Fuchs Foodie Journal

Top Five Bites 2009

2010-01-20T15:30:00.001-08:00

I was inspired by Metrocurean’s feature called "Chef Five Bites" to try to think of my own top five bites of 2009. In my case, this exercise is an impossible hypothetical - the worst kind of sci fi - because, unless tied down with strong rope after my first taste, I can't imagine only taking a single bite of each of the following dishes. Nevertheless, without further ado, my Five Bites:

1. Spaghetti with tomato and basil at Scarpetta (Meatpacking District, NYC). The build-up to Scarpetta’s spaghetti was sort of like waiting forever to see a really good movie: I’d looked forward to it for months while reading all the glowing reviews, and I worried that it might pale in comparison to my high hopes. But the only thing pale about Chef Conant's signature dish was the orange hue of the sauce - due to the parmigiano-reggiano cheese. In fact, Conant exceeded all expectations by using the freshest basil and peppers to pique the sauce and a super-lengthy cooking process that permits his housemade noodles to fully absorb the tomato flavor. Stoking my awe: multiple catastrophically bad attempts to replicate this seemingly simple dish in my own kitchen.

2. Osso Buco at Famoso (Chevy Chase). The strange thing about Famoso making my Five Bites list is that their osso buco is the only dish I’ve ever actually had at Famoso. And, despite the richness of the Milanese risotto and bone marrow, I've yet to go back to Famoso to enjoy this dish again. And the restaurant is literally across the street from my apartment!

3. Thousand year eggs at Michael’s Noodles (Rockville). A couple of other bites on this list might have tasted slightly better, but this one was the most pleasantly surprising. When the waitress brought out this jiggling, obsidian mystery of the Orient, Lolly and I expected the taste to be something like crude oil. Instead, smoky, sweet and salty.

4. Fried rabbit liver at Cochon (New Orleans). This dish represents the core of what’s so cool about Cochon – modern cooking techniques applied to sentimental backwoods favorites of the Bayou. I have a hard time envisioning anything as sophisticated as pepper jelly sitting in Farmer Fran’s cupboard, yet that’s exactly how Chef Donald Link sauces his rabbit liver.

5. Goat cheese raviolis at Volt (Frederick). I was a little reluctant to order these things because they seemed too tame compared to the competition on Bryan Voltaggio's second-course menu - namely, the wattle pork belly. Luckily, right before I ordered, Marcy chimed in, “You always get pork belly!” By going with the raviolis instead, I not only showed her how crazy and unpredictable I am, but I also got to enjoy what turned out to be the best dish at Volt (and, safe to say, Frederick).

Honorable Munches: Chicken leg tagine at Evo Bistro; Spare ribs at Joe’s Noodle House; Adobo soup at La Canela; Avocado banana chaat at Rasika; Duck rillettes & faux gras terrine at Central; Sweetbreads and pork belly at Paley's Place (Portland).

Anyone else have a Five Bites list?

Updated DC Area Restaurant Rankings

2010-01-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

............ . Taste..Creativity... Ambiance......Service.....Price...TOTAL

Nava Thai....... 8..........8............... 6................7............8.......37
....................................................................................................
Rasika.............9...........9...............7................8............7.......40
...................................................................................................
Meaza........ ....6...........6...............7................6............7........32
....................................................................................................
Abol................ 7...........7..............5................6............7........32
...................................................................................................
Grapeseed......6...........7...............7................8............6........34
...................................................................................................
Jang Hyun......8...........8...............7................5............7........35
Ban Jun
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Evo Bistro.......8...........8...............6................7............7........36
...................................................................................................
Liberty............8...........7...............8................8............8........39
Tavern
...................................................................................................
Four Sisters....8...........8...............6................7............8........37
...................................................................................................
Joe's Noodle..10..........8................5................6...........9........38
House
..................................................................................................
............ .Taste..Creativity...Ambiance......Service.....Price.....TOTAL

La Canela.........9...........8...............7................7...........6.........37
....................................................................................................
Heritage...........6...........7...............7................6...........7.........33
India
....................................................................................................
Common-....... .6...........9................8...............5............6........34
wealth
Gastropub
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Honey Pig.......9...........8.................7..............7..............8.......39
Gooldaegee
Korean Grill
....................................................................................................
Eventide.........8............6................9..............8..............7.......38
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Teatro............7............7.................6...............5.............5.......30
Goldoni

Our Journey Through the Washington City Paper Top 50 Continues at Eventide Restaurant

2010-01-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

1. Roasted Elysian Fields Lamb Loin

For this dish, Chef Miles Vaden keeps the salt in the cupboard and rolls the dice on whether people will like the taste of the Elysian Fields lamb. The lamb jus and chestnut puree (peanut butter?) are both good dipping sauces, but the lamb itself is naked on the plate, brazenly showing its stuff without any detectable fresh herbs or garlic. Whether you like the full frontal depends on your level of attraction to the highly-praised lamb of Greene County, Pa.

That's where you'll find Elysian Fields Farms, whose ruminants have been a trendy pick since the late 1990s, when Thomas Keller liked them so much he decided to charter planes cross-country all the way from Pa. to his restaurants in Napa Valley, French Laundry and Bouchon. Elysian is also acclaimed at top restaurants in Manhattan like Gramercy Tavern and La Grenouille.

Eventide was my first encounter with Elysian. The Farm's owner, Keith Martin, is well regarded in the restaurant industry for aging his lambs just right, and that shows up on the plate: the meat has a firm tooth, not at all mushy like lamb that's grown past its prime.
And because Martin feeds his lamb both grain and grass, the taste is especially sweet. In the kitchen, Eventide abbreviates the roasting process; they know the best way to bring out Elysian's natural flavors is to serve on the rare side.

If I have one complaint about the Elysian, though, it's that you don't get the gamey flavor that you either love or hate about lamb. Whereas you can identify lower-quality lamb from New Zealand or Australia by its gaminess, the taste of Elysian is fresher and more comparable to beef.

It's very possible that I just don't know good sheep, but without that tangy, earthy flavor, I felt like I was missing the full lamb experience. If, like me, you aren't so impressed by Elysian's fresh taste, you'll be clamoring for salt. But if you're an Elysian-lover like Miles Vaden, Thomas Keller or Tom Colicchio, the meat-first, spice-second approach is a no-brainer.

2. Virginia Bison Tartare

According to the Washington Post, the Georgetown Farm in Virginia is the "largest bison operation east of the Mississippi River." Next time I get the urge to drive out to the middle of nowhere on Route 29, I'll be sure to look out for about 250 bison grazing on the creatively-named Buffalo Hill near Madison.

