Right now, DC Comics characters have spent weeks punching each other in the face on account of the DC K.O.event. Plenty of heroes and villains have been eliminated and it’s nearing the last leg of its story—but not without having some last-minute fighters entering the fray.
Earlier this week, the publisher announced a one-shot called Boss Battle that brings in some guest fighters from other universes. Included in this new lineup are Vampirella, Red Sonja, The Boys’ Homelander, and The Conjuring headliner Annabelle. (No, really.) Preview images for the book, written by Jeremy Adams and drawn by artists such as Hi-Fi and Carmine Di Giandomenico, highlight face-offs like Superman vs. Homelander (obviously), Wonder Woman crossing swords with Sonja, and Black Lightning and Plastic Man fighting the Mortal Kombat 1versions of Shang Tsung and Sub-Zero.
The narrative justification for this is the remaining fighters need more Omega Energy to continue the tournament and so one of them can go fight Darkseid, so they decide to use these characters from other universes as a means to grind. It’s a silly reason to get Lex Luthor in position to get attacked by bear woman Samantha Strong or for Batwoman to get seduced by Vampirella but hey, it sounds like DC K.O. is just that kind of event.
For those into that sort of “who would win??” thing, the one-shot will help fuel your agenda for or against a particular character you don’t like, such as, say, Homelander or the Kombat characters. Read the fists flying and see who comes out on top when DC K.O.: Boss Battle hits shelves on February 4.
Here are 15 soups and stews from local restaurants in the D.C. area that should appeal to spoon-clutching diners in need of something warm and comforting.
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15 superb soups and stews worth slurping in the DC area
As winter settles over the D.C. region, the brisk chill of the air may bring forth a longing for one specific dish. WTOP has rounded up 15 soups and stews from local restaurants in the District and beyond that should appeal to spoon-clutching diners in need of something warm and comforting, nostalgic and familiar or even indulgent and revelatory.
Below are 15 soups and stews worth slurping right now in the D.C. area. For bowls of warmth, depth and a good excuse to linger a little longer over lunch or dinner this winter, check out these restaurants — but know that many of these dishes are temporary additions to the menus, so don’t expect all of them to last once the season is over.
Completed tableside, this soup features a mushroom-forward dashi with a silky foam of root vegetables arracacha and parsnip. It’s served over tender fresh fava beans sautéed with a Japanese togarashi blend featuring ground red chili, roasted orange peel, black and white sesame seeds, hemp seed, ginger, nori, poppy seed, and yuzu peel. The dish is complemented by crisp fried sweet plantains, and on top of it all, an “onion ash.” It’s a mouthful to describe, but when guests do get a mouth full of this soup, it’s earthy, a touch sweet and totally satisfying. Oh, and in case you didn’t realize it, there is no meat in this dish, but you won’t miss it.
Shamim Popal, executive chef at Lapis, told WTOP that Lapis is “a family restaurant” that strives for authenticity in its Afghan flavors, while employing modern techniques. There are several soups on the menu worth trying, including nask with yellow lentils, potatoes, celery and carrots, and its chicken soup, with potatoes, carrots, turnips and dill. But Lapis’ aush is a hearty, homey dish determined to delight diners with rice noodles, kidney beans, ground beef, dill and labneh. It’s a filling, creamy and spicy soup that doesn’t leave diners feeling too heavy after.
The duck wonton tortilla soup at Paraíso. (Courtesy Paraíso)
Duck wonton sopa de tortilla at Paraíso 1101 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Unit 1, D.C.
In Capitol Hill, the Mexican restaurant, Paraíso, is serving up standout dishes like branzino a la brasa, half-roasted chicken with a house-made mole negro, a wide array of tacos and, most importantly, the duck wonton sopa de tortilla. With a deeply flavorful tres chiles broth, this aromatic soup offers ground duck and chicken wontons, topped with avocado, crema and a queso cotija. Give it a sip, and learn why this restaurant is known as paradise.
Shoyu ramen at Daikaya 705 6th St NW, First Floor, D.C.
This Japanese noodle shop offers several varieties of deeply flavorful bowls of ramen, including shio (a clear, golden broth), mugi-miso (a barley miso broth), and a tomato curry ramen (a “slightly exotic” dish blending miso with tomato and a hint of curry). For guests uncertain of which to try, consider the shoyu, which offers a broth with a soy sauce that’s blended with the shop’s Chintan stock with flavors of toasted garlic. The egg-based noodles used are imported from Sapporo, Japan, and are topped with bean sprouts, ground pork, chashu, scallions and nori, with the option to load it up with more toppings like onsen eggs or pork belly.
Soupe à l’oignon at Minetta Tavern 1287 4th Street NE, D.C.
