First piece of inspiration for our living room wall! Check out the design sponge link. 
A mystery person (seriously, I don't know who wrote this) has compiled a list of updates to our neighborhood restaurant scene. Team purple house is pretty excited at the prospects of the new places and in a new turn of events, hopeful that it means great things for our property values.
Du Vin Osteria - Opening in mid-July, Du Vin Osteria will offer French cuisine, specializing in small plates. They’ll be enough space for nearly 200 inside, and patio seating for 28. (1401 Florida Avenue, NW)
Cork & Fork - Anna and Dominique Landragin will open a third outpost of their popular Cork & Fork wine shop - and their first in DC -this spring. Dominique is an internationally recognized award-winning wine maker, viticulturist, vigneron (grape grower) and wine consultant. Anna has become an experienced chef and as part of her management and operation responsibilities at Cork & Fork, she provides advice on wine and food pairings and preparation through demonstrations, as well as how to plan wine-tasting parties at home. The shop will stock hard-to-find small-production wines from across the globe, as well as those from local vineyards. (14th & Church Streets, NW; Washington, DC)
Diamond District Seafood Company - Chef and sustainability advocate Barton Seaver hopes to open his newest venture - a combination restaurant and seafood market in Logan Circle. Occupying the space that previously housed retailer 100% Mexico, Diamond District Seafood Company will offer seating for 125, along with the potential for a small patio. The second floor will provide a venue for private dining. D.C. architecture and design company Core is creating the restaurant’s look. On the menu look for an extensive raw bar selection, as well as a variety of mussel offerings and sustainable fish species. The market will sell many of the same fish species served in the restaurant. Other gourmet items will be available as well. Seaver wants to honor food stamps and offer several species at prices ranging from $3 to $4 a pound so that more people can afford the market. (1608 14th Street, NW) Awaiting new opening date information.
Omar Minskinyar (Policy) & Aman Youbi (Local 16) will open a new steak house/burger joint on the corner of 14th & U Streets inMay (unlikely). Perfect for spring in DC, there will be a 1,000 squarefoot rooftop patio. No name yet… (2001 14th Street, NW)
The Brixton - The owners of Marvin and Gibson have their eyes on a new spot. And, this time they’re thinking gastropub. The Brixton will be located 901 U Street, NW. The space is in pretty rough shape right now, so renovations will take a bit of time. There will be a significant food component, similar to Restaurant Marvin, but with an English theme – think fish `n chips, burgers, etc with an affordable price point. The name Brixton comes from a neighborhood in East London, England, very similar to the neighborhood around 9th and U. They also plan to have a roof deck – and patio seating. (901 U Street NW)
The Jack Rose - Local restaurateur Bill Thomas (Bourbon, Breadsoda) hopes to open The Jack Rose – a new restaurant and lounge - in spring of 2010. The space has housed, over the years, several gyms. It’s a 5,893-square-foot, two-story building with room for 300, has a very unique feature for the Adam’s Morgan neighborhood – its substantial size. Disappointed that the opening is still 6 months away? Your reward for patience – plans for a summer garden that will seat 150. (2007 18th Street, NW, opposite Duplex)
Estadio - Mark Kuller, the man behind the wine-themed Proof has signed a lease for a second restaurant on 14th Street. Estadio will be a Spanish restaurant and is taking the space of the Garden District store. The restaurant is expected to open by late spring/early summer 2010 and will feature dishes from Northern Spain. Executive chef at Proof, Haidar Karoum will run the kitchen. Two other familiar faces from Proof, Sebastian Zutant and Adam Bernbach, will be overseeing the beverage program which will include a wine list that will be 80 percent Spanish. (1520 14th Street, NW)
Table 14 - This joint venture from Aman Ayoubi (restaurateur & owner of Local 16), Eric Gronning (Gronning Architects) and Doug Whipple (Whipple Farms), is scheduled to open this year (moving very slowly). This location will offer three distinct experiences on each of its floors. The main level is conceived as a farm-to-table restaurant serving modern American cuisine with an Italian influence. This level spans 2,000 square feet with plans for 60 table seats, 15 bar seats, 12 cocktail/counter seats and 16 outdoor seats. Features will include a two-story atrium space and an open kitchen. The second floor will feature a large yakitori grill and bar. It will be designed as a light-filled space overlooking a green roof and garden space. The third floor will be a flexible special events space offering views of 14th Street and a small roof deck. Much of the produce will come from Whipple’s Farm in Rixeyville, Va., and a network of other farmers. Whipple Farms, a 160-acre, biodynamic farm nestled in the Virginia Piedmont region, is not only partnering in the new restaurant venture, but also supplies Local 16 and other area restaurants with locally and biodynamically grown heirloom vegetables. Local 16 has been providing financial support to expand the farm’s operations. In addition to his current role at Local 16, Executive Chef Eric McKamey will oversee the menu and kitchen operations at Table 14. (1832 14th Street, NW)
It was then lunchtime, so we went to the Acme Oyster bar. Since there aren't too many good cajun/creole places in DC, we decided to each order samplers or small orders of many different things and share them. I tried the bivalves for the first time and really enjoyed them. I guess when you grill (not brave enough to go for the raw ones) something drenched in garlic and cheese, it is going to be pretty tasty. The other items on the list included andouille and sausage gumbo, andouille and sausage jambalaya, seafood gumbo, red beans and rice, more sausage, what might have been the best roast beef po boy I have had, and an excellent pecan cobbler.