Til then, Eventide is a more convenient and tasty approach to quality bison bonding. Because it's local, the ground bison is fresh, and Vaden mixes it with capers and cornichons, which are numbers one and two on my list of things that are green and salty (don't worry, kosher dill, you come in a respectable number three).

What made the dish the highlight of the night, though, were the dipping sauces. One was a sweet cranberry mustard. The other, which actually looked and tasted more like mustard, was an aji amarillo aioli that was spicy, sweet, and went perfectly with the bison. Aji amarillio (yellow) chiles are mostly found in Peru. They jab a spicy punch right up there with Tobasco, notching 50K on the Scoville rating, and also have a slightly fruity flavor. Typically these peppers are used in salsa, but Eventide makes a paste of them and mixes with red wine vinegar. All this creativity brings out a wild streak in the residents of Buffalo Hill.

3. Oat Crusted Veal Sweetbreads

I've been on a roll over the past few weeks with my sweetbreads. At both Commonwealth Gastropub and especially Volt, the sweetbreads were so creamy I was able to completely forget that unpleasant business about cow glands.

The version of this dish at Eventide had all the accouterments of a winner. Slices of apple and radish sat appetizingly over a syrupy mix of spiced apple butter and cider.

Unfortunately, the sweetbreads themselves reminded me of a woeful attempt to cook these things on my own recently. Perhaps I was thrown off my game by the horrific sight of bloody cow organ sitting on my kitchen countertop, because I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I decided to forgo any kind of crust in preparing them. I just grilled those babies and had them straight up. The taste was so minerally that it was utterly apparent to me that I was eating innards, whereas the best cooking techniques for offal are aimed at distracting you from that regrettable fact.

The only reward to this experience? Having plumbed the depths of bad sweetbreads, I now really appreciate good restaurant versions.

But the texture of the sweetbreads at Eventide wasn't creamy at all but actually a little chewy, prolonging the amount of time I had to deal with a mineral flavor that was unchecked. The bittersweet good news: I now have a more forgiving opinion of my own sweetbread travesty because something similar was served in a nice restaurant.

More Eventide:

Octopus Escabeche with green olives, cauliflower, peppers, chickpea mash

Grilled Pear Salad with frisee, arugula, candied walnuts, sherry vinaigrette, Great Hill bleu cheese flan

Pan Seared Arctic Char with spaghetti squash, spicy remoulade, tomato-fennel confit

Pan Seared Alaskan Sablefish with celery root cream, littleneck clams, pancetta, carrots, celery, potatoes

Cheese Plate served with grilled bread, spiced nuts, fruit preserves

I Apply the Rules of the Street to Pork Belly at Honey Pig Restaurant

2010-01-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

"It's not that you do sh*t, it's how you do it." -- Namond Brice, season 4 of the Wire.

That I thought of the above quote while having pork belly at Honey Pig, a Korean restaurant in Annandale, tells you two things. First, my obsession with the Wire is on the verge of becoming unhealthy (I've also started whistling the Farmer and the Dell before going into meetings with people I don't like at work).

Second, the genius behind Honey Pig's pork belly - the best in Delmarva - isn't the pork itself, it's how they serve it.

It being New Years Day, the odds were against us liking Honey Pig. Both Marcy and I were hung over from the previous night's festivities, our tastebuds sleep-deprived, numb and cranky.
Instead of nurturing our headaches with Advil and silence, we stepped into what appeared to be the Korean version of MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen. The young Koreans at Honey Pig like to multi-task by simultaneously dining and clubbing. They chew and bop heads in rhythm to loud Korean hip-hop and high-quality American music like Britney Spears.

My choice of food was predetermined by all the reviews of Honey Pig celebrating the grilled pork belly. Both Candy Sagon of the Washington Post and Todd Kliman at the Washingtonian wrote reviews that highlighted the very one thing that doesn't deserve highlighting: the pork itself. Kliman wrote that Honey Pig's highest virtue was the "quality of the meats," adding, "the pork belly and short ribs have no peer."

They should brush up on their Baltimore street principles - it's not always what you do. You just need to look at the menu prices to know that Honey Pig isn't scouring the Virginia countryside for the most exquisite, farm-fresh cut of Berkshire or Kurobuta. I got my pork belly for $8.95, so I'm guessing they use cheap factory-farm pork.

I'm okay with that, because the real innovation at Honey Pig is how they do it.

Traditionally, Koreans eat their pork belly "ssam" style, meaning they wrap unseasoned slices of pork in lettuce leaves stuffed with hot peppers, raw pieces of garlic, and a spicy condiment called ssam jang.

I think this approach puts too much pressure on the raw garlic and condiment to nail the flavor profile, yet all Korean restaurants in Baltimore serve it that way. Pork belly, with its grease and fat ribboning, should be the ultimate post-party drunk food, but I've had the surreal experience of sharing a big grill of pork belly with three intoxicated college buddies who normally love Korean food and were totally unimpressed by their late-night ssam.

And I've yet to find any pork belly in the District.

Honey Pig's version is the best in the Delmarva region because, although they give you the option of the traditional ssam, they leave the ancestors' techniques in the past with these tricks:

1. They marinate the pork in ... something Top Secret. When I asked our waitress about the identity of the marinade, she responded like I was asking her to disclose South Korean military secrets. Maybe it's one of those obvious secrets, like Kim Jong Il's wig, but I'm pretty sure the sauce isn't honey, as the name of the restaurant would make clear. I'm going with gochujang, the Korean chili paste, and probably a splash of soy sauce. Not only does the sauce improve the taste of the pork, it also caramelizes as it crackles on the grill, giving it a crispy crust.

2. A whole bunch of kimchee and beansprouts are thrown on the grill alongside the pork, so during the cooking process, the meat picks up those salty-sour kimchee flavors. The crunchy panchan vegetables net the dish some texture points.

Without Honey Pig's innovations, pork belly can taste bland. With them, I can vouch for pork belly as a good hangover cure, with great flavor the only rejuvenative property required. As the pork belly and kimchee combo worked its magic on me, I began shaking it to the music. Just like a young un', as Omar would say.

More dishes at Honey Pig:

Marcy's bim bim bap

I enjoy a kimchee stew as some Korean models flirt with me from across the room.

Restaurant Week at Teatro Goldoni

2010-01-13T15:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the social networking juggernaut that is Joyce, last night I had the pleasure of attending Teatro Goldoni with three people I'd never met before.

It wasn't just the dinner companions that were new - I'd also never been to Teatro, one of the 34 restaurants on the City Paper's Top 50 list that I had yet to grace.

