amanda mcclements

An egg-topped pizza from Bon Appétit Photo by Misha Gravenor for Bon Appétit As 2008 wraps up, the foodie trend prognosticators are at it again. Among the forecasts (rustic and comfort food are dominating buzz words), Bon Appétit calls out anything with an egg on top as a hot new trend. I love runny egg yolk, so I'm all about this movement. And lucky for me and any other yolk lovers out there, DC has plenty of places to stick a fork into the fad. Bar Pilar recently added a dish that layers toasted bread with a sunny side up egg and glistening pearls of salmon roe, which add a nice burst of brininess. In one of my favorite dishes at Cork , an egg is stacked atop the pan-crisped brioche sandwich with Fontina and prosciutto. Mandu 's bibim bap offers a fried egg over a bowl of rice, vegetables and beef. Order the dolsot version, in a sizzling hot stone bowl. I love Brasserie Beck 's version of the classic frisée salad, where the yolk of a poached egg enriches the sherry vina...

Another juicy bit from the Other People's News file: Tom Sietsema reports that chef Roberto Donna , at left, hopes to take over the former Butterfield 9 space at 600 14th St. NW to bring back his once celebrated Italian restaurant Galileo . And though you never know until the contracts are signed, this would obviously mean that chef Morou Ouattara of Farrah Olivia didn't get the space. The City Paper 's Tim Carman first reported on Ouattara's hopes to acquire the space back in September.

In a move that raises the culinary stakes, the forthcoming Ben's Chili Bowl sibling Next Door has tapped Virginia native and " Hell's Kitchen " season three winner Rahman "Rock" Harper to be head chef, The Washington Post reports . As the Post 's Jane Black writes, Harper's appointment signals a shift to a more serious food destination than Next Door originally aspired to be. For a look at the new spot, Capital Spice and Prince of Petworth have a few photos . Next Door is slated to open in January at 1211 U St. NW — right next door to Ben's.

Eamonn's A Dublin Chipper in Old Town Alexandria To stoke your fatigued post-holiday taste buds, here are five bites from Metrocurean reader Lindsey Urbaniak. 1. Chicken Madness at Wisemiller's 2. Crab bisque at Ray's the Steaks 3. Bacon-wrapped figs at EatBar 4. Fish and chips at Eamonn's 5. Chicken or beef döner at Hamburg Döner Help keep Five Bites going strong into 2009! It's a weekly opportunity for you to share the dishes and drinks you'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.

Counter Intelligence has been posting the favorite cookbooks of local food writers for the past few weeks, and a few of mine are posted today. Check it out here . Ant cookbooks on your holiday wish list?

Dupont Circle's Hello Cupcake Metrocurean reader Laura sends in five moderately priced bites in the Dupont Circle neighborhood. 1. Hearty lentil soup at the Greek Deli 2. Pork Cubano sandwich at Afterwords Cafe 3. Spicy shrimp in coconut curry sauce dish (Udang Goreng Berempah) at Straits of Malaya 4. Creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich at Cafe Luna 5. Pumpkin spice cupcake at Hello Cupcake Five Bites is a weekly opportunity for you to share the dishes and drinks you'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.

Adding to his two successful DC restaurants — Marcel's and Brasserie Beck — chef Robert Wiedmaier, at left, is opening two new restaurant concepts in Old Town Alexandria this February. The Belgian-flavored Brabo by Robert Wiedmaier and the Brabo Tasting Room will be located next to Kimpton's new Lorien Hotel and Spa at 1600 King St. In the spring, a gourmet market called The Butcher’s Block, also created by the chef, will join the new eateries. While its Old Town neighbor Restaurant Eve calls its more formal dining room the tasting room, the Brabo Tasting Room will be the more casual of Wiedmaier's dual concepts. The 45-seat tasting room will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, serving dishes like mussels with chorizo and fennel, slow roasted pork sandwiches with frites, and sharable items like charcuterie, artisanal cheeses with housemade marmalades and country breads, and seafood platters loaded with salmon pâté, ceviche, cod fritters and smoked trout ...

