As DCist has already noted, the Black Rooster has been revived, Lazarus-like, from the dead.

Playing Jesus in this scenario, says owner Jody Taylor, would be Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans.

"The Black Rooster will crow again," Taylor says. Asked what happened to prompt the reversal of fortune for what had been slated to become a General Services Administration conference room, "I don't really know to be honest with you. Jack Evans had a lot to do with it....Once I talked to the landlord, he was extremely gracious. Everybody came to terms. It's good all around."

And the reprieve came just in the nick of time. Taylor had put up the bar's assets in an online auction, and today was the last day he could have canceled it. "They had people flying in from Chicago and Atlanta that were interested," Taylor says. "Just came down to the last minute practically."

The final papers aren't signed just set, but Taylor says landlord Richard Cohen gave him the go-ahead to re-open, something that could happen in two or three weeks.

"I am very grateful at this point to a lot of people," Taylor says.

Dimitri P. Mallios, Washington's "dean of Alcoholic Beverage Control attorneys," died yesterday at 77.

Mallios was first among a relatively small cadre of D.C. attorneys representing restaurants, bars, clubs, and hotels in front of city liquor authorities; his services helped myriad establishments navigate an arcane licensing process and fend off countless neighbors and advisory neighborhood commissions.

He had been battling cancer for more than five years, says his law partner Steve O'Brien. Mallios had been active and practicing before his illness suddenly worsened a week ago.

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I have a friend who hates cilantro, which tastes like soap to him. We've learned to cook around his fussiness, which, believe me, is a bitch when making a good salsa. I have another friend who claims to get headaches when eating anything made with non-organic oils. I don't cook for him anymore (only joking, Kelly!).

These are the only phobias/allergies I have to deal with in my personal cooking life. The area's chefs, on the other hand, have to confront an army of hypochondriacs in their dining rooms, many of them merely faking allergies because they're too embarrassed to admit they just don't like certain ingredients.

In our new Food Issue, staff writer Ruth Samuelson talks to a few of these fakers---and to the chefs who wish they'd just act like grownups. It's a good read. So read it already.

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 Avenue.

Now Olney is not exactly a culinary wasteland. The village formerly known as Mechanicsville (good call on the name change there, folks) already hosts one of my favorite bagelries and an under-appreciated Belgian joint, Mannequin Pis (with the comically incontinent cherub). Angeles-Beron's Latin-American place, scheduled to open Nov. 25, is located just up Georgia Avenue in the former Bella Notte space.

Angeles-Beron forwarded me an early menu, and it's stuffed with a number of promising options, including ceviches, tapas, and even the occasional chifa dish, such as the Peruvian wontons stuffed with fresh cheese and served with avocado cream. It looks like we have one more reason to jump into the Global Warming Machine and head to Olney.

I hesitate to poke at this hornet's nest, but what the hell. We need the site visitors. A couple of weeks ago, Waiter Rant (a must read, if you never have) posted a letter, ostensibly from a U.S. waiter to the prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, bitching about Brits who don't understand the American custom (read: requirement) of tipping in restaurants. The money graf is here, in all its grandiloquent and ungrammatical glory:

Personally I find the British charming, polite, urbane, civilised, and otherwise of a generally agreeable lot. Not having had the pleasure of personally attending an Arsenal or Manchester United football match, I leave the reputed hooliganism and accompanying rows to cultural idiosyncrasy, one not evidenced in my experience. Nevertheless, the one behaviour of your citizenry here in America of which I find the most annoying, disturbing, and ultimately maddening is the ignorance of a peculiar American cultural artefact, which manifests itself most obviously in the act of the tip. As a waiter, and one who has served the Queen’s subjects (and your constituency) on more than several occasions, and because of the vagaries of the American economic system, professional waiters in America depend wholly upon the tip, which, as I understand in Great Britain and Europe, is meant to be an extra reward for good service, due to the fact that waiters there receive a salary of liveable degree. In America, waiters receive a pittance salary, usually of an hourly nature, and far below the minimum wage, which is more often than not applied to income tax; subsequently the majority of waiters in America owe taxes at the end of the year. To put it simply: American waiters depend upon tips for their livelihood.

From the comments to this item on Waiter Rant, it seems clear that...well, Canadians don't have enough to do. What's the experience like here in D.C.? Do foreign visitors know to leave tips? I mean, we're a foreign-visitor magnet here. There has got to be stories.

Erin Connealy from Mt. Pleasant was the first to respond to our Shill for Your Favorite Restaurant feature. Erin's obviously a teacher's pet, because she followed directions perfectly, even if she needs to learn how to spell "their." Her PR pitches are unedited.

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Msnbc.com posted an article today about New York City's new legislation requiring city restaurants to post calorie counts in the same size and font as the food price.

New Yorkers have been in the throes of sticker shock since this spring when the Big Apple became the first city in the country to implement a law forcing chain restaurants to post the calorie count of each food in the same size and font as the price. … Many New Yorkers are finding that even the foods they thought were lower calorie really aren’t. … Outside the Forest Hills’ Dunkin’ Donuts, Juan Restrepo, the 45-year-old owner of a construction company, said he was quitting corn muffins — 510 calories! — this time for good. … Vicki Freedman, who lives in Manhattan, watches her weight and always tries to choose a light option when eating out. But the 26 year old just discovered that the Friday’s pecan-crusted chicken salad, served with mandarin oranges, dried cranberries and celery, has 1,360 calories.

I think this law is brilliant. Those three- or even four-digit numbers displayed next to innocent-looking cookies, frappaccinos, and even salads will surely bring accountability back to eating. Those who dread stepping on the scale may be most daunted by the new law, but I think it'll do us good. This law may be a catalyst for restaurants to choose healthier ways of preparing dishes.

It might make some people upset to have their meals "ruined," but that frustration would be short-lived. Eating healthy and giving up the fettuccine alfredo can be a drag, but it's like exercise: you don't want to do it, but you feel pretty good later for doing it.

The article mentions similar laws being implemented in Seattle, Santa Clara and San Francisco by the end of the year, which is absolutely fantastic. I think DC should follow suit. Plus, if we already had a law like that here, I probably wouldn't have eaten (and now feel so sick from gorging on) a burger and milkshake for lunch.