amanda mcclements

Tosca doesn't seem to have the name recognition of some of its fine dining counterparts in D.C., but I can assure you there's no good reason for that. Chef Cesare Lanfranconi (pictured above) is one of the city's brightest culinary talents, and if you haven't treated yourself to a meal at Tosca, you're missing out. A new promotion at the restaurant gives you all the more reason to go: From 5:30 to 7 p.m. daily, the restaurant is offering a $32 three-course menu. As added incentive, Tosca will donate 10 percent of all sales from the "Dine at Dusk" menu to a selected charity each month. Food and Friends is November's charity. The menu features more than half of the dishes found on Tosca's regular dinner menu, including chestnut flour pappardelle noodles with wild boar meat sauce; oven roasted veal shank with sautéed spinach, roasted new fingerling potatoes and Barolo wine sauce; and roasted Mediterranean sea bass with a balsamic vinegar sabajon and...

After calling ahead for a table at Hank's and then being told when we got there that we must have made that phone call up, we sadly dragged our feet down 17th Street last night knowing we'd never get into Komi and facing the grim prospect that is the rest of the block. "It never hurts to ask," said my friend as she walked into Komi while we waited outside. And miraculously enough, thanks to flaky reservation no-shows, we got a table and Komi saved the evening. The warm figs stuffed with mascarpone served before the meal are reason enough to run to the phone and make a reservation. Sprinkled with salt and drizzled with oil, they're a perfect example of why salt and sugar work so well together. The speck wrapped white tuna could make you think you're eating pork, and the warm farro salad beneath it blew me away. How can something so simple looking taste so complexly good? The nubbly grains mixed with pine nuts and something sweet (currants maybe?) for a dish I...

Two new spots that seem ready to open any day (if they haven't already) are Jin (pictured), next door to Busboys and Poets , and Open City , from the owner of Tryst and The Diner. Inside the "Asian Caribbean soul lounge" Jin, just south of 14th and V streets, you'll find red leather couches and orderly rows of low tables and white ottomans. The Web site indicates there's WiFi, happy hour and a dinner menu, but I haven't done enough sleuthing to know much more. Open City, reports On Tap , "will offer WiFi and feature a gourmet coffee bar, a full-service (cocktail) bar with beer on tap and some 12-or-so wines by-the-glass, and plenty of seats in the dining area to order upscale-ish diner food like Italian-style pizzas, eggs all day, sandwiches and salads." Open City is located at 2331 Calvert St. NW. Also on the horizon, stay tuned for news of changes at OYA, including a revamped menu.

Warning: Completely unsubstantiated rumors ahead... Could it be true? A San Franciso-based food blogger has sparked a rumor that Thomas Keller, of French Laundry , Per Se and Bouchon fame, might be opening a restaurant at D.C.'s own Watergate Hotel. The rumor has been tossed around over at donrockwell.com, but there have been no solid sources identified. Rumor on the chat thread also claims that Keller was dining at CityZen last week, where his French Laundry protégé Eric Ziebold heads the kitchen. Read into that what you will... If true, this would be the biggest restaurant news to hit our fair city in a while. D.C. is already poised to gain a few top-notch restaurants, with some of our best chefs, including Ris Lacoste and Michel Richard , branching out. But there is no hard evidence at present to support this claim. If any pops up either way, I'll post it here.

A few food-related events of note... • Po'Boys Part Deux When: Nov. 1, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. See previous post. • FRESHFARM Markets 2005 Farmland Feast Why: To celebrate local foods and the farmers who produce them When: Nov. 7, 6-10 p.m. Where: The Ritz-Carlton at 1150 22nd St. NW Price: $150 ($100 of which is tax deductible) Bonus: An auction will be held, offering prizes like dinner with Phyllis Richman at Michel Richard's chef's table and a week at the Golden Door Spa in Escondido, Calif., and the talented chefs contributing to the evening include Fabio Trabocchi of Maestro, John Wabeck of Firefly, Eric Zeibold of CityZen and Cathal Armstrong of Eve. [Note: RSVPs were requested by Monday, but there still may be tickets available.] For more: Click here. • Book Release Parties for José Andrés' First Cookbook Why: José Andrés releases his eagerly anticipated cookbook, "Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America." When: Nov. 10, 7 p.m. at Jaleo in Crystal City; Nov. 1...

