amanda mcclements

Butterfield 9 is closing. DonRockwell.com broke the news of the eight-year-old restaurant's demise, and Todd Kliman of Washingtonian fills in more details . That brings the past week's toll to three announced closings: Restaurant K , Colorado Kitchen and now Butterfield 9. And I don't think that's the last we'll hear in the next few weeks ...

The winners of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington's annual awards were announced last night in the packed ballroom of the Wardman Park Marriott. A panel of judges chose the following winners ... • New Restaurant: The Source by Wolfgang Puck • Fine Dining Restaurant: Equinox • Upscale Casual Restaurant: Poste Moderne Brasserie • Chef of the Year: Eric Ziebold of CityZen • Rising Culinary Star: Barton Seaver, formerly of Hook • Pastry Chef: Heather Chittum of Hook • Wine and Beverage Program: Passion Food • Restaurant Employee: Joel Guagliano, Zaytinya • Restaurant Manager: Molly McWhorter, Chef Geoff’s Downtown The public chose these winners ... • Hottest Bar Scene: Central • Power Spot: Oceanaire • Neighborhood Gathering Place: Hank's Oyster Bar , DC • Voters' Choice Restaurant of the Year: The Monocle RAMW named Phyllis Richman, former food critic of The Washington Post , the recipient of the Duke Zeibert Capital Achievement Award, and she entertained the c...

Last April, Metrocurean told you about Palette chef Arnel Esposo being called up for service in Iraq. I'm pleased to report that he's home and got back into the kitchen June 9. The chef, pictured above in an Iraq village, was a big hit with local kids thanks to the candy and chips he'd bring along. In his absence, the children would chant "we want the chef," according to a rep for the restaurant. Note that his name tag reads "chef." During the year of service, Esposo's Maryland National Guard unit enjoyed an abundance of Old Bay seasoning, thanks to a care package they received from the company. Esposo said it's good in moderation on potato chips, rice and soup. The chef may create a tastier version of MREs (meals, ready-to-eat) for Palette's bar menu later this summer. Stay tuned.

Today's five bites are from Clay and Zach, authors of the fun blog The Bitten Word , where they chronicle their efforts to put food magazine subscriptions to good use by cooking at least one recipe from each — like this delicious looking grilled pizza . 1. Crispy spring rolls at Nam Viet 2. Cayenne and espresso steak salad at Paolo's 3. Corn fritters at Duplex Diner 4. Miniburgers at Matchbox 5. Charbroiled oysters at Acadiana Five Bites is a weekly opportunity for Metrocurean readers to share the dishes and drinks they're enjoying around town. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail DOT com.

Chocolaterie Wanders has created this nifty box of chocolates to celebrate July 4th. The flag is formed by 12 dark chocolate ganache squares with hints of American whiskey and butter, covered in 70 percent dark chocolate. Chocolaterie Wanders will donate 15 percent of all sales of the Liberty Squares collection to the Pentagon Memorial Fund. Find them online , at Periwinkle in DC and at Cork and Fork in Gainsville, Va.

When someone posted a link to an auction for Colorado Kitchen 's goods on Chowhound Tuesday, it didn't bode well for the restaurant. Washingtonian 's Todd Kliman continued the breaking news flurry Wednesday with confirmation from Colorado Kitchen chef/owner Gillian Clark that the restaurant's days are numbered. (DonRockwell.com says June 29 is the final service.) The restaurant's current building is reportedly slated for demolition. That makes two restaurants down and one chef out so far this week. Here's hoping for better news next week. Update: For more detail's on Clark's future restaurant plans, check out this Washington Post piece .

The plot thickens in the chef vs. owner drama at Tackle Box and Hook . Washingtonian 's Todd Kliman is reporting that Barton Seaver is no longer the chef at Hook.

