amanda mcclements

Polly Brown is chef and owner of POLLYstyle Artisanal Baked Goods . You can find her fabulous graham crackers and other sweets at the forthcoming Filter Coffeehouse & Espresso Bar near Dupont, Cork Market , Cowgirl Creamery , Mid City Caffe , Big Bear , Peregrine Espresso and more. (See the full list on her site .) 1. Salad frisée and seasonal oysters at Brasserie Beck 2. The burger at Palena 3. Seaweed salad at Spices 4. Fried chicken at The General Store 5. Sourdough waffle at Teaism Previous Chef Five Bites: Cathal Armstrong , Dani Arana , David Guas , Josh Short , Michel Richard , Haidar Karoum , Ryan Morgan , Shannon Overmiller , Anthony Chittum , Jonathan Krinn & Jon Mathieson , Victor Albisu , Vatche Benguian , John Snedden , Nicholas Stefanelli , Travis Olson , Brian Robinson , Cliff Wharton , Alex Bollinger , Massimo Fabbri , Daniel Bortnick , Rob Weland , Olivier Perret , Dennis Marron , Dean Gold , Mike Isabella , Bryan Voltaggio , Geoff Tracy...

Chris Horne delivers your weekly dose of Five Bites. 1. Ricotta gnocchi with fresh cherry tomato sauce at Al Tiramisu 2. "Clasico" Peruvian ceviche at Ceiba 3. Hummus bil Foole at Mama Ayesha's 4. Seared sea scallops at Evening Star Cafe 5. Nutella and strawberry crepe at Crepes-a-Go-Go Five Bites is a place for Metrocurean readers to share all the delicious things they've been eating and drinking. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail.com.

Attention brunch lovers: 14th Street hot spot Birch & Barley will serve its first Sunday brunch Feb. 28. And even better? The new Sunday brunch will be served all day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Chef Kyle Bailey will be cooking up fried chicken and waffles, corned beef hash with fried duck eggs, whiskey-vanilla french toast with caramelized apples and sour cream, and truffled croque madame with Canadian bacon. Morning sweets are in the capable hands of pastry chef Tiffany MacIsaac, who'll be turning out freshly fried donuts, sticky buns with brown sugar toffee and pecans, and a bread basket with carrot-zucchini muffins, banana coffee cake and cinnamon-raisin bread. Also helping make your weekends taste better, ChurchKey is now open for lunch starting at noon on Saturday and Sunday. On the menu: new additions like a Cubano panini and a cheese flatbread featuring Red Apron artisanal pepperoni, and menu standbys including the fig and prosciutto flatbread, mac and cheese ...

The Peruvian flavored Las Canteras in Adams Morgan is one of the numerous restaurants offering deals for "Unleashed" week, March 1-7. Photo: Anne McDonough With another round of snow looming, is that all-too-familiar stir crazy feeling creeping back in? The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington wants to help you get out, eat, drink and be merry with a week's worth of deals dubbed Restaurants "Unleashed," running March 1-7. "Think of our Unleashed week as an intense, really big, group therapy session,” says Lynne Breaux, RAMW's president. More than 100 restaurants are offering specials of their choosing, from free hush puppies with a dinner order at Sou'Wester to a complimentary bottle of Prosecco with dinner at Urbana . A few deals I have my eye on: • Inox : $25 off dinner for two • Las Canteras : three course Peruvian dinner for $24, three course lunch $20 • PS 7's : three course dinner $45, three course lunch $25 • Vinoteca : 15 per...

Photo by wageslaves ( Creative Commons license ) We got ourselves a bona fide diner in town! Capital City Diner officially opened for business this morning at 1050 Bladensburg Rd. NE . During the weekend's soft opening, the diner dished out 80 dozen eggs, more than 600 pancakes and over 100 burgers, according to its Facebook page . Capital City is serving breakfast all day, along with other expected diner fare like chicken fried steak, meatloaf, pies and milkshakes. Today's special of corned beef hash, eggs and toast will set you back only $5.50. Since last May, Young & Hungry's Tim Carman has chronicled the diner's journey through DC bureaucracy. Turned out, it wasn't so easy to pluck a 1940s diner car from upstate New York and move it onto an old used car lot in DC. But they made it. For photos of the shiny diner car, check out Young & Hungry , DCist and We Love DC .