If anyone is still reading - Lelaine tells me my posts are always way too long - you may know that I have turned into an old person in the last couple of years. In my advanced age I now wake up every morning a little after 7am. Lelaine, being the young vibrant wife she is, doesn't have this problem so as she slept I played on my iPhone and decided to read some reviews of the last meal of our trip - brunch at Mr. B's. Yelpers raved about the bbq shrimp, so when we got to the restaurant, I decided I would go for it. I have tried shrimp many times and have never really enjoyed them, but figured if there were ever a time I would like it, this was it. Mr. B's is a pretty nice place, particularly on Easter morning with a lot of guys in seersucker suits and women in their giant hats, which made it a little embarrassing when the waiter tied a bib around my neck right before delivering my meal. While the shrimp were...well shrimp (i.e. not too great), the sauce they swam in was out of this world. It was more like a few shrimp in an glorious soup, and fortunately they gave me a whole loaf of french bread to soak up the sauce that is heavy on butter on Worcestershire. Good thing I had the bib, because the shrimp came with the full shell, head, and tails still intact, so you have to do a lot of work and it gets messy.
After lunch we strolled around the French Quarter. Lelaine found several huge chandeliers in an antique store, but they might overwhelm our 650 square foot palace (not to mention that they probably cost five times as much as our entire trip); we watched several fancy people dressed to the nines ride in convertibles down Royal St; and we listened to a couple bands play on the street. It was a great way to spend Easter morning and early afternoon, but sadly we had to leave to go to the airport to come back to reality.
On day three we woke up early and watched the sun rise as we pulled into Progreso, Mexico. Progreso is a pretty small place and there isn't much to do, so we got on a bus and went to Uxmal to see some Mayan ruins. Most cruisers choose to go to a bigger site called Chichen Itza, but it is a longer bus ride and you can't climb up anything there like you can in Uxmal, so Uxmal it was. Tour guide Saul was really nice and also very sincere about learning about the history of the country and how visitors should buy books (which he just so happened to be selling) and not 
tequila and sombreros. After doing our best Laura Croft impression wondering around the ruins we had lunch at a little restaurant - Lelaine had pork Yucitan and I had empanadas and a Mexican beer I had never heard of - and got back on the bus and then back on the ship. I don't know if it was the empanadas or what, but something didn't agree with my stomach. I will spare you the details, but instead of the TP packaging on the ship reading "it feels heavenly" a more accurate descriptions would have read "it feels like sandpaper."
Having checked off the culture box for the trip, we spent the next day at a beach in Cozumel. We picked a location that had a good reef for snorkeling. We brought our own gear and had a nice time - there were a ton of fish as soon as you got into the water. Also enjoyable was the palapa for shade (helped to contain the sunburn) and the waiter delivering a stream of Dos Equis and chips and salsa. Despite several screaming kids it was a very relaxing day, which is just what the doctor ordered.
Speaking of which, one of the reasons why we are so interested in traveling in the last couple years is because we will presumably have a rugrat in the not so distant future so we don't have a huge window to travel before we have other priorities. With that in mind, it is pretty amusing to see how families act on vacation. While lounging on the beach, surrounded by families, we overheard some pretty amusing conversations. Highlights included one woman recounting what her husband laughingly said the day before in Progreso, right after they found their toddler granddaughter who was missing for what sounded like 15-20 minutes: "this is about as fun as a concentration camp." To our right, there was one family with a couple teenage boys who fought most of the time and led to the mom losing it and proclaiming, somewhat seriously, "What is wrong with you - I don't even know why we bring you on vacation!" Pretty funny stuff, although we may not be so amused once we have a kid in tow.
Last month when we were drowning in work we decided we needed to take a break while Congress was in recess for Easter. At first we couldn't find anything in our price range, but just as I had given up hope Lelaine sweet-talked Air Tran into letting us use vouchers during a blackout date and found a great deal on a five night cruise from New Orleans to Mexico.