Whether you’ve lived in France, traveled there or have dreamed of a vacation in the country for all of your life, the French onion soup at Minetta Tavern can appeal to all, but most especially those who prefer their onions caramelized and their cheese oh so gooey. Certainly, this is the standard dish that diners at this restaurant recommend, but that’s because it’s perfectly done. What more could you want?
The Ukrainian borscht with pampushka at Ruta. (Courtesy WTOP/Michelle Goldchain)
Ukrainian borscht with pampushka at Ruta Various locations
Ruta, the first Ukrainian restaurant in the D.C. area, has high pride in its borscht. The dish tops its menu with the option for a green borscht — with sorrel, spinach, chicken eggs, potato and vegetables — or a classic Ukrainian borscht with pampushka (or a small, yeast-raised bun) and a dollop of tangy sour cream on the side. Diners can opt for either beef or a vegetarian version of this dish. The hot, red brothy soup is perfect for a brisk winter’s evening.
Anyone who knows soup knows Pho 75 has lasted 40 years in the local restaurant industry because they’re experts in their field. Since its founding in 1985 by two Vietnamese refugees, Pho 75 has brought some of the best pho to the D.C. region. Their soups can be served with a choice of eye-round steak, brisket, skirt flank, soft tendon, beef stripe or meatballs, plus bean sprouts, fresh basil leaves and a squeeze of lemon. Just be sure to bring your dollar bills with you as this is a cash-only establishment.
The hot ebi tempura udon soup at Sushi Taro. (Courtesy WTOP/Michelle Goldchain)
Hot ebi tempura udon soup atSushi Taro 1503 17th Street NW, D.C.
It’s, of course, in the name, but diners won’t go wrong with ordering sushi at Sushi Taro. But for those who need a respite from the cold weather, the ebi tempura soup is worth consideration. This soup can be served hot or cold and with udon or soba noodles. My preference is hot and with udon as the udon noodles are thicker and chewier, giving more heft to the dish, while soba noodles are more delicate and made from buckwheat flour, offering a nuttier, earthier flavor. Sushi Taro also offers a kamo nanban soup with roasted duck.
Gazpacho de remolacha at Jaleo 480 7th Street NW, D.C.
Any D.C.-area soup roundup is incomplete without a gazpacho from chef and humanitarian José Andrés. Andrés is a James Beard award-winning chef and one of the most influential people in philanthropy, according to Time Magazine. He is most notably the founder of the not-for-profit food relief organization, World Central Kitchen. With all this said, Andrés’ most famous gazpacho recipe is actually thanks to his wife. The Spanish chef credits her as being the developer of the recipe that he is famous for. Whether the dish found in the Penn Quarter restaurant, Jaleo, is identical to the one Andrés’ wife makes at home is unknown to me (Tichi, my schedule is open for you!). And, really, it might seem counterintuitive at first to eat a cold soup in the winter, but I implore you to not rebel against delicious things in life. Give it a whirl!
The chicken noodle soup at Unconventional Diner. (Courtesy Unconventional Diner)
Since opening eight years ago, Unconventional Diner has kept its chicken noodle soup on the menu this whole time. The mainstay has proven to be worth the longevity, in part thanks to the twists made to the dish. It includes matzo balls, house-made chicken stock, and the fresh macaroni pasta is house-made by sister restaurant L’Ardente, according to Ricardo Ibarra, executive chef at Unconventional Diner. The pleasant soup is rich with chunky pieces of pulled chicken and vegetables like carrots and celery.
Tom yum seafood soup at Rimtang 1039 33rd Street NW, D.C.
Rimtang, a Thai restaurant that opened recently in Georgetown, has a tom yum seafood soup on the menu that is worth searching for. While the most expensive dish served at $30 (even higher than the “hot and spicy” soup with pork ribs), this herby, seafood soup is worth a mention. Ingredients in this clear broth include shrimp, squid, clams, mushroom, cilantro, cilantro, holy basil and a bit of Thai chili. If you’d prefer other dishes on the menu, consider the spring rolls or the panang curry.
The porcini mushroom and roasted chestnut soup at Fish Shop. (Courtesy WTOP/Michelle Goldchain)
Porcini mushroom and roasted chestnut soup at Fish Shop 610 Water Street SW, D.C.
This modern, seafood-centric restaurant revels in oysters, mussels, “trout tartare tots” and other dishes. But if you’re in search of a soup that is earthy in all the right ways, consider the porcini mushroom and roasted chestnut soup. The soup includes thinly sliced raw mushrooms as well as walnut oil. If I could recommend an accompaniment, the house-made, buttered focaccia pairs well with this dish.
Cardoon soup at Annabelle 2132 Florida Avenue NW, D.C.