Head to Vermilion for a discounted power lunch This week's foodie deal features Alexandria's Vermilion and its three-tiered power lunch box. The CEO lunch ($19) offers a choice of soup or salad and any main course off chef Anthony Chittum's menu. The Junior VP ($15) features Davon Crest greens or butternut squash soup and any sandwich. Last and most affordably, the Intern ($11) will buy you a half green salad, a cup of butternut squash soup and a half a roast beef sandwich. You can add any dessert or glass of wine to any of the power lunches for $5. Previous Wednesday deals: • Restaurant 3 • Proof • Mio • Vidalia

I was thrilled to be a guest on Nycci and David Nellis' radio show " Dishing It Out " a few weekends ago. Up first on the show, pastry chefs Josh Short of Buzz and Heather Chittum of Hook talked sweets, while the rest of us sipped Short's incredible eggnog. Warren Brown of CakeLove talked frosting, cake and the awesomeness that is the star cut (more on that below). Finally, City Paper 's Tim Carman and I discussed blogging and food writing. Listen to the show here . But back to the star-cut cake. Brown brought in a German chocolate cake, sliced into a beautiful star pattern, which creates smaller pieces. It's difficult to describe on the radio, but it's a pretty nifty trick, especially for holiday entertaining. So ... when I ordered a noodle and cheese pie from Chix the other day, I gave it a shot. It's not nearly as attractive as a German chocolate cake, but hey, it illustrates the concept. Behold, oh, starry noodle pie: It was my first try, and ...

If you're looking for someone else to do the holiday cooking, Washingtonian has an extensive list of places to dine on Christmas and Christmas Eve. What are your plans? Cooking anything exciting?

Today's Five Bites, with drink pairings, come from Josh at Two Helmets Cooking . (Check out the spherified olives on his site.) 1. Fries and a lavender margarita at Poste 2. Hush-puppy cannonballs and a dark and stormy at the Argonaut 3. Seared chard and ricotta at Coppi's , then walk over to The Gibson for a drink 4. Panzarotti and a De Koninck at RedRocks 5. Veggie dumplings and jasmine tea at Great Wall Szechuan Five Bites is a weekly opportunity for you to share the dishes and drinks you'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 butter-poached steak is coming. So is the bacon fat-poached pork. And the complimentary duck fat fries. You'll find them all at Michael Mina's Bourbon Steak , which is slated to open next Friday, Dec. 19, in the Four Seasons. The 144-seat steakhouse will open for lunch and dinner. A 42-seat bar and lounge will offer the full dining room menu, along with finger food and snacks. For more, check out my Q&A with Mina here .

Restaurant 3's scallops and grits Ready for a bailout of your own? Arlington's Restaurant 3 is now offering a Bailout Blue Plate special, Sundays through Thursdays during dinner. For $15.95, you'll get a selected dinner entrée created by chef Brian Robinson and a glass of paired wine. “The blue plate has historically been a value-driven, belly-filling meal consisting of a meat and two sides,” Robinson says. Dishes will include southern fried chicken with mac and cheese and greens, country-style pork ribs with a crisp Carolina slaw and roasted corn and potato salad, and cioppino, a San Francisco-style fish stew. The Blue Plate specials will run at Restaurant 3 indefinitely. Look for new restaurant deals on Metrocurean each Wednesday.

I'm somewhat irrationally excited that Posto opened over the weekend in the old Viridian space. You see, a lazy Logan resident cannot live on Cork , Bar Pilar and Great Wall Szechuan alone. Well, you can, very deliciously, but I'm excited to add a fourth spot into my regular neighborhood rotation. Like its older sibling, downtown's Tosca , Posto also serves Italian fare, but both the menu and interior are much more casual. I had a quick bite at the bar a few nights ago, and though I'm loathe to judge a restaurant in its infancy, the place shows real promise. A dish of creamy polenta topped with tomato sauce and sausage was a standout, and I'll be back soon to try the wood-fired pizza. Also on the menu: charcuterie and cheese, a selection of pastas, and a handful of meat entrees, including boar chops, which are also calling my name. Posto offers about 24 wines by the glass, poured from an Enomatic wine system behind the bar, plus sparkling choices. The spacious r...