After touring college towns with his band in North Carolina, Barry Koslow got into food thanks to a roommate who was working as a sous chef. Koslow, now executive chef at Tallula and EatBar , snagged his roommate's food magazines, started cooking and decided to head home to DC where he enrolled in L’Academie de Cuisine. Since graduating, Koslow has worked at Equinox , 2941 , Citronelle and Circle Bistro . He was most recently executive chef of Mendocino Grille and Wine Bar in Georgetown. 1. Pork banh mi at Song Que 2. Rosemary chicken liver bruschetta at Cork 3. Jeo-Yan shrimp at Peking Gourmet Inn 4. Bistec encebollado with a large margarita with salt at Los Tios 5. Chin, Nam, Ye Don pho (slices of well-done brisket and skirt flank, aka #9) at Pho 75 Previous Chef Five Bites: Cathal Armstrong , Dani Arana , David Guas , Josh Short , Michel Richard , Haidar Karoum , Ryan Morgan , Shannon Overmiller , Anthony Chittum , Jonathan Krinn & Jon Mathieson , Victor Albis...

Today's bites are from Olga, who blogs about cooking at Mango & Tomato and everything else at My World . 1. Pretty much anything on the menu at Zaytinya 2. Tater tots with eggs, cheese, bacon and scallions for brunch at Sticky Rice 3. Beautifully made sushi at Yamazato 4. Mojitos at Zengo 5. Falafel and fries that bring back memories of Israel at Amsterdam Falafelshop Five Bites is a place for Metrocurean readers — and DC's top chefs — to share all the delicious things they've been eating and drinking. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail.com.

What area restaurants are tweeting about today ...

The James Beard Foundation today announced a list of semi-finalists for its prestigious national awards. The final five nominees in each category will be named March 22, with winners awarded May 3. In the running from our delicious city: • Best Chef Mid-Atlantic: Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve , Tony Conte of The Oval Room , Peter Pastan of Obelisk , Vikram Sunderam of Rasika , Bryan Voltaggio of Volt • Best New Restaurant: Eventide , J&G Steakhouse , Trummer's On Main • Outstanding Chef: José Andrés of Minibar • Outstanding Restaurant: Vidalia • Rising Star Chef of the Year: Johnny Monis of Komi • Outstanding Restaurateur: Ashok Bajaj, owner of 701 , Ardeo , Bardeo , Bibiana , Bombay Club , Oval Room and Rasika • Outstanding Pastry Chef: Amanda Cook of CityZen • Outstanding Wine Service: Restaurant Eve • Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional: Derek Brown of The Passenger • Outstanding Service: Marcel's

The restaurant: Pound Coffee The deal: Half priced latte and espresso drinks Feb. 22-26. The deets: This independent coffee shop, located across from the New York Ave. Metro station, is slashing the prices on all espresso drinks next week, including daily specials like a decadent sounding Nutella latte (Monday) and creme caramel latte (Friday). The shop also offers a daily lunch special for $6.95, from curries on Wednesdays to meatloaf, lasagna and pad thai. Check the daily special on Pound's Facebook page . (Note: Pound is open Monday-Friday, 6 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Sweetgreen's quinoa salad will be a new offering at the P Street store. Sweetgreen will unveil its fourth area store Saturday at 1471 P St. NW. The DC-born salad and frozen yogurt shop has done an incredible job incorporating local foods into their menu and supporting the region's farmers. Showing their commitment to the cause, the owners recently added a new position to the business: a sourcing and sustainability manager. (You can read about their new "Sourceress" Erin Littlestar's adventures over on Sustainable in the City .) Exclusive to the Logan Circle store (for now) will be a selection of seasonal soups and a "Market" menu featuring three lettuce-less salads made with seasonal ingredients. Here's the recipe for one of those featured salads. Red & White Quinoa Salad with Goat Cheese and Roasted Winter Veggies recipe courtesy Sweetgreen 3 cups quinoa (red and white mix) 6 cups water 1 whole sweet potato, peeled and diced into ½-inch cubes 1...

I may be hooked after a first bread baking attempt. "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who bake bread and those who don't." That's how The Gourmet Cookbook opens its chapter on bread. But I'd like to add a third: People who make pizza dough but don't make bread. That's where I fit in. Pizza dough I have down. I've been known to sweat it out over a hot charcoal grill cranking out pizza after pizza for friends and family. Truly a labor of love. A loaf of bread? I was a total novice. Until Sunday. My somewhat flat no-knead bread. I needed a gentle nudge to get me forming loaves, and that came from Liz of The Hill is Home , who directed me to a Snowpocalypse bread baking challenge (with recipe) over on Samuel Fromartz's site Chewswise . Following the now-famous no-knead recipe, originally from Jim Lahey , I made myself a loaf of bread. Albeit a somewhat flat loaf of bread. But it's delicious and moist, a tad chewy inside with a c...