Depending on the season, the kind of soups or stews guests can expect at Annabelle can vary, but this winter, it’s the cardoon soup that shines. The dish at the modern American restaurant in Kalorama is seemingly simple with a minimal amount of ingredients: vegetable stock, whole eggs, Parmesan cheese, lemon oil and, of course, cardoons. For those unfamiliar, cardoons taste earthy and nutty like slightly bitter artichoke hearts, while looking like celery. Annabelle Executive Chef Michael Fusano told WTOP, “A lot of people don’t use cardoons, or I think they’re kind of afraid of it.” This can be due to how the ingredient is temperamental to grow depending on the environment, but he said it’s a “nice starter, especially during the cold weather.”
The pistachio soup at Joon. (Courtesy Joon)
Ghormeh sabzi or pistachio soup at Joon 8045 Leesburg Pike, Suite 120, Vienna, Va.
It’s a difficult task to pick just one, so WTOP has listed two soup dishes at the elevated Persian restaurant, known as Joon, that are worth considering. First, the ghormeh sabzi, a dish which is often called Iran’s national dish, is a stew that features beef and beef marrow simmered with fresh herbs, dried lime, and leeks, served alongside saffron-steamed chelow rice with crispy tahdig. Najmieh Batmanglij, co-founder of Joon, said her version is unique in that she uses pomegranate as a garnish for the soup, plus “just a touch” of grape molasses to add some sweetness.
For the pistachio soup, Batmanglij told WTOP that her kitchen team makes a chicken stock combined with cumin, ginger, and garlic with ground-up and whole pistachios mixed with saffron and “sour orange juice” for flavor, altogether garnished with crispy onions. The soup is nutty, creamy, and seemingly simple, but packed with flavor.
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Warner Bros. and Legendary horrors have taken over Six Flags Fright Fest to add more thrills to the national coaster theme park chain. Combining scares with metal behemoths of adrenaline-pumping rollercoasters is the main draw, but over the years, as competitors began to rely on major IP to up the ante, Six Flags has made some effort to catch up. Every year tends to improve upon the last; it’s still outpaced by the bigger names in the theme park industry, but with its 2024 initiated merger with Cedar Fair (which runs Knott’s Scary Farm), we were hopeful that things might be changing for the better.
io9 was invited to attend media night for the opening of the annual Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California, which this year featured haunted houses from a host of cinema greats, including the Conjuring universe, Trick ‘r Treat, and Saw. While the latter two are repeat mazes from 2024, this year the Conjuring house was updated to reflect the latest film, The Conjuring: Last Rites. Here’s what we thought about the Halloween offerings at this year’s fright fest.
The Conjuring Universe: This house plays as a Warren family investigations greatest hits. It’s good, though; as you enter, you’re met face-to-face with Annabelle behind the glass (at first) before venturing through some of the scariest moments from the Warren files. It’s Fright Fest’s best house that perfectly evokes the scares of the Warrens’ most horrifying cases. You get to walk through their collection of haunted relics as they’re summoned around you. Yes, there’s a nun behind the portrait, but even though you know it, you’re simply not prepared to have that experience.
Like in the film, Valak comes out of the walls right at you, and your soul flies out of the room faster than you can get your body to follow. It does feel a little all over the place, as the fearsome highlights include the Perron possession case among the chaos of the iconic demon entities, an old-school filmstrip of the Crooked Man being expanded on walls warning of his presence, and Annabelle being freed in so many forms.Then, of course, there are devilish forces waiting to get their claws on you, which end up manifesting as a dark hidden form within the shadows that reaches out to you with long black claws as you make your escape.
Trick ‘r Treat: Based on the Halloween anthology film, this house feels so festive and fun as you venture into its horrors. Fright Fest did a really good job at establishing the vibe of an inviting spooky season neighborhood house you want to enter that only gets more and more nightmarish as you make your way further in. You encounter teases of the iconic Sam, the mischievous pumpkin-headed demon child that connects each of the stories in Trick ‘r Treat, while you relive the creepiest moments from the movie, which is a genre spookshow. There’s the teenage werewolf party in the forest where a girl dressed as Red Riding Hood hides a dark secret. Another great recreation includes the school bus haunting of kids who died on Halloween years ago that included the crashed vehicle, as well as the creepy masked kids who spring up on you from beyond. The fog in that room is perfectly deployed to make you discombobulated enough to not see them coming. But it’s the end, where Sam chases you through a mirror maze (I looped it twice) before meeting him in his throne room, that really shines as one of the park’s most fun Halloween experiences.
Scare Zones: There were several new interesting concepts this year! The twisted Wonderland area was a pastel fever dream with mad hatters and demented-looking rabbits chasing you. And just in time for the Oz renaissance, there was a steampunk take on the lore with an evil witch, tin man, lion, and flying monkeys lurking about. However, while the makeup designs were a highlight of inspired monster creations, the settings were really sparse, and there weren’t very fully formed environments to feel immersed in. At least there was a yellow brick road projection, but both Oz and Wonderland needed a showstopping backdrop. If there was one, it was too dark.
