into it, but why does being picky disqualify me from writing about restaurants?”

Then, in August, I realized that I may be in a bit over my head, so I brought two knowledgeable foodies to Izakaya Seki, the first restaurant I was concerned about not being knowledgeable enough to cover fairly.

Izakaya Seki opened in August by father and daughter Hiroshi and Cizuka Seki; this new establishment features traditional Japanese dishes and delicacies. Delicacies such as cuttlefish; at that point I had no idea how it was even supposed to taste. Other items like the fresh scallop Carpaccio were delightful and set the tone for three hours of delicious food. Izakaya Seki still remains one of my most challenging and rewarding columns to date.

While Japanese cuisine was outside my comfort zone, there were many other restaurants this year I felt well prepared to write about. Ristorante Posto, in Logan Circle, was serving a new spring selections when I first set foot into this unsuspecting location, and a new pastry chef was dishing out delicious deserts. The pastry chef has since left, but Posto remains a favorite spot for delicious Italian food and brick oven pizzas. In May, at a Taste of Pride featured special, I discovered Jack Rose Dining Saloon. The food was excellent and in an environment where whiskey bottles reached toward the ceiling, I discovered I enjoy scotch.

Mike Isabella, gay chef Jamie Leeds, and Taylor Gourmet all opened new locations this year. Isabella’s Bandolero in Georgetown serves up his take on traditional Mexican dishes and strong margaritas. Standouts included the course we dubbed “Mexican Sushi,” like the blue crab taquito with coconut and red chili. The suckling pig tacos and the nachos with crispy goat and goat cheese also pleased all the diners at the table.

For Leeds, and her new Hank’s on the Hill she teamed up with “mixtress” Gina Chersevani, whose Eddy Bar is a key component of the new space. This new 40-seat location serves up Leed’s classics like the lobster roll and the Meat and Two option, as well as Chersevani’s exquisite “storytelling” cocktails. Longtime friends Casey Patton and David Mazza opened up a third Taylor Gourmet on 14th Street this year. These traditional Philadelphia-inspired sandwiches battled against sandwich shop Sun-de-Vich — Taylor won for best cold cut-based sandwiches and Sun-de-Vich won for its creative and worldly offerings. Sandwich lovers are in for a treat at either location.

Carnivores also have plenty of new options.

Gay business partners David Winer, Josh Hahn and Antonio Oquendo opened their fifth restaurant in D.C. called The Pig, a pork-centric restaurant that focuses on snout-to-tail dishes from locally sourced ingredients. The braised pork cheek was a favorite and if you’re up for the challenge, try the Sundae Bloody Sundae that includes pasteurized pig’s blood. Another meat-lovers paradise is Kangaroo Boxing Club in Columbia Heights. If you love barbeque, then there’s a dish on the menu for you here.

This year 14th Street began its transformation into a prime dining location. Pearl Dive Oyster Palace opened just over a year ago, the new Matchbox has opened, Ted’s Bulletin and many others are scheduled to open in the near future. Part of this transformation includes the new Masa 14 rooftop, which opened at the start of the summer. Masa 14 also welcomed new executive chef Adam Goldman to the mix at this Latin-Asian fusion restaurant. Another newcomer to the street called The Drafting Table has become the new local gastro pub in the former ACKC space.

No dinner is complete without a little sweetness at the end. I can never review a restaurant without at least a sampling of the desserts. One of my favorite meals this year took place at gay-helmed Art and Soul. We all had delicious entrees and to finish up the party, we tasted most of the items on the dessert menu. And to end my reviews for the year, I sampled all the delicious sweets available at Bloomingdale bakery Grassroots Gourmet. Every item at this gay-owned and -operated bakery was divine. A sweet ending to a year filled with delicious food and reviews.

