In middle school, we all learned about the Native American custom of not wasting a single part of a slain animal. Apparently, 1789′s relatively new executive chef Anthony Lombardo subscribes to that same idea, and is sticking parts of the animal not classy enough for 1789 into your Tombs menu.

According to an article posted yesterday on Washington City Paper‘s food blog Young and Hungry (where we also got that delightful photo to the left), Lombardo sends the “scraps,” or pieces of meat not classy enough to make it into 1789′s $36 lamb shank, downstairs to the Tombs’s kitchen, where head chef Frederick Valentin repurposes them for less expensive bar food. The Tombs’s lamb burger, lamb ragu, and bratwursts (made from, as described by WCP, nondescript “pig parts”) are all part of these waste-not options.

Although the restaurants expect to see some reduction in costs with this system, it was by no means a purely financial decision. It’s also enhancing what Lombardo describes as Tombs eaters’s “gastronomical experience.” Because personally, that’s what comes to mind when I think of beef scraps.

Washington City Paper’s Best of D.C. 2011 lets staff and reader picks for their favorite random spots in the District. Georgetown was home to three staff picks and six reader picks.

Staff Picks

Best Way-Far-Off-The-Beaten-Path Museum – National Pinball Museum

Best Eatery to Attract Lemmings – Georgetown Cupcake

Best Place to Buy a Bridesmaid’s Dress – Hitched

Reader Picks

Best Vintage Clothing Store – Tari

Best Local College or University – Georgetown University

Best Salad – Sweetgreen

Best Cupcake – Baked & Wired

Best Place to Buy Fur Handcuffs – Pleasure Place

Best Neighborhood for Shopping – Georgetown

Anything missing here? What are your picks for “Worst of D.C.?” Where is the best fish taco in Washington?

h/t: GeorgetownPatch

We bet you wake up every day and think, “If there’s one thing Georgetown’s missing, it’s pancakes. And if there’s two things Georgetown’s missing, it’s pancakes and another clothing store.”

Well, today must be your lucky day.

Last week, Washington City Paper‘s Lydia DePillis reported that former NFL defensive lineman Tyoka Jackson may open an International House of Pancakes in Georgetown. Jackson, who runs Jackson Investment Companies with his father and brother, already opened an IHOP in Congress Heights, and has plans to open a location in Columbia Heights.

But, don’t get too excited just yet. Jackson told City Paper that he’s also considering Deanwood, a neighborhood in Northeast D.C.

While Vox would love to make pancake runs during the school year, we don’t like Jackson’s chances. Between the Old Georgetown Board, the Neighborhood Advisory Commission, and a few ever-cranky residents, another late-night restaurant in Georgetown seems unlikely. (Remember the Philly P’s debacle?)

On the clothing front, City Paper‘s Erin Petty broke the news that Madewell will open in Georgetown later this year. The J. Crew offshoot will replace the recently shuttered Puma at 1237 Wisconsin Avenue NW. Petty describes Madewell as “downtown styles at uptown prices,” and since we’re fashion-blind we’ll take her word for it.

Photo by Flickr user pinksherbet used under a Creative Commons license.

Pegged to the story of Eric Sheptock, a homeless man in D.C. who has blogged about homeless issues all the way to CNN, NPR, and the Washington Post, the Washington City Paper has put together a guide of where to go in the District to access the Internet for free if you don’t have a computer.

Barring the D.C. Public Library system, which maintains about 600 free computers, or, not nearly enough to service the 40 percent of residents in City Wards 5, 7, and 8, WCP has put Georgetown’s Lauinger Library first in that guide:

“The best place in the area for virtually unlimited, unmonitored computer use. In what Georgetown officials say is ‘a conscious effort to reach out to the community and the city,’ the library is open daily from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. to anyone with a photo ID. On the main floor are 45 computers equipped with Windows Vista and available to anyone, though they tend to be for short-term use.

“The real sweet spot is downstairs. Open 24 hours most days (closed between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday nights), the basement’s Gelardin New Media Center has roughly 65 computers with a basic version of Windows; the chairs are soft, the lighting not too bright, and the computers all come with keyboard wrist pads.”

Flattering us further, reporter Amanda Abrams gives props to the Corp: “Best is the second-floor café, which is open until 2 a.m. many nights and offers dirt-cheap bagels with cream cheese,” she writes. While service can be notoriously slow at said café, Midnight Mug, we have to agree, those are some damn good, cheap bagels.

But a few points of information, D.C. residents: Not all 65 downstairs computers are available for anyone to use. Any computers that do extra stuff—video editing and scanning, for instance—required a Georgetown login that only students and employees have.

And Abrams incorrectly reports that through clever navigation of our “idiosyncratic entry scheme for outsiders,” you can enter the Library at 10:45 p.m., just before they start turning away outsiders, and “no one will care whether you’re a student or not.” In fact, the Department of Public Safety scours the Library almost every evening checking to see if you have a University ID once it’s time for outsiders to leave. If you don’t, adios.

Still, she closes with strong advice.

“[G]et ready for sensory deprivation—if you spend too much time in the windowless Gelardin Center, it will start to feel like a dungeon.”

Want a shot at your own 15 seconds of internet micro-micro-fame? Start following us on Twitter (GtownVoxPop) and, if you’re connected to Georgetown, we’ll return the favor and you’ll automatically be in the running!

Former Voicer Phil Perry was impressed by JT Jr.’s patriotic lunch choice.

Mara Hollander was unimpressed by the little store’s meat options.

Read the rest of this entry »

Abstinence or else!

