SHOPHOUSE BETHESDA ROW ADDS NEW SAUCE OPTION, GIVING AWAY FREE BOWLS THIS MONTH

ShopHouse fans, you have a new sauce option to add to your bowl at Bethesda Row. Peanut Sauce, a sweet and savory combination of toasted and crushed peanuts, coconut milk, palm sugar, tamarind, garlic, shallots, lemongrass, dried Thai chilies and palm sugar joined tamarind vinaigrette, green curry and spicy red curry sauces on the menu this past Thursday.

Also new is a "House Favorites" selection of 4 popular bowl combinations, a good choice for new or indecisive ShopHouse customers.

You may know that ShopHouse is from the same corporate parent of Chipotle. But this month, saving your Chipotle entrée receipt will score you a free bowl at ShopHouse every Saturday in November, from 11 AM to 10 PM.

ShopHouse

4820 Bethesda Avenue

(240) 316-3500

SHOPHOUSE BETHESDA ROW CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY (PHOTOS)

ShopHouse won't be opening until later this year at Bethesda Row, but the work of transforming the former City Lights of China space into the "Asian Chipotle" is well underway. Here's the progress so far, inside the future ShopHouse:

SHOPHOUSE BETHESDA ROW LOCATION TO OPEN LATE 2013 (PHOTO)

Parent company Chipotle is now publicly announcing what you exclusively read here first last week:

ShopHouse is coming to Bethesda Row, to take over the former City Lights of China space on Bethesda Avenue.

ShopHouse is an Asian-menu-themed spinoff of the Chipotle concept.

The company is targeting a late 2013 opening for the new Bethesda location.

This now confirms my exclusive report last week.

SHOPHOUSE OPENING AT BETHESDA ROW - ASIAN CHIPOTLE SPINOFF TO TAKE OVER CITY LIGHTS OF CHINA SPACE

Exclusive!

Bye-bye,  City Lights of China.

Hello... Shophouse!

That's right, Dupont Circle's favorite Asian Chipotle spinoff, Shophouse, is coming to Bethesda Row.  Shophouse will move into the City Lights of China space at 4820 Bethesda Avenue, which City Lights is vacating ...now.

As the auction announcement I found (below) shows, the contents of City Lights are being auctioned off today.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that Shophouse is taking its place. Have you heard before that a particular restaurant is the "[fill in type of ethnic food] Chipotle" before? Or "trying to be Chipotle?"

Well, Shophouse literally is Chipotle, an Asian spinoff from the same company. So prices and ordering procedures will be fairly familiar to regular patrons of Chipotle. I expect Shophouse will be hugely popular at lunch.

Of course, having a corporate chain take over a small Chinese restaurant will likely cause some minor grumbling in the community. As might the closure of a second independent Asian restaurant on Bethesda Avenue in a month (Taipei 101 being the first). It will be interesting to hear public reaction, given the popularity of Shophouse in DC.

Appropriately, the name Shophouse comes from Chinese buildings that had residences above commercial shops. What's old is new again, as Shophouse comes to Bethesda Row, which urban planning experts refer to often as the best example of a mixed-use development in America.