The most troubling talk about Michel Richard Citronelle has nothing to do with lost stars or with the dress habits of pre-pubescent diners. It has to do with a persistent rumor that it will be closing or moving out of the District.
The rumor, for once, has a basis in reality. Citronelle's dated dining room has [...]

Yeah, we know, you're still in a post-coital stupor over Obama's victory last night, and all you want to hear are sweet nothings whispered in your ear about our country's new love object/president-elect. But in a brilliant counter-intuitive editorial strategy, we at City Paper are following up the most historic election since 1876, when His [...]

Leave it to Michael Landrum, the self-proclaimed "Improprietor" of Ray's the Steaks, Ray's the Classics, and Ray's Butcher Burgers, to post this love note to Tom Sietsema after the Washington Post critic's recent dust-up over a First Bite review of the Commissary:
The one thing that doesn't make sense to me about this whole thing is [...]

As if you needed any more confirmation on the subject, Forbes.com reports that the Inn at Little Washington is one of the priciest restaurants in the country. With meals starting at $148 (midweek) and $168 (Saturdays), the Inn rates right up there with New York's Masa and the Bay Area's The French Laundry.
Yeah, but do [...]

Opening a restaurant isn't cheap, particularly in the District where rents and expectations are ridiculously high. Peruvian chef Javier Angeles-Beron, the former executive toque at Latin Concepts, has found one way around the problem: He's opening his new restaurant, Aroma, in Olney. You read right: Olney, as in way the hell out there on Georgia [...]

I've lived in two other cities where citizens broke into spontaneous celebrations: Kansas City after the Royals won the 1985 World Series and Houston when the Rockets won the 1994 NBA Finals (and again in 1995). But neither of those felt as joyous and genuine as the crowds that jammed up the intersection at 14th [...]

Joe Yonan, editor of the Washington Post's Food section, contacted me earlier today to clear up the paper's position on future reviews of EatWell DC restaurants, which include The Heights, Grillfish, and the Commissary. David Winer, a partner with EatWell DC, had earlier sent a letter to his mailing list, saying that the Post had [...]

Times are tough in newsrooms across the nation. How tough? According to a memo sent to Jim Romenesko at poynter.org, it almost came to this for election-night reporters at the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.:
From: "Susan Spring"
Date: November 3, 2008 11:46:07 AM EST
To: [Raleigh News & Observer staff]
Subject: Pizza etiquette
I want to remind you [...]

I have mixed feelings about posting this item, given my general belief that foods alone don't determine your health, long-term or otherwise. (Well, short of a nasty hurl due to food poisoning.) But Gourmet magazine has posted a short piece about the alleged benefits of eating turmeric on a daily basis. Here's the pertinent part:
Intrigued [...]

My buddy, Lou Cantolupo, designed this ghastly pumpkin diorama (click to expand the image) well before The Simpsons aired this year's "Treehouse of Horror" episode, in which the Grand Pumpkin, in a blood-soaked ode to the old Peanuts' Halloween special, goes on a rampage. Lou got his inspiration, instead, from this site. My wife, Carrie, [...]

Three weeks ago, as we were preparing the latest installment of Dishing Expedition, I was all ready to offer up a one-paragraph summation of my lone visit to the Commissary in Logan Circle, but at the last minute, the item got cut due to space limitations. Given the ongoing flap over Washington Post restaurant critic [...]

Don Rockwell, founder of the online foodie board donrockwell.com, has come to Tom Sietsema's defense after the Washington Post retracted the restaurant critic's First Bite review of the Commissary in Logan Circle. Writes Rockwell:
This is a tough standard, and I stand solidly behind Tom on this one (while at the same time understanding the Post's [...]

The partners of EatWell DC, which own the Commissary on P Street NW, requested and got what they wanted following Washington Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsema's harsh early look at their new Logan Circle eatery: They got the Post to retract the First Bite article, which was originally published on Wednesday in the Food Section [...]

7-Eleven likes to say that its 7-Election coffee cups have called the last two presidential elections, which bodes well for Barack Obama. The convenience store chain's customers have been purchasing far more Obama cups than McCain cups; the Democratic nominee leads the GOP candidate 60 percent to 40 percent.
But over at BGR: The Burger [...]

Eddie Gehman Kohan, one of Los Angeles' cheeky Haphazard Gourmet Girls, e-mailed me this afternoon to share her recent experience at Michel Richard Citronelle. She was on the war path, clearly. She wasn't after Richard's head, but that of the maitre d', who stopped Kohan on the way out of Citronelle and said that her [...]