If you hate olives, you can stop reading and get back to work. If you're anything like me, however, just about anything as salty as an olive ranks up there on my favorites list. Which brings me to the glory that is a stuffed olive. I'm a big fan of olives stuffed with garlic, but olives stuffed with blue cheese are a close second. Which brings me to the glory that is a well-made dirty martini spiked with blue cheese olives. To be honest, I could take the olive juice with just a splash of vodka ... I realize how nasty that must sound to some of you, especially the olive haters, but you weren't supposed to be reading this anyway. I've had an excellent version at the Four Seasons and just the other night got to try Extra Virgin 's tasty take on the drink, which arrives with a generous dish of six blue cheese stuffed olives. That's my kind of cocktail. Where do you think the best dirty martini in the area can be found? Are you pro olive stuffing? (Photo, amusingly e...

When it comes to hot sauce, heat should not be the only goal. But all too often, flavor is an afterthought behind the tongue-searing, tastebud-paralyzing properties. Well, area residents should know that there's one bad-ass, flavor-packed hot sauce being produced and sold right in our backyard. Friends recently brought over a bottle of Uncle Brutha's No. 10 hot sauce, a local product I'd seen several times at a stand at Eastern Market but (stupidly) never stopped to try. Spiced primarily by habaneros, jalapenos and serrano chiles, the Fire Sauce No. 10 delivers a powerful bite that hits hard, but after the almost smoky, garlicky flavor charms your tongue. The No. 9 sauce, made with green chiles, is heralded today by the Hot Sauce Blog . Uncle Brutha, aka Brennan Proctor (that's him on the label), started selling his hot sauce in 2003, and the No. 10 sauce was awarded second place in the 2005 Fiery Foods Challenge. According to a family story, Proctor's great grand...

Have a recipe you think belongs in print? Want to help a good cause? Local award-winning writer Monica Bhide is seeking recipe submissions for a fundraising cookbook for the local nonprofit Center for Multicultural Human Services . Recipes should be easy and family-friendly and should appeal to children of varied backgrounds. The submission deadline is Nov. 15. Please read Monica's request letter, posted in the first comment below, for guidelines on how to submit your recipe.

If you're in search of dinner plans this weekend, Dupont Grille is donating 100 percent of its lunch and dinner sales today and Saturday to the Salvation Army's Hurricane Relief Fund. Chef Duane Keller has added a special New Orleans "Fall Trio" to the menu—an entrée featuring pan seared gulf snapper on wasabi mashed potatoes with jumbo lump crab meat and shrimp.

Acadiana's opening day po'boy fundraiser was a huge success, so much so that the sandwiches ran out well before the 3 p.m. end time. If you missed out last time, you'll have another chance Nov. 1 at Acadiana's second po'boy fundraiser. You can find more details on the Post GOG blog here .

"Edamame are steamed Japanese soy beans," our over-eager server explained with great pride during a thoroughly narrated visit to Zengo last night. I was afraid he was going to tell us not to eat the shells. "Ceviche is raw fish marinated in citrus juices," he continued. "Del mar would be our seafood dishes, de la tierra means from the land, like pork, lamb, beef." If you didn't know Zengo was a chain before sitting down, the well-rehearsed introduction, clearly written for people who don't eat out much, should be the first clue. Despite our reluctant facial expressions, we had the entire menu explained to us, including a play-by-play of the cocktail menu. "A caipirinha is like a Brazilian version of the mojito." Really? About mid-way through, the waiter said, "If you haven't already figured it out, Zengo combines Latin and Asian flavors." No kidding. Ok, so I'm being a little harsh. Along with the elementary introductio...

The plight of Juanita Garay caught my attention this summer when the Post's Courtland Milloy published this column . After 26 years in business, she was struggling to keep her second Salvadoran restaurant, La Casona , open. It appears that the columnist's fears were right: La Casona, which was located at 11th and U, is now draped in a sign declaring, "Coming Soon! Lobo's Grill," and all before I ever had a chance to pay a visit. The new location doesn't seem to be a chain of any sort. Milloy wrote, "the loss of home-style family restaurants like La Casona puts the city at risk of becoming bland, like some of those upscale, concrete egg crate condominiums that have become the new hot thing in town." Perhaps Lobo's Grill will fight that assumption; maybe it won't. Any readers out there have any fond memories of La Casona or Juanita Garay?