Expectations were high. First of all, it was Restaurant Week. This is the time when modest food spenders emerge, gaunt and faint with hunger, from various hole in the wall delis and drive-throughs to take advantage of slashed prices at D.C.'s finest. We expect the second week of January to revolutionize our tastebuds, solve major life problems, and hold us over for months until the next Restaurant Week.

Ehsan, a recent transplant from L.A., said he was tired of being tricked by Papa Johns commercials featuring glamor shots of Tuscan six cheese masterpieces only to receive deliveries that were inedible. Restaurant Week was here to save the day.

If that wasn't enough pressure for Teatro, I'd also told people around our table about the restaurant's ranking on the Top 50 list.

Ehsan and I both started with the diver scallops carpaccio, which came with crispy leeks and black gelatins of balsamic, basil and pepper. I thought Ehsan was right when he said the scallops were too salty; Chef Fargione was trying a little too hard to cover up the fishiness of the raw scallops. Still, my take was that the scallops went well with the crunchy leeks, but Ensan was seen pushing away a full plate.

For the second course, most of the table ordered the braised veal cheek. When they placed the veal in front of me, it appeared to be sitting on top of a bun, which I thought was a cool play on a hamburger. My first clue that Chef Fargione was messing with my head was when I saw Christine easily spoon a piece of the bun off her plate. I couldn't wait to try this strangely soft bread so I went for it with my spoon, too - it was mashed potatoes. My pride hurt that the kitchen had fooled me so bad, I decided not to like the dish, but delicate veal plus layers of fontina cheese and mushrooms ragu won me over.

The serving sizes were on the small side, an unfortunate trend during Restaurant Week because supplies end up overwhelmed by all the customers.

Ehsan stared down his roasted gulf shrimp with chick peas puree, piled on his plate and half-eaten. "I don't eat fish heads," he said, and told me he was planning to swing by Burger King on the way home.

Joyce, battle-tested veteran of multiple DC Restaurant Weeks, told us about all the places she'd enjoyed in previous versions of Restaurant Stampede. She wasn't too impressed by Teatro Goldoni. Michelle voiced group consensus: Teatro is a solid restaurant as long as you're paying discount, but the food doesn't justify the prices on the regular menu.

My New Years resolution is to spend a healthy chunk of my income on fine dining, so I look forward to a few return visits to Teatro before making any final judgments.

Here's a good map of Restaurant Week provided by Capital Spice: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=117013112445532069246.000452bafcd563fe0ca27&ie=UTF8&ll=38.924161,-77.162476&spn=0.244661,0.598755&z=11.

Kuanta Firfir at Abol in Silver Spring

2010-01-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

When I lace up my shoes for work, I'm not going for any kind of statement. So when I needed a replacement pair recently, I headed to the Silver Spring DSW - where the plain, cheap loafer is perfectly constructed for the government employee just looking to fit in.

Shoe-shopping works up an appetite. With a box of new and shiny yet unmistakably conventional shoes in hand, I left DSW in search of a meal more interesting than my footwear selection. It was my first time in downtown Silver Spring, but its reputation for ethnic foods preceded it.

Taste of Morocco on Colesville Rd was alluring, but I settled on Abol, an Ethiopian place a few blocks away. Ethiopian cuisine has had the attractive force of a magnetic field over me ever since the Horn of Africa - a food cart in Portland where a red lentil stew left me like an alphabet letter longing for a refrigerator door.

Inside Abol, I noticed a City Paper review that rated the restaurant one of the top 50 places in the DC area. Abol, it said, means "authentic" or "original." I checked my shoes at the door and grabbed a table.

But the waitress/co-owner, Birtukan, and I got off to a rocky start. I wanted to order the very last item on the menu, the kuanta firfir - dried beef sauteed in berbere sauce and mixed with pieces of injera. Birtukan was against it.

"You will not like it," she said. "Trust me!"

"Okay, okay," I said. "But why won't I like it?"

"You just won't!" The more she resisted, the more curious I became. Her broken english was emphatic. I told her that if she didn't let me order the kuanta firfir, I would go to another restaurant. Defeated, she stomped sullenly back to the kitchen to relay my order to the cooks.

The kitchen produced the dish quickly, and Birtukan placed it on my table with one last look of disapproval. I peeled back a covering layer of injera expecting the worst. At the same time, I was intent on proving my exotic palate to Birtukan no matter what. I would finish whatever atrocity of Ethiopian cuisine she had tried to protect me from.

But underneath the injera there was nothing festering or discolored or slithering. Just dried beef with pieces of injera soaked in spicy berbere. Still, Birtukan watched me anxiously as I took my first bite, probably waiting for me to grimace or spit it out. But the dried beef was crispy like bacon. Actually, it was slightly chewier, which was good because it gave me more time to enjoy the smoky, blended flavors of chili pepper, coriander, and ginger. There will be no justice as long as we as a society allow naive Westerners like the one who ordered this dish before me - and protested it enough to psychologically scar Birtukan - the privilege of continuing to dine at Ethiopian restaurants.

"Excellent," I said to Birtukan from across the dining room. She smiled for the first time.

Her husband, Belete, visited my table and explained that Ethiopians consider kuanta firfir to be a light meal and typically have it for breakfast. I admitted that as a Westerner I wasn't crazy about the idea of eating dried meat for breakfast, but lunch and dinner were another story.

Belete was quick to reward my enthusiasm for his food. At no charge, he gave me an extra side of yefasolia - string beans and carrots cooked with vegetable oil, tomato, garlic, ginger, and green peppers.

A Night in the Culinary Middleground at Volt

2010-01-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

In my experience, cheflebrities tend to make an impression. Jose Andres ignored me so he could flirt with a 20-year old girl. Wylie Dufresne was so friendly he did everything but call me to hang out. Spike Mendelsohn just called me a word that rhymes with ashpole.

Contrast that with Top Chef finalist Bryan Voltaggio, who Marcy and I met this past Wednesday when we road tripped it to Voltaggio's restaurant, Volt, in bucolic Frederick. He looks you in the eye and gives you a firm handshake. He politely answers your questions. When you have your picture taken with him, he positions himself so it looks like his arm is slung around your back, but without actually touching you. Before you part ways, he hands you his business card. He's utterly appropriate, and he doesn't register a blip on the personality radar.

That's my take on Voltaggio's food, too. Every dish at Volt is perfectly executed, but I don't see a driving philosophy or definitive style.

Voltaggio seems to be occupying an ambiguous middleground between two warring factions of the restaurant world: those who prefer simple, sustainable food that showcases local ingredients, and the innovators who don't care where their foie gras comes from as long as it's wrapped up in something weird like cotton candy.

