Decorating the Neighborhood: 13th and Fairmont

Kind of hard to see thanks to my iPhone camera skills, but I think this house's decorations are probably my favorite in the neighborhood -- it's tasteful, with trees wrapped in white lights, and there are electric candles in each window. Looks better in person, I promise. You can also see the Christmas tree through the window (though not in this picture). Nicely done.

Volunteer to shovel snow for people in the area

Saw this on some listserves, sounds like a nice way to help folks who are unable to shovel.

Dear Volunteers,

We are in need of volunteers to assist senior citizens with shoveling their sidewalks, walkways, cars, etc. We are expected to be deployed over the next 72 hours...

If you are able to volunteer today and/or over the next three days, please respond by calling Serve DC at 202-727-7925 or email Shilpa Sharma at Shilpa.sharma@dc.gov. In the subject line, write "Snow Removal Volunteer" and in your message please include: First Name, Last Name, Contact Number, Email Address, Availability and what quadrant (NW, SW, NE, and SE) you live in or nearest to.

Thank you for your willingness to serve!

First look at Pho Viet

Last night I went to Pho Viet, the new pho place at 14th and Parkwood that's been open since Thursday. The verdict: pretty good.

The brisket and meatball pho was large but bland at first. However, after some fish sauce, sriracha, and tearing up the basil leaves into the soup, it got very tasty. The brisket was flavorful and the meatballs were alright (though to be fair I'm not a huge fan of the meatballs at Pho 14 either). My friend had the beef eye round and meatballs, and enjoyed the beef eye round especially.

We also got the vegetarian summer rolls, which was also a bit flavorless -- I think the meat version would be better as the veggie version had a lot of unflavored tofu. They don't have banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwiches that Pho 14 has, which is too bad, they have one banh mi sandwich, but they had some interesting sounding non-alcoholic drinks, like Vietnamese espresso and various fruit drinks. Like Pho 14, they don't have a liquor license.

Service was friendly although a little slow and inattentive, but considering the place has only been open 4 days, that's not too surprising. There was a bit of a communication problem as well. It was very also inexpensive -- the most expensive thing on the menu was $8.95, and our dinner for two was $21, including a pot of tea.

I'm not sure it's better than Pho 14, but it is a good alternative, and they do deliver (minimum $15).

Pho Viet is at 3513 14th Street NW. Ph. (202) 629-2839

Kids shop with a cop at Target

Here's some Christmas spirit for you: a nice event at Target the other day: MPD officers took kids from low income homes in DC on a shopping trip, giving them $100 to spend and taking them to see Santa. The money, totaling $17,000, was raised by the DC Police Foundation.

Always nice to see this kind of thing.

Tons of snowmen in the neighborhood

What with the heavy snowfall and nice packability, a bunch of snowmen popped up around the neighborhood, from the huge to the weird. Here's a few I spotted.

13th and Harvard, and Clifton Street:


13th between Girard and Fairmont:

Target now open 7 am-midnight

If you still need to do some last minute shopping, all Target stores are open 7 am to midnight. I called to confirm that the Target at DCUSA is doing it as well, and they are.

Get ready for the rush!

Awesome snow fort at 13th and Harvard

Saw this this morning, pretty rad. It's about 3 or 4 feet high.



There's also lots of neat and often very big snowmen around. I'll start posting them the next few days, along with more Christmas lights.