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Theater

Trans performer, juggler premiering one-woman show

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Lucy Eden stars in ‘Circus of the Self’ at Spooky Action Theater.  (Photo courtesy of Spooky Action Theater)  

Circus of the Self
May 29-June 6
Spooky Action Theater
1810 16th St., N.W.
Pay-What-You-Can: May 2
All other performances: $35
Spookyaction.org

For Lucy Eden, tricks have proved a way into theater.

The Oakland, Calif.-based trans performer and juggler is premiering her one-woman show “Circus of the Self” at Spooky Action Theater in conjunction with WorldPride. 

Directed by Spooky Action’s artistic director Elizabeth Dinkova, the autobiographical busking show is a unique blend of circus and serious storytelling.   

Juggler first met director several years ago in Atlanta. Eden explains, “She was working at a theater down the street from the juggling club where I spent a lot of time. She needed people for a street fair. I agreed. Another collaboration soon followed.” 

Previously, Eden had worked mostly as a roaming performer at Atlanta corporate events and street style pre-game shows for the Braves: “Those environments were a good way to work on material, to learn what tricks make people stop their talking and turn their attention to me,” she says.

Now based in Oakland, Calif., Eden, 40, has created a 77-minute-long one-woman show infused with burlesque, expert juggling, and a personal, sometimes difficult, story.  

While she hesitates to say it’s the obligation of all trans people to tell their stories, she says, “In these times, if you get the opportunity, I believe you ought to take it.” 

Recently, she took a break from preparations, to talk life and showbiz.

BLADE: How exactly did you learn circus tricks? 

EDEN: I’m autodidactic. I taught myself to juggle in the last semester of college. Things had gone wrong and I was looking for distraction. So, when I found a “three ball learn to juggle” kit, I never looked back. That lead to advanced juggling, unicycling, and balancing objects on my face. 

Things began to look up. Today, I try to resist everything in my life going back to circus tricks, it almost always does. 

BLADE: It sounds almost preordained. 

EDEN: For sure. It changed everything. Circus skills force you to face your own failure. When you drop a ball, you can’t convince yourself or the audience that it didn’t happen. Performing, like life, forces you to develop capacities to deal with internal and external failures. 

It teaches us not take ourselves, societal rules, or the idea of what’s success too seriously. 

BLADE: Juggling at a cocktail party to baring your past before a rapt audience must be quite a stretch.

EDEN: It is, but rather than making a dramatic leap, I leveraged the fun and draw of circus to engage people in a more difficult conversation. 

BLADE: Spooky Action’s website warns about “frank discussions of transphobia and mental health.” 

EDEN: Well yeah, I grew up in rural Georgia in the 1990s. You can only imagine. Trans is integral to my identity, and a hot button term right now. I think everyone sees and hears a lot of things about trans people that don’t in fact come from actual trans people. 

A big part of why I wrote this show and brought it to D.C. is because I really want audiences to have as intimate and revealing look at me as a trans persona as I can give them. I think it’s only through knowing that we can get beyond all the noise, misinformation, and fear mongering.  

BLADE: Lately I hear a lot of artists bandying about the term “queer joy.” Woolly’s website uses the term in describing aspects of your show. What does it mean to you?

EDEN: It’s an important thingfor us all to be focused on right now, but we’re in a place where joy is hard to access. So, to me, it’s complex; it’s an important yet nuanced pursuit. 

BLADE: As a part of the vast and promising WorldPride (through June 8) entertainment lineup, what makes your show stand out?

EDEN: It’s fun. I wrote “Circus of the Self” with a queer audience in mind. I spend a lot of time and creative energy performing for a general audience. I want this to be different. As far as I know, there’s nothing quite like my show out there. 

There are a lot of shows that are a combination of storytelling and circus parts but they tend to be surface level entertainment. I think of this as more standup with circus layered on; it’s modeled after queer comedians like Hannah Gadsby and Tig Notaro whose work is driven more by personality than jokes. 

I have tried to write a show for a queer audience. It has all the things I need to see for myself but never have.