These factions were represented by two of the three finalists on the most recent season of Top Chef. Michael Voltaggio thrived at presenting familiar food in ground-breaking ways. Kevin Gillespie preferred simple comfort food with flavorful ingredients. Michael wasn't impressed: "The food Kevin cooks is the food I cook on my day off." Bryan was the third finalist, and he never really picked a side.

Volt's website suggests that Bryan's a locavore like Kevin. The home page shuffles you through a series of pictures that hit you so hard over the head with the theme of local/sustainable ingredients that it almost seems satirical: Bryan strapping on an apron in a horse stable (if you're a good enough chef, all you need to cook is hay and horse poop), Bryan cuddling with a chicken (who was probably soon thereafter decapitated), Bryan peering over a field of corn (looking for somewhere to build a baseball field?).

Even before Volt opened, Voltaggio networked for months with Frederick County farmers to secure as much local produce as possible.

And his menu does place an emphasis on local ingredients. Marcy liked, for example, his composition of market vegetables, including maroon carrots, watermelon radish, and fennel.

But a lot of the dishes seem less about highlighting local ingredients than Bryan's identity crisis. The simply prepared, flavor-packed beef strip comes from local Pineland Farms, but the strip is surrounded by the tinkerings of a mad scientist: a translucent ball of liquefied carrot, held together by a thin sugary membrane that bursts when you bite into it.

The menu also gives a shout out to Cherry Glen Farms for the goat cheese raviolis, which are creamy and golden and appear like egg yolks beneath a mix of roasted butternut squash and shitake. The menu doesn't mention, though, that the dish comes topped with sage flavored air - the combinination of soy lethicin and a liquid seasoned with sage, which is whipped with a special mixer until it bubbles. The aesthetic of this suggests that a terrorist has stormed the kitchen and applied a poisonous foam to your food. Nevertheless, my first culinary air was enjoyably mind-bending - next I'm going to try smelling a flower by eating it.

Although the molecular tricks are entertaining, I couldn't help but think back on an interview in which Michael Voltaggio advised his brother to "learn to let himself go a little bit. Don't hold back so much, don't be afraid to express yourself on the plate." Bryan agreed, "Michael is right. There's a lot of times when I feel I cook for my guests more so than I cook for myself. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad."

I've also read that the younger brother Michael picked on Bryan a lot growing up. Their mother tells a story about how she once warned Michael that if he kept messing with Bryan, she's send him up to his room so he couldn't watch his favorite show, ALF. Michael immediately trudged up to his room, explaining that he couldn't stop picking on Bryan.

Seems like it's time for Bryan to stand up to the molecular gastronomy influences of his fraternal bully. Once he does, the older Voltaggio, who skipped out on D.C. to locate Volt among the cows and crops, can develop into the full-fledged locavore chef he's meant to be.

A couple more Volt dishes below:

Hudson valley duck liver with seckel pears, pistachio, anise, vanilla brioche

Sturgeon with variations of sunchoke, crosnes, clementine vinaigrette

A Jewish Food Party and Overcoming Post-Traumatic Gefilte Fish Disorder

2010-01-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the one about the Nigerian, the WASP, the Indian girls, the southerner, and the Chinese guy who walked into the Jewish deli?

To figure out the punch line, I decided to host a diverse set of friends for a Jewish food party. But this wasn't just a bad joke. And it wasn't just a great excuse for me to devour salty gefilte fish, the fresh vegetables and lemon juice dressing of an Israeli salad, and other Jewish treats.

The party was also a chance to reaffirm my Jewish heritage and atone for over four years of avoiding temple. What better way of keeping up with the Steins and getting back in the good graces of Yahweh than to introduce a bunch of non-believers to matzah ball soup?

In planning the party, I started with the basics: I asked for help from another Jew who hasn't been to temple for an even longer time than me. In the Jewish hierarchy of needs, being able to share your guilt with someone else comes right after securing food and shelter. Enter my girlfriend, Marcy.

The menu came together easily enough – we picked the tastiest dishes from our favorite Jewish holidays. Among other recipes, an apple noodle kugel sprinkled with raisins and cinnamon; fried, oily pancakes, or latkes, made of sweet potato and egg, and topped with apple sauce; and poached fish patties called gefilte fish, made from a mixture of ground deboned white fish and carp.

And, of course, we also chose a few of the delicacies that no Jew can survive more than a few days without, holy day or not: lox and bagels, challah, and sour pickles – mainly thought of as New York icons, but Jewish in origin, as well.

Setting the ambiance was more challenging. It being the month after Hanukkah, the World Market and Party City were sold out of Jewish-themed decorations. I even gave Elli Chai's One-Stop Judaica Shop a try, but I forgot they would be closed on Friday evenings (did I mention I'm a bad Jew?). I felt like I needed a private investigator just to track down some Jewish paraphernalia, but Marcy reminded me that Peter Falk of Detective Columbo was probably busy observing the sabbath. We regrouped and located dreidels and gelt in Pikesville.

As we finished cooking the food, the guests started to arrive and their inquisitive nature took over almost immediately. First came the easy questions, like, "Why do you guys celebrate Hanukkah again?" but then they graduated to some real stumpers. For example, my Chinese friend, Dan, said he knew someone who celebrated Rosh Hashana by eating the head of a fish, and wanted to know why. We had prepared for just this moment. I smoothly reached for Marcy's copy of The Jewish Book of Why and quoted the Code of Jewish Law, which says: "May the coming year help us to achieve leadership; may we be the head and not the tail." Safe to say, we had thought of everything.

Secure that our friends didn't think we were completely ignorant about Judaism, we focused on the food. As it turned out, our diners hadn't been exposed before to many of our Jewciest dishes, and it was pretty entertaining to watch them take their first tastes:

1. Our bubbes would have been proud of us for our sweet potato latkes. Oily and just crispy enough, and studded with salty scallions, their excellence was unanimous. My friend Keith said he'd choose potato casserole over potato latkas any day, but he's from South Carolina, so I discounted his grits-centric view of the world. And for anyone who agrees with Keith that country cooking beats Jewish soul food, last time I checked we don't eat fried pig intestines.

2. Regardless of the continent they or their families originally came from, our guests loved Manischewitz. Historically, the Jews had to sweeten this Kosher wine just to make it palatable because of the limited grape selection in the areas where they settled. The nectar struck a chord with our group; over the course of the night, we guzzled two 48-ounce bottles. The biggest fan was my friend from Nigeria, who was so drunk that he openly admitted that he couldn't think of any alcoholic drink from his home country that was as good.