Now that D.C.'s beloved panda cub is squared away with a new name , we can turn our attention to the renaming of Signatures . With a new set of owners, the restaurant is poised for a makeover, including renovations to the staid dining room, new menu items from chef Morou and a new name. Restaurant partner Mark Smith said that they'll hold a renaming contest to allow patrons to weigh in with suggestions. He's also hoping to expand the restaurant's customer base beyond the lobbying/Hill crowd. “We don’t feel that enough people knew about the restaurant and all that it had to offer. And I think we need to give people the opportunity to discover just how terrific Morou is and just how wonderful it is to enjoy the [restaurant’s] overall ambience,” Smith said. More than a few people, myself included, had questioned why the talented Morou was sticking around a restaurant plagued by country club decor and former owner Jack Abramoff's legal troubles. Todd Kliman, in a Septem...

By fighting hunger, I don't mean deciding which hot new restaurant to check out. To raise awareness of Sunday's World Food Day and the issue of hunger around the world, Action Against Hunger will stage an exhibition in Dupont Circle Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. For more information or to volunteer, check out the group's Web site .

...is now up online , with a new half-star rating system.

On the heels of Zengo 's Wednesday opening , which brought us Latin-accented sushi, Sette Bello , the new restaurant from Franco Nuschese, springs "Italian sushi" on us. According to the restaurant's Web site , "What makes Sette Bello different is its exotic 'Italian sushi' bar consisting of carpacci , tuna, octopus, salmon, and, of course, Italian rice." My best guess is they mean crudo, the Italian version of sashimi that offers slices of raw fish simply dressed in lemon, oil, salt and subtle flavorings. ( The New Yorker 's food issue last month had a nice profile of David Pasternack, chef of New York's fabulous Esca , that credits the restaurant's owners with starting the crudo craze.) Sette Bello's addition of Italian rice is mysterious, and I'll be eager to hear any reports from the field. Also on the menu: antipasti, pasta, pizza, insalates and Southern Italian wines. The restaurant is located in Arlington at 3101 Wilson Blv...

Growing up in a home where a 10-cup pot of coffee was brewed twice a day by a mother who can't go more than eight hours without a java fix, I was conditioned to love the smell of coffee. I didn't develop a taste for it until college (hey, everyone else was doing it), and even now I think it's the Pavlovian response to the smell and the cream, not the caffeine, that keeps me coming back for more. Apparently not everyone likes the smell. When faced with a mug of steaming coffee, my grandparents' cat performs that weird litterbox ritual, scraping his hind legs toward the mug as if attempting to bury the foul-smelling liquid. I'm assuming the cat is trying to tell us it smells like crap. All reasons why I found this epicurious.com Daily Dish item on why we like coffee so interesting. Overcoming the initial bitterness, the author writes, has a lot to do with smell. "[W]hen black coffee enters your mouth, you perceive bitterness with your tongue, but you also percei...

From the Chinese dragon and drummers out front to the spontaneous singing by Placido Domingo, the opening party for Zengo Monday night made quite an impression. Guests sipped raspberry caipirinhas and cucumber mojitos and sampled sushi, wonton tacos, spring rolls and cinnamon churros, while Domingo and chefs Richard Sandoval and Alan Yu made the rounds. The restaurant, which opens today, is the topic du jour , as expectations are mixed over whether the chain will reflect the talents of its chefs. Yu, who grew up in D.C. and is a University of Maryland alum, brings an impressive résumé to his chef de cuisine position—he worked under Michel Richard at Citronelle and Jean-Georges Vongerichten at New York's 66. Word has it that the restaurant is already booked this week, but watch for the takeout window to open up right outside the Gallery Place metro escalator. An odd touch for an upscale restaurant, the takeout window will probably be popular with the nearby office lunch crowd. (Lu...

As part of his new role as Washingtonian's dining editor, Todd Kliman will begin hosting a weekly dining chat every Tuesday at 11 a.m. Tune in tomorrow for his first foray into the world of online chatter. Positioned the day before the popular Washington Post dining chat , Kliman's new forum will have a day's advantage on breaking restaurant news. It should also be interesting to see if there's a notable difference between the types of questions Kliman chooses to answer and those Tom Sietsema picks. With two different takes, D.C. diners should look forward to an even more rounded picture of what's going on in the dining scene.