The fro-yo wars may be upon us, but good ol' artisanal gelato is not going to take this lying down. The brand new Bethesda Row outpost of Dolcezza is up and running, and (free food alert!) on Thursday June 26, from 6 to 11 p.m., they're celebrating their grand opening by giving away some 300 gallons of their delicious farm-fresh product (pictured). Also entering the frozen treats fray in DC will be Pitango Gelato , according to the Washington Business Journal . Joining the Baltimore original will be two planned locations: a 500-square-foot shop in the Metropole condo building at the corner of 15th and P streets NW and one at Reston Town Center. Like Dolcezza, Pitango relies on local farms for many of its ingredients. And finally, Boccato Gelatos opened recently in Arlington. The lucuma flavor sounds very intriguing. Tried it? (Photo from dolcezzagelato.com .)

Updated Tuesday, 12:03 p.m. ... Restaurant K by Alison Swope closed its doors today after less than a year. A message from parent company McCormick & Schmick's reads: " We have been extremely pleased with - and proud of - the work and commitment that Alison Swope and her team have demonstrated during the opening and operation of Restaurant K. However, current economic conditions have led to the business decision to close this restaurant and reallocate its resources to our core McCormick & Schmick's branded establishments." According to an updated statement from M&S released Tuesday, Swope will become part of the company's culinary development team.

This week's edition of Five Bites comes from Taylor Giroux (at right). 1. Tacos al asador, carne asada with guacamole at Rosa Mexicano 2. Croque Monsieur with frites followed by chocolat chaud at Les Halles 3. Fried Snickers at Eamonn's, A Dublin Chipper 4. Sourdough french toast with home fries at Tallula 5. Southern fried chicken at Georgia Brown's Five Bites is a weekly opportunity for Metrocurean readers to share the dishes and drinks they're enjoying around town. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail DOT com.

The media, bloggers in particular, love them some frozen yogurt. And you know what they (we) love even more? Frozen yogurt wars . Combine that with the current probiotic craze , and we have the makings of a media yo-gasm. And DC will stand on the sidelines of this big city fad no longer, because it looks like we're poised for our very own fro-yo fight. TangySweet is now open in Dupont, and lives up to its name. The yogurt is, you guessed it, tangy and sweet. (Georgetown's SweetGreen is also peddling the tart stuff, but salad is their bread and butter.) But what's that on the horizon? LA-export Pinkberry is supposedly on its way , and a Canadian fro-yo chain, Yogen Früz , plans to open 16 stores in the area. TangySweet should have a hometown advantage since it's a locally owned, small business. And owner Aaron Gordon told DCist he may open a few more shops around town. So what do you think? Bring it on? Or this trend's so already been broughten. At least we...

Looking to culturally expand your drinking horizons this weekend? There will be two opportunities to sip on complimentary sherry served in a traditional style by a venenciador (pictured). Using a venencia, a thin cup on a long stick, a venenciador takes a pull of sherry, raises it above his head and pours it in a thin stream into a tiny glass. On Friday, the Penn Quarter outpost of La Tasca is offering a free Serrano ham and sherry tasting with a venenciador at the bar from 4 to 7 p.m. Taberna del Alabardero , DC's grande dame of Spanish restaurants, will host a free sherry tasting on Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m., also with a venenciador on hand.

If you haven't already, read Marc Fisher's brilliant blog post on Comet Ping Pong 's rabble-rousing hearing at a Monday ANC meeting. In short, Comet wants to stay open later, have live music and offer outdoor seating. Frank Winstead, the ANC commissioner who already got Comet's outdoor ping pong table nixed, fears that such freedoms will turn his neighborhood into Adams Morgan with its rapes and murders. Yes, he actually said that. Fisher ridicules Winstead, writing: "In the Forest Hills-Tenleytown area, the idea that a restaurant might stay open late, provide entertainment for its customers and--horrors!--even let folks sit outside on a summer's eve is a shocking invasion to some residents. But for once, the District's byzantine form of neighborhood democracy--which heavily favors the tiny group of people who despise any street life, cling to the notion that they live in a suburb, and have nothing better to do than attend ANC meetings--produced a result t...