Saw: The Saw house plays up the torture device set pieces in creative and showstopping ways thanks to the actors in the houses, but it’s the scares that are lacking. The monsters that come at you are mostly the pig-masked hooded figures, which got really repetitive. And there was a big lack of Billy the Puppet. He only really appears once on his trike, if it’s working, which undercuts why he’s so scary when he’s supposed to be the figurehead that asks, “Do you wanna play a game?” When we went through, he was stuck on his automated track, and we nearly missed him. There was more Billy on the merch!
The Merch: Fright Fest shines with its original art merchandise based on the park’s original houses and roaming characters, such as the clown sliders, Medusa-inspired psychics, or retro zombie ladies. Those designs really capture the energy that makes Fright Fest unique and are usually an instant buy. This year it released some spooky Looney Tunes gear that was great despite there not being anything Looney in Bugs Bunny World besides a creepy carnival area. I was excited to buy a truly unhinged shirt that features Sylvester as the Bride of Frankenstein and Tweety as Frankenstein’s monster, which in a really weird way I sort of get. The merch for the movie properties, however, was a mixed bag; it would have been cool to get the Six Flags artists to do a take on the characters in The Conjuring, but those shirts mostly felt like licensed marketing images slapped on things.
Carnage: New for this year is a house that takes you into the fortress of an anarchic clown’s hub of madness and recruitment in a “city under siege.” While the house was fun and filled with chaotic jump scares, I couldn’t help but think this was maybe meant to be a Joker house. It doesn’t help that it was literally in the DC Universe area of the theme park! While going through, some set pieces reminded me of Joker moments from Suicide Squad and even Joker in aesthetic. At one point the clown leader jumps on a car and talks to you. So I was very distracted by how cool a Gotham run by Joker and his goons could have been to experience as a maze. The rights that Fright Fest has on how it can use DC characters remain so confusing, so maybe it would’ve been better to try and avoid the parallels here.
Themed foods/drinks: There was a variety of items based on just Halloween, but none inspired by the major IP houses, which I was looking forward to. But I’ll preface that with I was setting myself up for that disappointment here: I saw the official Six Flags Instagram promote drinks based off The Conjuring universe and thought they’d be at Magic Mountain. I mean, it’s the park closest to Hollywood and other major haunt competitors, so it would have made sense, right? So I was very surprised when I realized that the drink in question, Valak’s Vice, was nowhere to be found to represent the best house at the event.
Old houses: The last time I went to Fright Fest was before I had my now one-year-old child. So I was a little bummed to discover that a good number of houses I’ve already experienced were still there. And if there were recent additions, they felt so generically similar to older houses that I couldn’t tell you what’s new. This is something I hope changes, as I hope there’s more collaboration within the merger, allowing for a bit of the Knott’s Scary Farm magic to get sprinkled onto Fright Fest. Knott’s historically is the first park to really turn haunted houses into immersive storytelling you can experience through its legendary Scary Farm offerings and stands apart from the parks that rely on only movie and TV properties. Six Flags has the opportunity to be the best of both worlds with its WB and DC horror connections and its original houses within the sheer amount of good space they were given to build on. Here’s hoping the potential of the Knott’s merger sees an upgrade in years to come.
Can we all just admit that it’s totally intentional at this point? These popcorn buckets are well out of hand. From the Dune 2 monster p*ssy to the glory hole Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s no limit to what perverted vessel we’ll be eating out of these days.
With the latest installment of Annabelle’s story, The Conjuring: Last Rites hitting theaters on September 5th, studios had to up the ante.
There seem to be two kinds of people in this world — those who are genuinely frightened by horror movies, and those who dismiss them as nothing more than some predictable jump scares and plot devices. Either type of person can enjoy a horror film, just in different ways. But no matter how scary — or not scary — you deem a film to be, there’s no denying that the productions behind many of these movies are a little, well, cursed.
Now, we’re not saying that there was any real paranormal activity going on behind the scenes of The Exorcistor The Conjuring, but you’d be surprised to learn just how many bizarre and sometimes tragic incidents occurred while making these movies. Does it have anything to do with the fact that these films deal with occult-ish matters? Or is it merely a coincidence? Sure, accidents happen on movie sets from other genres, but there seems to be a trend with films that focus on the supernatural.
Typically, these on-set accidents can be attributed to more explainable causes — such as unsafe working conditions and pre-existing health complications. However, in the cases of these 10 movies, it almost seems like there’s some sort of curse at play. Sure, some might call it bad luck, but the filmmakers and actors involved believe there’s more to it than that. Learn more about the “curses” that plagued these scary movies — and then decide for yourself whether or not you think otherworldly forces were involved.
10 Horror Movies That Are Supposedly Cursed
From mysterious on-set accidents to unexplainable audience reactions, these movies have all gained a reputation for being cursed.