3. When we said we were making gefilte fish, my friend Rupa's eyes grew wide with fear, as if we had proposed to beat her about the head with the Torah. She grew up in an Indian household, so her only exposure to gefilte was working in a law firm where one of her many Jewish co-workers used the office refrigerator to store a jar of pale gefilte balls, suspended in a slimy broth for months on-end. Traumatized, she thought we were about to serve her something out of an anatomy display at the Natural Museum of History, or maybe Christian Bale's freezer in American Psycho. But, like the stereotype of the Jewish mother relentlessly shoving food in front of her child's face, we insisted she try it - "Have you lost weight? Eat something, bubelleh!" And when she saw other people enjoying the fish, sitting so appetizingly in a bed of lettuce, horseradish sauce and a slice of tomato, she threw off the shackles of her post-traumatic gefilte fish disorder. Soon she was raving about how good it was. That success was short-lived, though. Maybe the Manischewitz had impaired our friends' short-term memories, but we had to explain what gefilte was at least three times. When we thought that we had thoroughly explained the concept of mixing together two or three different types of fish, Dan asked, "So it's like spam?" Not the kind of reaction that earns you an honorary membership in the Tribe.

4. They were also a little confused by kugel. A sweet dessert made with noodles and topped with cornflakes? How much Manischewitz did the Jews have to drink before they came up with this crazy idea? It was so unique that they couldn't think of any analogy to kugel from their own ethnic cuisines – which was a point of pride for the two Ashkenazis in the room. Overall, the kugel got good marks, but not before my caucasian friend Lolly said that Jewish food has way too many carbs.

But when the dust cleared and the dreidels stopped spinning, we'd won a lot of converts. Our sauced guests snatched up the last mini-bagels with lox, and, despite the comment about spam, I celebrated our interfaith friendship by officially welcoming them to the Tribe. Maybe next weekend I'll take them all to temple.

For a Night Mad Men Stars 60s Food

2010-01-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

My grandmother sighed when I told her I was cooking beef wellington for a Mad Men party this New Years. She hates Mad Men.

In the 1960s, she was a New Yorker, the wife of a businessman, had an eye for fashion and socialized a lot. She was the Jewish Betty Draper. So I was sure that she would find Mad Men and Betty's character fascinating. Instead, nothing irritates her more. “Betty is ridiculous! Everything on that show – all the alcohol and womanizing – is an exaggeration,” she says. "It's like a spoof!" But when I ask her about the food on the show, she pauses her Mad Men diatribe and says, "I don't notice it."

Herein lay the challenge of throwing a food-themed Mad Men party: Mad Men itself doesn't have a food theme. As thoroughly as the show captures other nuances of 60s lifestyle, it leaves cuisine of that era mostly uncooked.

Whereas Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock and other characters on shows I watch are foodies, Don and Betty Draper clearly are not. Their hobbies - soul-crushing depression, alcoholism, and abrasive child-rearing - leave very little time for sun-dried tomatoes and arugula. Don likes to boss Betty around, but when they get room service, he gives her the phone. And Betty only hosts dinner parties to woo talent for Don's ad company; she lets the maid do the cooking while she's busy demolishing chairs. Her son Bobby sums it up well: "Mommy doesn't like to eat."

Food apathy might be the only thing about the show that my grandmother can relate to. She and her friends were never into food. "It's wonderful and it's forgotten," she says about dining. To hear my grandmother tell it, in the 60s, food took a backseat to fashion. "Everyone was following Jackie's clothing. Kennedy was a glamour boy."

Guess it makes sense that the Jewish Betty Draper, like Betty herself, isn’t a foodie. But, for others, food in the early 60s was a lot more than just calories to fuel the fashionistas; a food revolution was underway. In 1961, Julia Child published her first cookbook, which sparked a national obsession with gourmet cooking. The White House wasn't immune - Jackie O. demanded a chef who could satisfy her growing fascination with French food.

So a few weeks ago, I decided I would use the New Years party to make a point: 60s food was a distinctive cultural statement, and it deserves as much Mad Men screentime as all the doublevent suits and pillbox hats. Marcy and I searched for recipes that would make Julia Child proud, and we told our guests to bring dishes, too. Here are the results and some suggestions for how Mad Men should incorporate them in future seasons:

1. Buffalo Wings. Jonathan's crockpot creations were just like wings should be - tangy and messy. And, typical of early 60s food, the wings were extremely unhealthy. That's one reason why cuisine of this period is perfect for Mad Men: like the booze and cigs, fatty foods are a vice, and is there anything the characters of Mad Men love more than highly addictive, self-destructive habits? Plus, buffalo wings were invented in 1964, the year the next season of Mad Men takes place. The timing is perfect for Don to have his next affair with Teresa Bellisimo, co-owner of Anchor Bar and inventor of the buffalo wing, and get caught by Betty when he forgets a smear of hot sauce on his cheek.

2. Oysters Rockefeller. Every first-rank restaurant in Don Draper's Manhattan worth its tableside mouthwash had Oysters Rockefeller on the menu. Marcy's version included watercress, baby spinach, and plenty of rock salt. In season one, Roger Sterling mentioned to Joan Holloway his preference for these richly sauced bivalves. Clearly this is a desperate cry for help - he needs someone to make him this aphrodisiac or he won't be able to satisfy all the younger women he dates and occasionally marries. With Joan's help, next season Roger should start a morning bathtub ritual like Casanova.

3. Beef Wellington. Of all the characters on Mad Men, I think Joan shows the most potential to grow into a devout foodie. I saw promise in her when, early in the first season, she said, "That sandwich is making me sad," and rescued Peggy from a boring lunch. Joan is also a blossoming feminist, and, in the early 60s, housewives began using the kitchen to showcase feminist qualities like erudition, worldliness, and exquisite taste. Julia Child's The French Chef started airing on tv in 1963, so in the next season of Mad Men, we should expect Joan to become an avid follower of Julia (in an episode titled "Joan and Julia"?), pick up a brand new KitchenAid Mixer, and amaze her friends with some sophisticated culinary skills. I recommend that Joan make beef wellington - the combination of tenderloin, pate, and puff pastry looks impressive, but it's actually pretty easy to make.

4. Rum Balls - Lolly and Claire brought rum balls, a great combination of chocolate, butter, and the namesake liquor. Next season, I predict Father Gill will try to make Peggy quit drinking all those Brandy Alexanders – if so, she should stealthily get her buzz on by scarfing these treats.

As I scanned our table of 60s dishes at the party, I felt confident that, had Mad Men creator and producer Matt Weiner attended, he would have agreed his show should promote 60s cuisine to a starring role. Actually, the food was the only 60s element of the party that survived extreme intoxication. As the night wore on, our partygoers drunkenly rejected most aspects of the 60s artifice. Gradually they threw off their ascots, thick-rimmed glasses, and faux fur hats. They commandeered the Rhapsody play list and replaced Sinatra’s Embraceable You with Bobby Brown’s My Prerogative. But, well after the ball dropped, the mini wieners and Oysters Rockefeller remained in high demand. Seems like 60s food is wonderful and it’s remembered.