Allison Sosna is executive chef of DC Central Kitchen's Fresh Start Catering , which generates revenue for DCCK programs and provides employment opportunities for students of the group's Culinary Job Training Program. Fresh Start offers local, seasonal and sustainable meals for corporations, families and schools. Sosna has previously worked at the Inn At Little Washington , Dean and Deluca , Hook , Lia's , Chef Geoff's . 1. Pumpkin beer at ChurchKey 2. Quattro formaggi pizza at Pizza Paradiso 3. Lingonberry linzertorte with Taleggio ice cream at Hook 4. Foie gras wrapped in cotton candy and corn nuts at Café Atlántico 5. Quiche and salad at Tryst Previous Chef Five Bites: Cathal Armstrong , Dani Arana , David Guas , Josh Short , Michel Richard , Haidar Karoum , Ryan Morgan , Shannon Overmiller , Anthony Chittum , Jonathan Krinn & Jon Mathieson , Victor Albisu , Vatche Benguian , John Snedden , Nicholas Stefanelli , Travis Olson , Brian Robinson , Cliff Wharton , Ale...

Andrew Hu, a Congressional staffer, says he'll eat most things and "will try anything you put in front of me." 1. Scorched earth cocktail at The Gibson 2. "G man" sub on a hard roll with everything at Mangialardo and Sons 3. Southern fried chicken with fresh greens and mac and cheese at Levi's Port Cafe 4. Honey glazed duck breast at Birch and Barley 5. Beef shawarma at The Shawarma Spot Five Bites is a place for Metrocurean readers — and DC's top chefs — to share all the delicious things they've been eating and drinking. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail.com.

BrewDog's Tokyo stout, with a whopping 18.2 percent alcohol, ought to warm you up. Sounds like there's been a whole lotta drinking going on out there to cope with cabin fever, am I right folks? In case you're fresh out of ideas of what to guzzle next, Metrocurean asked Greg Engert, beer director extraordinaire of ChurchKey , Birch and Barley and the Neighborhood Restaurant Group , what beers are best for hunkering down on a cold, snow-packed night. Here are Engert's picks for filling your next glass: 1. Spiced Imperial stout: draft Tokyo - BrewDog - Scotland - 18.2 percent This huge roasty treat just hit the shores and is on draft at ChurchKey. The young brewers of BrewDog are nothing if not innovative, and their trailblazing has delivered the perfect Winter's Ale. Fermented with ale and champagne yeast, this beer is the quintessence of warming, pitched at a blanketing 18.2 percent! Not merely a sort of chocolate-coffee liqueur, the beer is seasoned with jasmine a...

Photo: The Source I don't know about you, but I'm craving spicy Asian food thanks to all this snow, and I've got a hankering for noodles thanks to Melissa McCart's delicious story in today's Washington Post . To satisfy both once you dig out of your igloo, head to The Source for happy hour in the lounge featuring dishes from chef Scott Drewno's new Izakaya menu. You can choose any three items for $20.10 — and one of your choices can be a drink, say a glass of shochu or a cold Hitachino Nest beer. I'd pair the latter with pan-fried noodles with pork belly and an order of mini banh mi. Happy hour runs Monday through Friday from 4-6 p.m.

An very important call for help from Food & Friends: On Thursday, Feb. 11, Food & Friends needs 20 volunteers to deliver meals , especially those with 4-wheel-drive vehicles . Those without cars would be very much appreciated in the kitchen, and it would be great if they could come between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Volunteers may sign up to chenderson@foodandfriends.org . This information is also available on our website at www.foodandfriends.org/ winterstorm2010 . Without Food & Friends, our clients likely will not eat , so the help of the community is vital. Meals may be picked up from Food & Friends (219 Riggs Road, NE/Washington, DC) between 10 a.m. and noon, we will provide detailed delivery directions, and routes should take no more than 3 hours. For more information, prospective volunteers may call 202.841.5347.

Adam Lippe, executive chef at The Light Horse , has worked about every job in a restaurant, from waiter to management. The graduate of Johnson and Wales University-Charlotte was the opening chef at Logan at the Heights in Columbia Heights. From there, he moved to The Majestic to work as a sous chef under chefs Cathal Armstrong and Shannon Overmiller. When The Light Horse opened in October 2008, he took over the kitchen as head chef. These are his Five Bites: 1. St. Pierre Veronique (John Dory) at Bistro Bis 2. Chicken bites with hot chili sauce at Eamonn's a Dublin Chipper 3. Fish tacos (their mole is the bomb) at Guajillo 4. Crispy whole duck at XO Taste 5. General Tso's chicken (actually, anything on the menu) at Mr. Ho's Carry-out Previous Chef Five Bites: Cathal Armstrong , Dani Arana , David Guas , Josh Short , Michel Richard , Haidar Karoum , Ryan Morgan , Shannon Overmiller , Anthony Chittum , Jonathan Krinn & Jon Mathieson , Victor Albisu , Vatche Benguian , J...