Chef Peter Smith (pictured) of PS 7's has teamed up with BeBetterGuys.com to host a series of man-centric cooking classes, starting this Saturday. Each session costs $75 and includes a hands-on cooking class in the restaurant's kitchen, a mixology lesson, a three-course lunch and recipe cards for each dish. Here's the schedule: • June 21, Playing with Fire — Smith will demonstrate creative techniques of grilling and fire roasting. Also features a demonstration of flambéed cocktails. • July 12, Football Food: Charcuterie and Small Plates — Learn how to house-cure and create charcuterie including pepperoni, mortadella, prosciutto and salumi. Smith will also teach recipes for innovative appetizers. • Aug. 16, Grilling and Meat Rubs — Smith will demonstrate how to use spice rubs without overpowering the flavor of the meat. Learn several recipes for meat rubs, how to use wood chips for flavor and get tips for grilling meat and fish. Classes start at noon, and reserv...

I love soft shell crabs. I love them best lightly coated in flour and gently sautéed in butter that's just starting to brown. But almost every soft shell I've stuck a fork into this season in a restaurant has been hiding in a cocoon of deep fried coating. Why do so many chefs batter the hell out of the poor, delicate creatures and toss them in a deep fryer? Don't get me wrong — I love fried food. I just think the flavor of the crab gets lost under all that coating. And it can't be easier to deep fry them, right? Maybe for the squeamish it hides the fact that you're eating the whole crab? To be honest, I'm baffled by all that batter. How do you like your soft shells? Seen any restaurants simply sautéeing them?

This week's edition of Five Bites comes from Catherine Finn, a U Street resident and writer at a consulting firm in Dupont Circle. 1. Tater tots at Solly's ("Really fabulous bar food, no one believes me until they try them, but then they're hooked.") 2. Vegetarian platter at Etete 3. Ceviche platter at Ceiba 4. Dark 'n' Stormy at Creme 5. Lizzy's goat cheese cake at Cork ("I would go back, wait for two hours just to have this again.") Five Bites is a weekly opportunity for Metrocurean readers to share the dishes and drinks they're enjoying around town. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail DOT com.

Celeb chef Eric Ripert just launched a blog, Avec Eric , and while there's not much on it yet, I can't help but be charmed by Get Toasted, a video series featuring the esteemed chef cooking with a toaster oven. A not-so-subtle plug for that beautiful Cuisinart toaster oven? Maybe. But he's onto something. I often use my beat-up toaster oven when I don't want to heat up my regular oven. I use it for small pieces of fish, chicken wings, roasted elephant garlic and cookies. Here's his first installment of Get Toasted . Also check out the Westend Bistro chef's recipe for pistou soup (a great way to use summer basil) here .

Fresh off a stint at Las Vegas' acclaimed Restaurant Guy Savoy , chef Daniel Giusti has taken the reins as the new executive chef at 1789 . The new gig is a homecoming of sorts for Giusti, who launched his culinary career as a prep cook at the original Clyde's when he was just 15. (1789 is part of the Clyde's Restaurant Group.) He also worked under 1789's previous top toque, Nathan Beauchamp, as sous chef from January 2007 to August 2007. Beauchamp is heading west and relocating to Seattle, according to restaurant reps. Check out Giusti's cooking without breaking the bank with 1789's popular summer deal: three courses for $37. Click here to receive the dining coupon.

Is the Styrofoam clamshell an endangered species? Eco-friendly take-out boxes, cups, flatware and bags are edging out their plastic and Styrofoam counterparts in restaurants all over town. At Dupont's new TangySweet , yogurt is delivered in Ecotainer cups (pictured above) that are compostable and petroleum-free. The new and tasty Tackle Box is also stocking eco-friendly take-out ware, and On The Fly 's SmartKarts hand over the goods in biodegradable bags. Chix delivers its delicious, free-range rotisserie chicken in boxes made from sugar cane fibers, and their seemingly plastic drink cups are made from corn. The utensils are made from potato starch; napkins, bags and menus from recycled paper. It's promising to see restaurant owners being more eco-conscious, but it's also important to stop using so damn much in the first place. Chef Barton Seaver of Tackle Box told me recently that although he's buying green options for his seafood shack, he tries to encourage peo...