Nashville Thanksgiving: Food Highlights

2009-12-02T18:22:00.000-08:00

In the 1700s, the colonies would periodically designate a day of Thanksgiving to celebrate an exceptionally bountiful crop. I took the reverse approach: I celebrated the week of Thanksgiving by actively searching out as much food as possible. A few highlights:

1. Turkey with kim chi and Riesling. For Thanksgiving dinner, my parents invited over two of their grad students, Jessica and Peng Peng. Both invitations came with conditions. Jessica is Korean, so our caveat was that she had to bring her mom's homemade kim chi. Peng Peng moved to America from China only two months ago, and he'd never had turkey. He was allowed to the table as long as he wasn't expecting any Peking Duck. It was time to try the New World bird.

There may be great Chinese food in Turkey, but they don't eat turkey in China. As we loaded our plates with food, Peng Peng and I speculated why.

"It's too big. Chinese people like their birds to be small" was Peng Peng's theory.

My theory is that the Chinese are way too productive as a society to permit turkey coma.

I asked Peng Peng if he was going with white meat or dark. He nodded thoughtfully.

We started eating and Jessica covered her mouth and laughed with disbelief as we tried to scoop the kim chi with crackers. Only white Americans could mess up something as good as kim chi. Jessica may be scheming right now to invite my parents over for french fries served with soy sauce and chopsticks.

Kim chi's bid to become the new cranberry sauce fell far short. Whereas cranberries complement the taste of turkey, kim chi dominates it. That might be fine for a cold cut sandwich, but turkey that's been slow-cooked all day wrapped in its own moisture needs to be enjoyed with minimal distractions.

We almost experimented with one other unusual sauce. When someone told Peng Peng that Riesling goes well with turkey, he misunderstood that advice and actually began pouring the wine bottle directly onto his plate. Despite that misstep, he said he was very pleased with his first turkey adventure. In return, he's promised to lead me and Marcy on an exotic food tour of China.

2. Cheese Terrine

Our friend Sarah is an aspiring cheesemaker, and I stole her recipe for cheese terrine as my contribution to our Thanksgiving dinner:

1. Line either a small loaf pan or a medium/small bowl with saran wrap - leaving some of the wrap hanging over the edge.

2. Place 12 oz. of sharp white cheddar (grated), 4 oz. of gruyere (grated), about 2 Tbsp. dry Sherry, and 4 Tbsp unsalted butter in a bowl [or any combination of your favorite white cheeses]. Using an electric mixer, beat until it is blended and smooth (spreadable).

3. Place 8 oz. of blue cheese (Stilton or any other blue cheese, or combination) and 2 Tbsp butter in a bowl. I added a splash of creme fraiche as well - but I don't think this is necessary, I just had it left over from something else:) Blend until smooth (spreadable).

4. Mix 1 cup of chopped walnuts, dried cherries (3 Tbsp or amount to your liking), and about 1 Tbsp of chopped sage.

5. Spoon half the white cheese mixture into your prepared dish (lined wiht saran wrap) and spread it into an even layer - I found it best to press it down with my fingers in order to fill in all the gaps. Spoon half your blue cheese mixture on top - again, pressing it smooth. Sprinkle your nut, cherry, sage mixture. Top with the remainder of your blue cheese mixture and finish with the remainder of your white cheese mixture.

6. Cover with saran wrap and chill for 4 hours or so.

7. Set terrine out at room temperature for about an hour so that it can be removed from the dish.

8. Garnish with sage sprigs. Serve with pear and/or apple slices and water crackers.

The cherry-cheese combination is usually only found in desserts, although I do need to try this recipe for cherry-cheese pizza.

For a dinner that was mostly attended by health nuts, the terrine was suprisingly well received. On the downside, a number of diets met premature deaths at the hands of this excellent dish. Moments after announcing his new weight-watching regimen, our friend Steve was seen digging a tunnel with his mouth through the mixture of full-fat cheeses and creme fraiche. Merely by existing the terrine caused a handful Republican Senators to sign Obama's health care bill.

3. Tyranny of the pleasant personality at Chappy's on Church

Chappy's on Church is like a friend who doesn't do you any favors, but is so likeable that you keep him around anyway.

The food at this place is unremarkable. The turtle soup au sherry is advertised as a Creole favorite, so Creoles must favor mysteries because I couldn't figure out where the turtle went. Typically for this soup, you chop up the subtle-tasting turtle into thick pieces, but Chappy purees it into oblivion. The result is a mildly sweet soup that required some vigorous shakes of Chappy's special hot sauce. This combined with the equally uninspired thick cut prime rib made me think the name of this restaurant would be more accurate with an "r."

Chappy's Special of the Night: Pork Chop, Sausage, and Sirloin

But Chappy's has some charming tricks up its oven mitt. Kingston and Crowley, the live band that performs on weekends, plays a pleasant, folksly derivation of Cajun music that doesn't involve the fiddle, a big plus in my book. Plus Chappy's scores sympathy points: it used to be one of the premiere restaurants on the Mississippi Gulf Coast before Hurricane Katrina demolished it, forcing them to relocate to Nashville in 2006. As if that wasn't enough, our waiter was this slow southern guy who made you want to pat him on the head like John Gruden.

Like some charming people I know, the restaurant's charisma relies on a few affectations: the bar looks straight out of a French Quarter saloon, but Chappy actually had it shipped from Germany. And, although the staff seem like Biloxians, only the sous chef worked at the original location. Nevertheless, as with charming people, these affectations are quickly forgiven, as my parents can attest - they plan to become regulars.

4. Pork belly pizza at City House.

The concept of City House is fresh, local ingredients cooked by chefs who favor a simple skillet on the stove instead of sous vide. Marcy and I thought it compared to Woodberry Kitchen, the James Beard nominated New American restaurant in Baltimore.

Pictures below. Most memorable was the pizza with house made belly ham, grana padano, chilies, anchovies, and egg yolk drizzled over the top.

Springer Mountain Half Chicken, Concord Grape Mosto

House Made Sausage, Cabbage, Cannellini Beans, Horseradish

Carolina Trout, Bread Crumbs, Peanuts, Raisins, Lemon, Parsley Stuffing

Michael's Noodles

2009-11-22T08:22:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been working on a theory that DC's Chinatown is no match for the Chinese restaurants in Rockville. Your average DC resident is more familiar with the downtown hub than the Rockville places, so I thought that my theory was pretty counterintuitive. But last night my Chinese friend Dan treated this like a no-brainer. "Yeah, Rockville is much better," he agreed, matter-of-factly.