William Pendzuk works at Tim Force CPA, a firm that works with lots of DC restaurants, including Busboys and Poets , CakeLove , Corduroy and Dino . 1. Pork in the garden at Anothai 2. Ma Tu's signature black pepper chicken at Taste of Saigon 3. HUGE house green salad at Thai Tanium 4. Wild boar basil at Thai Noy 5. Peanut butter blossom cupcake at Hello Cupcake Five Bites is a place for Metrocurean readers — and DC's top chefs — to share all the delicious things they've been eating and drinking. E-mail five of your favorites and whether you'd like your name and a picture included to metrocurean AT gmail.com.

Marcelo Lazaro, head bartender at the Embassy of Peru, cracks an egg while demonstrating how to make a traditional Pisco sour. metrocurean photos Despite the icy sidewalks and chilly temps on Monday night, the whir of a blender and the smell of fresh lime juice inside the Embassy of Peru had me daydreaming about balmy tropical locales. The embassy's bartender, Marcelo Lazaro, was whipping up a batch of Pisco sours for a crowd of onlookers. The event, co-hosted by Macchu Pisco , was in honor of Peru's National Pisco Sour Day, coming up Feb. 6. After Lazaro demonstrated the classic recipe — a 3:1:1 ratio of Pisco, lime juice and sugar, plus egg whites and Angostura bitters — eight DC bartenders showed off their twists on the cocktail. Jen Fitzsimmons of Café Atlantico made the bite-size version pictured above: an egg white meringue topped with spherified Pisco and lime zest. Alex Bautista of Ceiba showed off a passion fruit Pisco sour, and Jon Arroyo ( Founding Farmers , Farm...

Lucky number 11 stole random.org 's heart for the pair of Valentine's Day tickets to the International Wine and Food Festival 's Grand Tasting: Meg said... Would *so* love to make it to the IFWF! Here's to winning tix! Meg, please email me at metrocurean AT gmail.com to claim your tickets! Didn't get lucky this time? For complete information on the festival's numerous events and tickets, check out wineandfooddc.com .

It's a sweet match-up of Colts vs. Saints at Hello Cupcake. You can't influence the outcome of Sunday's Super Bowl match-up (unless you're some kind of shady, all-powerful game fixer), but you can determine the winner of what's sure to be a messy fondant face-off at Hello Cupcake . Let the frosting fly. Through Sunday, support your team by purchasing Colts or Saints cupcakes at the Dupont Circle shop. One cupcake equals one point for your team. Get 'em individually or by the dozen. Order by Saturday at noon if you plan on serving them at a Sunday party. The logos can go on any flavor you like. Three hours before kick-off on Sunday, Hello Cupcake staffers will announce a winner. May the best cream win.

Photo: tallula.com The restaurant: Tallula The deal: The restaurant's new “Neighborhood Nosh” menu offers three courses for $35, Monday through Thursday from 5:30-6:30 p.m. The deets: Choose any appetizer, entrée and dessert from chef Barry Koslow’s menu, including choices like ahi tuna tartare with snow peas, sesame crackers and red pepper coulis, and slow-cooked lamb shank with white beans, kale and chorizo.

Help support one of my favorite local charities by purchasing tickets to Brainfood and Bordeaux , a wine auction and cooking demonstration, coming up Monday, Feb. 22. Brainfood uses food and cooking to teach life skills and healthy living to DC youth. The event will take place at Zola Wine & Kitchen at 7 p.m. There'll be a cooking demo led by chef Bryan Moscatello ( Zola , Zola Wine & Kitchen and Potenza ), a wine auction led by ABC-7's Leon Harris, and of course, wine and food. Tickets are $40. Auction paddles are an additional $10. Get your tickets here !

Get your comments ready, folks. It's another tasty giveaway! The 11th annual International Wine and Food Festival is coming up Feb. 11-14, and Metrocurean is giving away a pair of tickets to Sunday's Grand Tasting. (Perfect Valentine's Day date, yes?) Leave a comment on this post by Thursday at 10 a.m., and I'll choose one winner at random to receive the pair of tickets. (You must be 21 to attend.) Check back Thursday to see if you've won. The festival is filled with all kinds of delicious happenings — from a kickoff party at PS 7's to brunch at Ris for DC Central Kitchen — but the main attraction will be Saturday and Sunday's Grand Tasting and Street-Fare Food Pavilion, from 2-6 p.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building. (The winner gets tickets to Sunday's tasting and pavilion.) At the tasting, 100 international wineries will pour more than 600 wines. The International Food Pavilion will serve dishes from around the globe (A...