If you don't plan ahead, it can be tough to snag a reservation at Proof . But it should be a little easier to secure a table this summer thanks to an additional 50 seats the restaurant just added on its brand new patio. Chef Haidar Karoum has added some warm weather dishes including a chilled seafood and hearts of palm cocktail and grilled housemade lamb sausage with cucumber, mint and feta. And wine director Sebastian Zutant is offering a rosé of the day for $9 a glass, as well as a few new cocktails like the Coquette, a mix of Tanqueray Rangpur, elderflower, grapefruit bitters and housemade rosé syrup. Big congrats are also in order: Proof just won a nod from Food & Wine for having one of the Best New Wine Lists in the country. Proof was one of seven spots to receive the honor. (Photo by Darko Zagar.)

Updated 10 p.m. Thanks to a source sending text message updates from the James Beard Awards Gala, Metrocurean has learned that chef Eric Ziebold (pictured) of CityZen snagged the prestigious title of Best Chef Mid-Atlantic and Michel Richard's delicious brasserie Central is bringing home the title of Best New Restaurant (in the country!). Also representing the DC area, Terry Theise of Terry Theise Estate Selections won the Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional award. Congratulations!

Betty Thurber, author of the food blog Trouble With Toast , sends in today's Five Bites line-up. 1. Crab bisque, blackened scallops and hanger steak (rare, of course) at Ray's the Steaks 2. The fry plate and the cookie platter at Palena 3. The "CKing Ding," Chef Gillian Clark's take on a Ding Dong, at Colorado Kitchen 4. Miso glazed sablefish (pictured above) and goat's cheesecake at Proof 5. Combo lo mein, spicy, at Great Wall Szechuan House Five Bites is a weekly opportunity for Metrocurean readers to share the dishes and drinks they're enjoying around town. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail DOT com. (Photo by Darko Zagar.)

Fritz Hahn, washingtonpost.com's bar guru, has the scoop on some new spots slated for Glover Park — and some old favorites that may soon bid adieu. According to Hahn, neighborhood mainstays Busara and the Grog and Tankard are both expected to be replaced. Several sources are reporting that local lounge impresario Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld ( Chi-Cha , Mate, Gazuza , Ceviche , Gua-rapo ) is expected to take over the Grog's space. Hahn says it will become a tavern called Gin and Tonic . A few doors down, Hahn reports that Busara will give way to a new spot from the owners of Sonoma , Mendocino Grille and Bethesda's forthcoming Redwood . No details have gone public yet. This summer, the old Apollo Market space will be filled by Surfside , a casual seafood spot, from chef David Scribner and Bo Blair of Smith Point and Jetties . The planned Wisconsin Avenue restaurants will join the newly opened Breadsoda , with its impressive sandwich menu and Nintendo Wii, and new-ish bubb...

Wine snobs can stop reading now. A novel vino brand that debuted last year just hit the shelves in DC and Maryland. Aiming to make pairing wine with food at home less daunting, Wine That Loves takes five popular American foods and offers a wine that, well, love s each food. The bottle names and simple graphics spell it out. The current line-up (above) includes Wine That Loves Roasted Chicken, Wine That Loves Pasta With Tomato Sauce, Wine That Loves Pizza, Wine That Loves Grilled Salmon, and Wine That Loves Grilled Steak. They sell for $12.99. Noticeably absent from the labels are vintage, varietal and country — the point being simplicity, after all. Varietals were recently added to the web site, but with a disclaimer from the wines' creator, Ralph Hersom, a former wine director for Le Cirque in New York City: "If you are familiar with the varietals in our wine, don’t necessarily expect our wine to taste the way wines from those varietals typically taste. But, do expect our ...

Caught onto the latest phrase infiltrating the lingo of the Internets? Meet "om nom nom nom," more casually known as "nom nom nom." The turtle above would say this if he could speak. If you're not hip to the nom nom phenomenon, the ever-credible Urban Dictionary defines the phrase as "an onomatopoeical adjective based on the sound emitted when something is 'oh so tasty' ... that one gnaws through it without regard to cleanliness or etiquette. This sort of ravenous eating will often result in an 'om nom nom nom' noise being emitted from the eater." Cookie Monster is credited with coining the endearing sound, and it's catching on as an irreverent expression of epicurean enjoyment. Exhibit A: Serious Eats . Exhibit B: Obama nom noms . Across the pond, exhibit C: Londonist . Also seen in comments all over the blogosphere. It's like an antidote to a certain TV celeb's sickeningly saccharine yum-o . And however sophomoric, this ...