Dan thought that the three crown jewels of the Rockville scene - Joe's, Bob's, and Michael's noodle restaurants - had different owners even despite all the similarities in name, menu, location, and pretty much every other restaurant attribute. Next time we head up to Rockville, he agreed to translate my questions to the Taiwanese waitresses, who crack up hysterically and walk away, still laughing, when I try the questions in English.

When Lolly and I recently lunched at Michael's Noodles, I did manage to find out from a manager named Lang that Michael's Noodles was the last of the three restaurants to open. She also seemed to be saying that the three had independent ownership, but her randomly mixed-in Chinese words left me uncertain. And she seemed a little uncomfortable with the topic; our conversation was left hanging abruptly when Lang darted back into the kitchen.

The food was more satisfying. Michael's cuisine is in full bloom, even if it's the latecomer of the Rockville noodle houses.

The thousand year old egg pictured above was a first for Lolly and me. A traditional Chinese delicacy, these eggs are preserved, sometimes underground, in a clay-like plaster of red earth, garden lime, and tea for about 100 days.

Not quite a thousand years, but long enough for the mixture to leach through the shell and turn the egg into a freak show. The egg white becomes a dark shade of brown and the yolk is cast black. I'm not crazy about eating any food that looks like it drowned in the Valdez oil spill let alone an ancient midnight egg. But the taste was smoky, sweet and salty, and from now on both Lolly and I will celebrate embryonic racial equality.

Taiwanese dumplings.

Noodles with seafood. That all these Taiwanese restaurants call themselves noodle houses is perplexing to me. The noodle dishes make up a minority of the dishes, and they're often outshined by other menu items. Goupy and salty, this reminded me of the dumbed-down Chinese food for American palates that I had come to Rockville to flee. A five year-old girl at the next table was laughing at us as we struggled to scoop up these slippery things.

Fried rice with Chinese Sausage and Ham. This comfort food had a nice smoky flavor, an attribute that was working well in a number of Michael's dishes.

Sweet and Sour Cabbage.

NY Times Dining & Wine

2009-11-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/nyregion/22soup.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1258758962-aVf20elMFZ/ThsfwfdA65Q

I think this is an example of what's often frustrating about food writing. The writer takes an interesting observation - many ethnic cuisines feature chicken soup - and fails to even try to explain why this is the case. Why is chicken soup common to such different cultures? Do they all use it for curative purposes? Any other purposes beyond sustenance? Instead of describing the culture behind the food, she fixates on the food itself. The problem is that there's only so much you can say about food without resorting to trite, exaggerative descriptions: the Korean version came with a "stunning" side of mushrooms; when she had the Sichuan soup, her "whole body hummed"; the Greek one tasted "elegant". In what other section of the Times would this ever pass as good writing? Yet, for the food section, it's the norm.

The most overused food writing cliche has to be "delicious." Saying that something is delicious is appropriate for someone who doesn't know anything about food and just want to express dining rapture. For example, I'd expect a college kid drunkenly gobbling down fried chicken at 2 a.m. after a frat party to yell, "Delicious!" It's not appropriate for someone entrusted by the top-ranked newspaper in the country to provide well-researched, engaging analysis of food. So why do I get more than 100,000 results when I enter delicious into the New York Times search engine?

http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=delicious

Is this just the frustration and jealousy of one who will in all likelihood never see a letter of his food writing grace the old grey lady?

Rockville Chinatown

2009-11-14T17:34:00.000-08:00

Over the past couple months, I've been to three Taiwanese restaurants in Rockville: Michael's Noodles, Joe's Noodle House, and Bob's Noodle 66.

The similarities of these places go way beyond the titular. Each has taken an encyclopedic approach to menu-writing, with an average of over 200 items available. They serve up many of the same authentic Taiwanese dishes, all of which are boldly indifferent to the preferences of white people. And they aren't exactly taking different spins on these dishes - some of them, like Michael's and Joe's Taiwanese hamburger, are impossible to tell apart.

I have two theories to explain the similarities among these restaurants:

1. The best chef in Taiwan is being cloned by the government and shipped to the States in a conspiracy to get Americans to put down the chicken pasta and start eating interesting food. Ruby Tuesday is taking the hit well.

2. Michael, Joe, and Bob are estranged business partners.

There's some evidence for theory # 2. In 2006, the Post reported that a group of entrepreneurs had banded together to set up a Chinese-oriented shopping strip on North Washington Street. The goal was to build a new Rockville Chinatown that would overtake the moribund downtown version. Currently, though, Bob's Noodle 66 is the only Taiwanese restaurant rollng pasta dough on the strip.

Did the group of entrepreneurs have a falling out? Maybe North Washington Street isn't big enough for three fantastic noodle houses?

I'm making it my goal is to solve this mystery. To do so, I will need to confront horrendous Rockville traffic and numerous miscommunications with three different Taiwanese restaurant staffs, who know the answers to all my questions but in a different language.

Cochon in New Orleans

2009-11-08T13:06:00.001-08:00

When I started a conversation with a couple seated next to me at Cochon in New Orleans last week, I probably shouldn't have been surprised to learn that they were from D.C., too.

In D.C., you can have the best of whatever international adventure you feel like. Up for authentic masterpieces of vegetarian Indian food? Go to Rasika. Want to try kifta with berbere sauce prepared just like you'd get it at the National Palace in Addis Ababa? Head over to U Street. What you can't find in DC, and what draws people like me to places like New Orleans, is a distinctive local cuisine.

Cochon is probably the best place to dive deep into unique Louisian flavors. Chef Donald Link grew up in Lake Charles, which is Cajun country, but his food is a mix of Acadiana, Cajun and good ole Southern. When I saw Link on Anthony Bourdain, his thick accent reminded me of the loveably incomprehensible Farmer Fran. In other words, his swamp creds seemed pretty legit. So when I had a chance to go to New Orleans for work, the first thing I did was reserve my table at Cochon.

When they brought over my first dish, fried alligator with chili garlic aioli, I could sense fumes of jealousy coming from my table neighbors. The DC couple was already done with their meal, but they were seriously coveting the tender gator nuggets, so I gave them some. We expressed mutual admiration for the piquant aioli and commiserated over the toils of federal employment.

Bonding over alligator meat just doesn't happen in DC, nor should it (as much fun as it is to imagine Georgetown trophy wives feasting on the swamp thing). But what is the DC staple that seams together Washingtonians in culinary camaraderie? Our two best-known chefs are a Spanish egomaniac who does tapas and a French guy who expanded his LA-based restaurant empire to DC as an afterthought. Probably the only prominent DC chef who tries at all to cobble together a recognizeable DC cuisine is Bob Kinkead. But his efforts to mix Maryland seafood with Virginia ham seem half-hearted, perhaps because he's from Cape Cod.

