All posts tagged restaurants

Coming soon to a former Polly’s near (on) U - a burger joint. That delivers! (h/t U Street Girl). No word on opening date. Looking forward to the cowboy theme, however — almost as good as having pirate bar in the neighborhood.

Mexican, Thai, Spanish and a mystery are on their way — and bocce’s here already.

Mexican - a 274-seat tacqueria is coming to 14th St. next to the Black Cat, in the space formerly occupied by Georgetown Refinishing. (Prince of Petworth)

Thai - a new Thai joint, Teak Wood, is coming to the 1300 block of 14th St., below P. (Borderstan)

Spanish - The new pintxos spot, Estadio, is slated to open in minutes. My tastebuds can’t wait. (Metrocurean)

Mystery - The former Garden District spot, once rumored to become a burger joint, then crepe place, then nothing, is seeing activity. A permit notice posted lists “BCI Food Services LLC” as the applicant. (PoP)

Bocce - Vinoteca now has a back patio, complete with bocce court.  (The indomitable PoP)

…Which D.C. restaurant did Mikhail Semenko use to slip intel to his Russian handler?

The Justice Department complaint says that on June 5th, Semenko — one of the 11 alleged Russian “deep cover” spies arrested by FBI agents this week — took a seat at a Washington, D.C. restaurant, and waited to transmit secret data to his Russian handler.

But prosecutors do not name the restaurant, and give only one clue to its identity: It has a parking lot. That’s where, according to the prosecutors, Semenko’s Russian handler, a diplomat, stopped his car for 20 minutes, and then drove away again. (Prosecutors say the diplomat had with him a wireless device that pulled signals being sent from Semenko’s computer.)

So which restaurant was it?  We really need to know — Washington hasn’t had a good spy-friendly joint since Pied de Cochon in Georgetown became a Five Guys. (Pied de Cochon was where KGB spy Vitaly Yurchenko slipped his US handlers by crawling out the bathroom window, whereupon he redefected to the Soviet Union.)

For overnight fans of this spy caper, the complaint offers at least two other landmarks: One, the corner of 10th an H Streets NW (see map), where an FBI undercover agent posing as a Russian handler allegedly arranged to meet Semenko on June 26. (It was a daring spot for a Russian spy to meet, being a stone’s throw from both FBI and Secret Service headquarters.)

The other is a nearby park — whose exact location isn’t given — to which Semenko and the undercover agent walked after meeting up.  The closest large park is Franklin Park, though there are smaller patches of greenery in the vicinity.

A final note on the location of the restaurant: Associated Press reported it was “blocks from the White House,” but that seems unlikely, for two reasons: first, how many restaurants mere blocks from the White House feature their own parking lot? Second, the reporter cites no authority for the characterization, which suggests he extrapolated it (incorrectly) from the complaint. But who knows.