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Movies

‘Things Like This’ embraces formula and plus-size visibility

Enjoyable queer romcom challenges conventions of the genre

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Max Talisman and Joey Pollari star in 'Things Like That.' (Image courtesy of MPX Releasing/Big Picture Collective)

There’s a strange feeling of irony about a spring movie season stacked with queer romcoms – a genre that has felt conspicuously absent on the big screen since the disappointing reception met by the much-hyped “Bros” in 2022 – at a time when pushback against LGBTQ visibility is stronger than it’s been for 40 years.

Sure, part of the reason is the extended timeline required for filmmaking, which tells us, logically, that the numerous queer love stories hitting theaters this year – including the latest, the Manhattan-set indie “Things Like This,” which opened in limited theaters last weekend – began production long before the rapid cultural shift that has taken place in America since a certain convicted fraudster’s return to the White House. 

That does not, however, make them any less welcome; on the contrary, they’re a refreshing assertion of queer existence that serves to counter-balance the hateful, politicized rhetoric that continues to bombard our community every day. In fact, the word “refreshing” is an apt description of “Things Like This,” which not only celebrates the validity – and joy – of queer love but does so in a story that disregards “Hollywood” convention in favor of a more authentic form of inclusion than we’re ever likely to see in a mainstream film

Written, starring, and directed by Max Talisman and set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, it’s the story of two gay men named Zack – Zack #1 (Talisman) is a plus-sized hopeful fantasy author with a plus-sized personality and a promising-but-unpublished first novel, and Zack #2 (Joey Pollari) an aspiring talent agent dead-ended as an assistant to his exploitative “queen-bee” boss (Cara Buono) – who meet at an event and are immediately attracted to each other. Though Zack #2 is resigned to his unsatisfying relationship with longtime partner Eric (Taylor Trensch), he impulsively agrees to a date the following night, beginning an on-again/off-again entanglement that causes both Zacks to re-examine the trajectories of their respective lives – and a lot of other heavy baggage – even as their tentative and unlikely romance feels more and more like the workings of fate.

Like most romcoms, it relies heavily on familiar tropes – adjusted for queerness, of course – and tends to balance its witty banter and starry-eyed sentiment with heart-tugging setbacks and crossed-wire conflicts, just to raise the stakes. The Zacks’ attempts at getting together are a series of “meet-cutes” that could almost be described as fractal, yet each of them seems to go painfully awry – mostly due to the very insecurities and self-doubts which make them perfect for each other. The main obstacle to their couplehood, however, doesn’t spring from these mishaps; it’s their own struggles with self-worth that stand in the way, somehow making theirs more of a quintessentially queer love story than the fact that both of them are men.

All that introspection – relatable as it may be – can be a downer without active energy to stir things up, but fortunately for “Things Like This,” there are the inevitable BFFs and extended circle of friends and family that can help to get the fun back on track. Each Zack has his own support team backing him up, from a feisty “work wife” (Jackie Cruz, “Orange is the New Black”) to a straight best friend (Charlie Tahan, “Ozark”) to a wise and loving grandma (veteran scene-stealer Barbara Barrie, “Breaking Away” and countless vintage TV shows) – that fuels the story throughout, providing the necessary catalysts to prod its two neurotic protagonists into taking action when they can’t quite get there themselves.

To be sure, Talisman’s movie – his feature film debut as a writer and director – doesn’t escape the usual pitfalls of the romcom genre. There’s an overall sense of “wish fulfillment fantasy” that makes some of its biggest moments seem a bit too good to be true, and there are probably two or three complications too many as it approaches its presumed happy ending; in addition, while it helps to drive the inner conflict for Zack #2’s character arc, throwing a homophobic and unsupportive dad (Eric Roberts) into the mix feels a bit tired, though it’s hard to deny that such family relationships continue to create dysfunction for queer people no matter how many times they’re called out in the movies – which means that it’s still necessary, regrettably, to include them in our stories.