After trying some of my fried rabbit liver with pepper jelly toast, the DC-ers paid their bill and were replaced by Big Easy natives: a loud-shirted and -talking building contractor named Greg on a second or third date with a blond half his age. Greg told me that the rabbit was his favorite dish at Cochon, and he advised that, if I wanted to blend in with the local crowd, I should express dining rapture by crying out, "Aiii-yee!" To his date's embarrassment, he and I practiced.

My voluble new friend then flagged the waiter and ordered me a boucherie plate. The boucherie is a traditional Cajun pig-slaughtering party, where rural Louisianians take down every last scrap of meat, including organs like the liver, not to mention pig's blood. The plate was an exotic eater's fantasy of boudin, andouille, rillettes, smoked pork jowl, and cracklins. As I began to work my way through the unctuous pieces of pork, Greg, who was still waiting for his food, let loose with a vicarious "Aiii-yee!"

I finished with paneed pork cheeks with goat cheese arugula and beet rosti. As I took my last taste, I felt like I had gained some insight into the wetlands of the Gulf region. If only Kinkead's black flounder with tasso ham and crab did the same thing for my stomping grounds.

New Camera

2009-11-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

This pic was taken with my new Kodak EasyShare.

The dish itself is nothing new - just a few simply prepared, reliable ingredients. I grilled some bay scallops in olive oil, seasoning one side of them with cayenne and the other side with oregano. They're served over a stir fry of snap peas, garlic and shallots.

In case anyone ever planned to argue that a Samsung camera phone is a fine alternative for food photography, here's the same dish snapped with my cell. This is the phone that I used for all the photos on my previous site, spelling certain food blog death and, for a good majority of my viewers, early-onset cataracts.

Foodie Beauties

2009-10-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

The internet seems to be missing a good dating website for foodies.

I emphasize that the site should be good, because there do seem to be a few really bad ones. Most seem to suffer from a crisis of identity. They start out with the honorable mission of uniting cuisine lovers, only to quickly realize that by focusing their scopes on hungry, lonely hearts, they miss out on all the hearts that are just lonely. Somewhere along the line, they expand the theme of their site to embrace a bigger audience. Gradually, they give food up, abandoning the only reason that justified their existence among millions of other dating sites, and go for watered down.

I can recall reading the business section of the newspaper less than five times in my life, so take that disclaimer into consideration when you read the following: I think the internet dating market is hungry for a food-themed site. It just has to be done right. Here's Marcy's pitch:

Online Dating Site for Good Food and Cooking Enthusiasts Launches

The current popularity of the Food Network Channel is resulting in some creative niche filling.

One of these is a new online website that is more than just about dating. Pairing.us is an innovative website that uses the growing food and cooking trend to create avenues of communication and compatibility among people who value quality and fun.

Rather than viewing dating like a job hunt, this website still believes in chance, but that chance is enhanced by compatibilities of quality food, wine, and people. The goal of this website is to be the leading personals site for cooking enthusiasts and food lovers. This forms the basis for a unique cooking and food lovers community as well as a launching pad for people pairings.

A benefit of this concept is that the website avoids much of the awkwardness that can accompany dating websites. In short, this concept has managed to be a welcome and subtle addition to the genre of online dating. More than just promising results, we believe that the alchemy of computers, food, fun and communication will work its magic on its members and that it is well worth the price of admission.

Members have a chance at winning one of three cash prizes offered in Pairingsâ€™ monthly recipe contest. The top three finalists will receive cash prizes of $300, $200 and $100, respectively. Each contest will require a particular ingredient. The ingredient for August is the tomato. In addition, you will be required to pair up a wine with your recipe. Winning recipes will be featured in our annual cookbook and distributed yearly to contest winners. Join now with a lifetime membership, no monthly renewal, and one-time fee of $29.95.

To fuel the chemistry there are a variety of tools provided by the website such as chat rooms, message boards, and recipe postings, which assure time well spent. The idea of creating an online dating service for quality people from a community integrated in the culinary may be extraordinarily obvious. It may also be brilliant. It certainly is timely. A modest one-time membership fee is also an attractive low risk incentive for culinary fun and possible passionate pairings especially considering one has the opportunity of winning cash.

There is a lot to like about this website whether you are a foodie, a chef, a gourmet, an armchair cook, a grillmeister or anywhere in between.

Washington Area Top 50

2009-10-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Marcy and I have spent the past couple of months tackling the DC area's top 50 restaurants, and I didn't even have to sell my car. The trick? We're using Young and Hungry's list in the City Paper, not the rankings in the Post or Washingtonian, which would have required a bank loan. Places like Komi and Citronelle aren't used to rejection, but Tim Carman leaves them off his list, favoring hole-in-the-wall joints over places that just leave holes in your wallet. And so far, Tim's recommendations have been right on more than just the money.

In a spreadsheet with no less than three separate pages of foodie analysis, Marcy and I have been rating the restaurants according to five scoring dimensions: taste, creativity, ambiance, service, and price. Although the interior deco and service have occasionally suffered (I'm talking to you, Abol of Silver Spring), the taste and creativity have been consistently good.

Here are our overall rankings so far, along with favorite dishes:

Marcy

1. Four Sisters (banh hoi scallop va tom nuong - scallop skewers, lettuce Raps, vermicelli)

2. Joe's Noodle House (bamboo salad *)

3. Liberty Tavern (arctic char *)

4. Rasika (dal makhani - lentils, tomato, garlic, fenugreek)

5. Nava Thai (pad thai)

6. Heritage India (pondicherry spiced salmon with cilantro cream)

7. Jang Hyun Ban Jun (ja jang myun - wheat noodles mixed with bean paste and onions *)

8. Grapeseed (fricasse of wild mushrooms)

9. Evo Bistro (moroccan tuna)

10. Meaza (special veggie combo)

Matt

1. Rasika (avocado banana chaat)

2. Liberty Tavern (orechiette with confit of lamb shoulder)

3. Joe's Noodle House (spare ribs *)

4. Nava Thai (oxtail soup *)

5. Four Sisters (bo 5 mon - 5 courses of beef)

6. Evo Bistro (chicken leg tagine *)

7. Jang Hyun Ban Jun (ja jang myun - wheat noodles mixed with bean paste and onions)

8. Heritage India (chicken drummettes)

9. Grapeseed (cornmeal fried oysters)

10. Abol (Kuanta firfir - dried beef sauteed in berbere)

11. Meaza (Ye Beg Goden - baby lamb shortribs)

* Top dishes