This week’s City Paper cover story focuses on our coreligionists at Catholic University and the implications of an alleged sexual assault for their extraordinarily doctrinaire sex policy. The ending focuses on an extremely disturbing case of alleged rape, but the bulk of the piece is spent detailing what exactly a sexual conduct policy for a more pious Catholic college looks like:

• Sex is technically punishable by probation or even expulsion (although, during the 2006-7 school year, the only year statistics are available, there was not a single incident of sexual misconduct on the books).
• Not only are contraceptives banned on campus (obvs), students are encouraged to go to events like a talk on “Natural Family Planning” which involved “[t]his husband-and-wife team [coming] to my dorm lobby and [telling] us all how to avoid pregnancy naturally—by going in and measuring your mucus levels.”
• Masturbation is not allowed, either (although, shockingly, they’ve had a tough time enforcing that).
• Sexual assault is included in the same category of violation as consensual premarital sex, masturbation, and the use of contraceptives.

Next time you complain about having to schlep out to CVS for condoms, keep in mind it could be so, so much worse.

CUA Tower Blogs reports that unidentified perpetrators have destroyed, stolen, and tossed thousands of editions of its newspaper, The Tower. The comic shown above, which appeared in The Tower in response to an ongoing campus discussion about gay rights and the Catholic church, was taped to the door of The Tower‘s office, before which an unknown also suspect placed several shredded newspapers.

But whatcha gonna do about it? City Paper reports that because the papers are free, the Metropolitan Police Department doesn’t consider the incident theft. Tower members aren’t satisfied with Catholic University’s response, either. Its Editor-in-Chief told City Paper:

“University administrations, have only offered consolation, saying there is not much they can do, other than it might be a violation in the student code of the University. Our Department of Public Safety has been of little help. They have disregarded our requests to see the video tapes and have said that the investigation will take a long time and not to expect any answers. Our staff has conducted our own investigation and has been able to determine who the culprit(s) may have been, but without seeing the tapes, we can not pursue anything.”

Washinton City Paper faced this same problem when its publisher caught a vendor wrapping fruit with its issues.

In its heyday, the then ultra-conservative Georgetown Academy got a similarly disappointing response from Georgetown University administrators when several of its issues wound up in the trash. Their solution? Get a U.S. News & World Report columnist on the case.

Photo from CUA Tower Blog.

Who, Georgetown? You should totally date him.

If you’ve been following Georgetown’s ascension through the manly ranks of the D.C. area, it’ll please you to hear that once City Paper’s Amanda Hess allowed that we out-manlied the Brookings Institute, we testosteroned past the Heritage Foundation in her Manliest in the D.C. Workplace bracket to become the manliest thing on D.C.’s think-tank and academia scene.

But that’s the end of the line, says Hess: no one out-brawns the U.S. Senate.

“Bros before hos”

In October, I used a method developed by City Paper’s Amanda Hess to see which Georgetown publication is manliest. Yesterday, Hess ran the numbers on the University administration and it’s almost a sweep for patriarchy:

Though the mascot of D.C.’s most prestigious university, the Hoya (or “What”), reeks of namby-pamby intellectualism, its unofficial representative, the Bulldog (or “Mean, Scrappy Animal”) restores the institution’s manliness.

President John J. DeGioia (Male, 10 points)
Provost James J. O’Donnell (Male, 9 points)
Interim Dean, G’town College Chester L. Gillis (Male, 8 points)
Dean, Grad. School Timothy A. Barbari (Male, 7 points)
Dean, Walsh School Robert L. Gallucci (Male, 6 points)
Dean, McDonough School George G. Daly (Male, 5 points)
Dean, School of Contin. Studies Robert L. Manuel (Male, 4 points)
Dean of Students Todd A. Olson (Male, 3 points)
Director of Athletics Bernard M. Muir (Male, 2 points)
Office of Int’l Prog. Dir. Katherine Bellows (Female, ZERO)

That’s nearly a perfect score, and too glass-ceilinged for the Brookings Institution to compete with.

Photo from Flickr user World Economic Forum used under a Creative Commons license

Creative Loafing, the national chain of alt-weeklies which purchased the Chicago Reader and the Washington City Paper in July 2007, is filing for bankruptcy.  CP editor Erik Wemple announced the news on City Desk, the City Paper‘s news blog, this morning.

A corporate memo released this morning captured the rationale for the move: “The term ‘bankruptcy’ conjures up all kinds of images and demons but it is essentially a legal proceeding designed to give an over-leveraged company the time, process and a safe harbor for which to reorganize its finances. Chapter 11 was the natural place for the Company to go to accomplish an orderly reorganization of our finances.”

…

“This filing has little to do with the acquisition and everyone should feel very proud of what we’ve accomplished,” reads the company memo. “It hasn’t been easy but it has been successful. The assumptions we made have not turned out to be so successful. The print business has been under siege from all quarters with the exception of the one place that counts; audience.”

I’m not sure how the acquisition itself can be successful while the assumptions Creative Loafing made—presumably upon which the acquisition was based—were not.  I also don’t really buy the “print is dying” argument as a rationale for Creative Loafing’s troubles.  Even though print revenue has been declining, the City Paper and the Reader are still profitable newspapers, as they have been since the ’80′s.  Considering that web advertising now only makes up roughly 5% of the City Paper‘s overall revenue, it seems to me like Eason may have jumped the gun by switching to a “web-first” model so soon.

On the bright side, at least the editorial cuts mentioned in the Voice‘s feature on the City Paper last week are going to be put off for a while.