Via Prince of Petworth comes news that chef Gillian Clark, formerly of Colorado Kitchen , has signed a letter of intent to open a new restaurant in the Park Place development, over the Petworth Metro station. According to the announcement, The Meeting House will occupy 4,000 square feet in the building, which is slated to open in 2009. "The menu of the new restaurant will be classically southern, illustrating the trend to environmentally friendly cooking, a characteristic of the Southern food way," Clark says in the release. That will include beef short ribs, Gulf shrimp, rabbit, crayfish, trout, pheasant and pigs feet. The chef is also about to open the General Store in Silver Spring. Read more in this recent Dish column from Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema. A third spot, Avenue Oven , is in the works for Takoma Park.

Orange and ginger make a delightful combination in Siggi's skyr metrocurean photo Longtime readers of this site may remember the first time I waxed poetic about skyr. For the uninitiated, it's a traditional Icelandic product that's a lot like yogurt. It's naturally high in protein and fat free — hell, I'd call it health food — but the consistency is rich, creamy and totally worthy of dessert. Even better, it lacks that creepy gelatinous texture I associate with fat-free yogurt. An Icelandic brand of skyr appeared in DC-area Whole Foods stores more than two years ago. Now comes Siggi's , an Icelandic-style yogurt made in New York by Iceland native Siggi Hilmarsson. (Here's his story , courtesy The Amateur Gourmet.) I first read about Siggi's in Gourmet a few months ago and finally noticed it on the shelves of the P Street Whole Foods last week. I picked up the orange and ginger flavor and I'm hooked. The orange is subtle, not juicy, and there are a...

The bar at Alexandria's PX Today's bites are from Mike and Elizabeth of the food blog Capital Spice . 1. Amberjack crudo at Komi 2. Duck reuben at Poste 3. Unpasteurized, fresh pressed apple cider from Hartland Orchard 4. BLT cocktail at PX 5. Mussels fungi (mussels with oyster mushrooms, morels, bourbon, cream, shallots, roasted garlic and basil) at Granville Moore's Five Bites is a weekly opportunity for you to share the dishes and drinks you'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.

Capitol Hill's new Matchbox follows the same design aesthetic as the Penn Quarter original Capitol Hill's new Matchbox opens Friday at 5 p.m. Last night, I got a peek inside the Barracks Row restaurant, which was packed for friends and family service. The look of the space will be familiar to anyone who has eaten at the original location in Penn Quarter, as will the menu, with the same addictive mini burgers on buttery brioche buns and wood-fired pizzas. Soaring ceilings with exposed ductwork and a roomy mezzanine level give the new digs an open and light vibe. One of my favorite features is a barside booth, pictured at right, that sits in a large wooden frame. The restaurant, housed in a former vending machine warehouse, will open for dinner Friday, with lunch service to follow at a later date. Full weekend brunch service will start Dec. 13. Sunday brunch starts this weekend. Matchbox 521 Eighth St. SE 202.548.0369

Proof's shrimp burger It's easy to blow $12 on a single glass of wine at Penn Quarter's Proof , but with the restaurant's new lunch deal, you'll get wine and a meal for that price. Offered in the bar and lounge only, the "lunch crush" deal gives diners a choice of six entrées paired with a glass of house red or white wine, soft drink or iced tea for $12. Go for chef Haidar Karoum’s crispy shrimp burger, served with cucumber, jalapeño, pickled daikon and Sriracha aioli, or the Wagyu steak and cheese with wild mushrooms, jalapeño mayo, provolone and mixed greens. In addition to several sandwiches, the lunch crush menu will typically offer a pasta and a hearty salad option. Proof 775 G St. NW 202.737.7663

With the economy being what it is, it shouldn't be too hard to channel the spirit of 1933. Great Depression aside, there was something to celebrate that year — the end of Prohibition — and this Friday, Dec. 5, you can toast the occasion all over again. The DC Craft Bartenders’ Guild is hosting a Repeal Day party at the historic City Tavern Club in honor of the 75th anniversary of the date the 18th Amendment was repealed. The party kicks off at 8 p.m. with a jazz band, hors d'oeuvres and classic cocktails, recreated by DC's best bartenders, including Owen Thompson of Bourbon , Gina Chersevani of EatBar and Derek Brown of The Gibson . Special guests will include Tony Abou-Ganim , host of Fine Living’s “Raising the Bar,” Jeffrey Morgenthaler, founder of RepealDay.org , and other top bartenders from around the country. Tickets are $90 and proceeds benefit the club’s Preservation Fund and the Museum of the American Cocktail. Dress for the soirée is sophisticated cocktail attir...