And in truth, “calling out” toxic tropes – the ones that reflect society’s negative assumptions and perpetuate them through imitation – is part of Talisman’s agenda in “Things Like This,” which devotes its very first scene to shutting down any objections from “fat shamers” who might decry the movie’s “opposites attract” scenario as unbelievable. Indeed, he has revealed in interviews that he developed the movie for himself because of the scarcity of meaningful roles for plus-sized actors, and his desire to erase such conventional prejudices extends in every direction within his big-hearted final product.

Even so, there’s no chip-on-the-shoulder attitude to sour the movie’s spirit; what helps us get over its sometimes excessive flourishes of idealized positivity is that it’s genuinely funny. The dialogue is loaded with zingers that keep the mood light, and even the tensest scenes are laced with humor, none of which feels forced. For this, kudos go to Talisman’s screenplay, of course, but also to the acting – including his own. He’s eminently likable onscreen, with wisecracks that land every time and an underlying good cheer that makes his appeal even more visible; crucially, his chemistry with Pollari – who also manages to maintain a lightness of being at his core no matter how far his Zack descends into uncertainty – isn’t just convincing; it’s enviable.

Cruz is the movie’s “ace in the hole” MVP as Zack #2’s under-appreciated but fiercely loyal bestie, and Buono’s hilariously icy turn as his “boss from hell” makes for some of the film’s most memorable scenes. Likewise, Tahan, along with Margaret Berkowitz and Danny Chavarriaga, flesh out Zack #1’s friend group with a real sense of camaraderie that should be recognizable to anyone who’s ever been part of an eclectic crew of misfits. Trensch’s comedic “ickiness” as Zack #2’s soon-to-be-ex makes his scenes a standout; and besides bigger-name “ringers” Roberts and Barrie (whose single scene is the emotional climax of the movie), there’s also a spotlight-grabbing turn by Diane Salinger (iconic as Francophile dreamer Simone in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”) as the owner of a queer bar where the Zacks go on one of their dates.

With all that enthusiasm and a momentum driven by a sense of DIY empowerment, it’s hard to be anything but appreciative of “Things Like This,” no matter how much some of us might cringe at its more unbelievable romcom devices. After all, it’s as much a “feel-good” movie as it is a love story, and the fact that we actually do feel good when the final credits role is more than enough to earn it our hearty recommendation.

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Calendar

Calendar: May 23-29

LGBTQ events in the days to come

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Friday, May 23

“Center Aging Monthly Luncheon and Yoga” will be at 12 p.m. in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. For more details, email [email protected]

Trans Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group is intended to provide an emotionally and physically safe space for trans people and those who may be questioning their gender identity and/or expression. For more details, email [email protected]

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Happy Hour” at 7 p.m. at DIK Bar. This event is ideal for making new friends, professional networking, idea-sharing, and community building. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite

Saturday, May 24

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ community, including Allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Black Lesbian Mixer will be at 11 a.m. on Zoom. This is a support group dedicated to the joys of being a Black lesbian. For more details, email [email protected]

Sunday, May 25

“The Queen’s Table: A Women’s Empowerment Brunch” will be at 11 a.m. at Zooz. This event will celebrate queer women’s strength. For more details visit Eventbrite

Monday, May 26

“Center Aging Monday Coffee and Conversation” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected]

Tuesday, May 27

Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary. Whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know you’re not 100 percent cis — this is your group. For more details, visit genderqueerdc.org or Facebook

Coming Out Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This support group is a safe space to share experiences about coming out and discuss topics as it relates to doing so. For more details, visit the group’s Facebook

Wednesday, May 28

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.

Thursday, May 29

The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. To be fairer with who is receiving boxes, the program is moving to a lottery system. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245. 

Virtual Yoga with Charles M. will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a free weekly class focusing on yoga, breathwork, and meditation. For more details, visit the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s website.

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