Cheese connoisseurs rejoice! California's award-winning Cowgirl Creamery is setting up shop in Penn Quarter, with a scheduled April 6 opening, reports the New York Times. Founders Sue Conley and Peggy Smith (pictured above) are both from the D.C. area and plan to bring a selection of their award-winning cheeses as well as cheeses from other small producers to the District. Conley told the Times that the shop will offer a cheese bar where shoppers can sample the cheeses with wine tastings. Cowgirl Creamery's cheeses include the triple cream Mt Tam (pictured at right), described on their Web Site as "firm, yet buttery with a mellow, earthy flavor reminiscent of white mushrooms," and the Red Hawk, "aged six weeks and washed with a brine solution that promotes the growth of a bacteria that tints the rind a sunset red-orange." The shop will be located at 919 F St. NW next to Central Liquor.

Viridian , the forthcoming 14th Street restaurant from Perry's owner Saied Azali, has recruited Rebecca Byrnes, formerly of The Reef , as chef, reports Linda Roth Associates. Byrnes oversaw The Reef's menu of organic and sustainable bar food, including free-renge bison burgers and chili rubbed Niman Ranch pork chops. The enormous space, located next door to the Studio Theater at 1515 14th St., has been under construction for some time, and not many details have been publicized. Early reports from Washingtonian's Ann Limpert and Post food critic Tom Sietsema indicate that Viridian will be a seasonal American restaurant, overseen by Sidra Forman, a former pastry chef at Ruppert's and a consulting chef for Perry's. "The menu is expected to change daily and include 'a meat, a fish, a chicken' and 'a bunch of side dishes,' " Sietsema wrote in a recent dining chat. Viridian's Web site sends visitors to Perry's Web site for now, but stay...

Congratulations to Chef Morou Ouattara who yesterday won the chance to compete on Food Network's Iron Chef America. He beat out Tosca Chef Cesare Lanfranconi and soon-to-depart 1789 Chef Ris Lacoste with his meticulously prepared pumpkin and lobster tea paired with a pumpkin beignet, pumpkin sour cream and caviar (pictured below). When asked which Iron Chef he'd like to face, Morou complimented the styles of Mario Batali, Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto, but Metrocurean thinks Morimoto would make the best match (although I'd love to see him school some Bobby Flay). (Photos by Metrocurean.)

The news just broke that Ris Lacoste is leaving 1789 after the end of the year to open her own restaurant. The news is being reported in both Tom Sietsema's dining chat and Linda Roth's Latest Dish . “I want a scene, something really fun and delicious,” she told Sietsema. Exciting news for the city from an extremely talented chef.

It looks as if Busboys and Poets is settling into the U Street neighborhood very comfortably. Both DCist and Tom Sietsema have weighed in on their first impressions of the new lounge/bookstore/coffeeshop/bar. After blogging about it back in August, I finally got the chance to check it out for lunch yesterday. "Are you in a loungey mood or would you rather sit at a table?" the host asked as I walked through the door. I opted for a table and ordered a tasty prosciutto pizza with arugula and red peppers on a basil pesto base—the crust was nice and crisp and the flavors worked well together. I'll definitely be back to try the fried catfish and peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich praised by DCist. But beyond the food, the space is incredible. People were browsing for books in one corner, sipping espresso in another and banging away on laptops in yet another. Comfortable groupings of chairs and sofas provide plenty of seating for lounging or eating, and the bar (with a...

Bistro du Coin 's executive chef and its former general manager have bought 17th Street's Peppers from longtime owner John Colameco, the Washington Business Journal reports . Former GM George Gozem and executive chef David Barigault plan to get a feel for what the neighborhood wants before making changes, but Barigault told the journal that "I'm doing this to get a French touch on 17th Street." What used to be a restaurant wasteland, the 17th Street corridor may be turning a culinary corner. With the arrival of Komi and, more recently, Hank's Oyster Bar , the bar is getting higher for restaurants, and with his experience at Bistro du Coin, I'd expect good things from Barigault. In the meantime, Bistro du Coin will be looking for a new chef.

In a very interesting tidbit from the Going Out Gurus blog , Fritz Hahn reports that an off-shoot of Glover Park's Bourbon will move into the first floor of the Blue Room in Adams Morgan. The bars already share the same owners. The upstairs will still be the Blue Room, but perhaps the owners felt the usually low-key first floor was a good fit for Bourbon's casual drinking crowd. My question is will there be separate door policies for the two spots? Will the frequent cover and dress code only apply upstairs? (Photo from yourcollegelife.com .)

The owners of Cleveland Park's Indique are planning to open a second restaurant at 2 Wisconsin Circle in Chevy Chase. The popular original is known for its creative cocktails and extensive menu of Indian favorites, like chicken biriyani, pictured above. Stay tuned for more details and an estimated opening date. (Photo from indique.com .)