Proof

Whatever Gray's meaty creation, Karoum was picked the winner, earning both the respect of his peers and what appeared to be a congratulatory smooch from host José Andrés! (Read how Karoum prepared for battle here.)

In an earlier bout, an orgy of Top Chef alum took the stage as surprise guests: Good Stuff Eatery's Spike Mendelsohn, paired with The Chew's Carla Hall, topped rumor magnet Mike Isabella of Graffiato, paired with Jennifer Carroll (cooking in three-inch, calf-high boots), with their spin on patatas bravas made with a melon-baller.

The Ronald Reagan Building was totally packed, totally loud and totally full of old men in suits who shelled out $200 a pop (not including throwing down thousands of dollars for auction items) to attend the charity event, benefiting the D.C. Central Kitchen. The joint was so noisy that Andrés, dressed in an elbow patch blazer (what, does he think he's teaching a class at Harvard?), often had to scream into the mic to be heard. I think I overheard handsome co-host Anthony Bourdain ask the Minibar maestro if he was running for the White House.

The fashionable Hall, dressed in gorgeous skinny leather pants (she even let me feel them—soooo smooth), performed admirably in the role of auctioneer. She must be getting plenty of practice in speaking crazy fast from talking over Mario Batali on The Chew.

Some 60 local restaurants offered tastings during the competition. Dupont Circle's Casa Nonna, for one, was boiling fresh pasta on site for its sample plates.

Some photos from the star-studded soiree:

Secret ingredient: skate.

Nothing like raw meat, served in bulk.

Andrés, showing off the goods.

Duck and parmesan do go together.

I swear, Bourdain and I locked eyes. Or maybe he was just waving to friend Tim Carman.

Yes, apparently, pageants still exist. That's Miss District of Columbia standing with victorious chef Karoum.

Photos by Stefanie Gans

Quick hits on the meatless beat.

One Last Taste: Fine dining turns Mediterranean as 2941 plans to shift focus from fancy French to pastas, starting next year. This also means the Falls Church restaurant will quit its vegetarian tasting menu at year's end. Book now for artful, yet soulful, courses of meatless tastes. (Six courses for $75/person)

Move Over Eggs: Not a sunny side up fan? Last weekend, Asia Nine launched a tapas brunch special, featuring plenty of vegan and vegetarian options, including crispy chive pancakes and rice noodles twirling with shiitake mushrooms. (Five small plates for $25/person)

Veggin' At Home: Tip of the hat to the recipe-loving readers of the Washington Post. Four out of the top five reader-favorite recipes for the month of October contain no meat and two are fully vegan. The only meaty contender? Anthony Bourdain's 2004 contribution to the archive of boeuf bourguignon. I'm sure he'd be proud to ruin the list for veg-heads.

Move Over, Turkey: November is National Vegan Month. Are any non-vegan restaurants celebrating? Haven't heard a thing. Know of anything? Leave it in the comments.

Photo by Stefanie Gans

The table at Dupont Circle’s Eola is covered in small appetizers that seem innocuous—tortellini, chicken fried steak, tempura fries. But take a second glance. All three dishes are made from parts of a pig’s head: The pasta is filled with brain. The golden, deep fried tempura batter hides slivers of ear. And the “steak” is a gloriously fatty jowl. The spread marks an opening salvo in an exuberant exploration of all things offal. And, in classic 21st-century culinary-culture fashion, the preparation of entrails and internal organs also represents something of a political gesture. Eola chef and co-owner Daniel Singhofen says he didn’t create his menu to shock his guests. Rather, he’s demonstrating his respect for ingredients.

“If we’re responsible for taking life, then we need to be responsible with what we do with that animal,” Singhofen says. “We try to use as much as we can, as often as we can, and not waste anything.” Not that the Culinary Institute of America–trained chef will cop to sacrificing taste on the altar of non-waste. “It’s a challenge to turn this stuff into a wonderful dish and then convince people to order it,” says Singhofen. “But when it’s good, it’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted.”

Singhofen believes that diners’ interest in this approach to cooking may come from adventure-food TV, not just from Michael Pollan–era ethics. “When people see Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern traveling the world eating testicles and hearts, they’re intrigued by it,” he says. At any rate, he’s not alone in the local haute snout-to-tail category: Galileo III, Bar Pilar, and Blue Duck Tavern have all embraced the movement, to varying degrees. But Eola may go farther still. “I don’t see it as a trend, because I have the responsibility, the knowledge and the ability to use cuts of an animal that a home cook maybe can’t use,” Singhofen says.

The chef has been honing his menu in the year since he opened. Eola takes nice care of non-porcine details, too: The breadbasket —often an overlooked element—is treated with the utmost respect. Slightly sweet brioche rolls are made in-house, dusted with sea salt, and served warm with salted butter. The space, likewise, is simple and pleasant. The first-floor dining room is a relatively narrow exposed-brick affair with a yellow back wall; the closeness gives the restaurant an intimacy and warmth. Black-and-white photos of autumnal sequences line the sides—a pair of lifeless leaves keep each other company in one shot, while another captures a wispy vine curling into thin air. The theme continues through the leaf-entwined light fixtures and candleholders. The kitchen peeks out from behind the pass, where a fake pig snout playfully covers the barrel of the smoke gun.

To the right of the kitchen, in the back, is a tile-lined bar. Unfortunately, you can’t sit there, which is a bit of a drawback for people waiting for the rest of their party to show up. Luckily, there is another bar upstairs, along with a second dining room, this one decorated with photos from a cross country road trip, where you can have a glass of wine or one of a dozen cocktails. Two notables are the Moscow Mule, which dresses up vodka with the zing of ginger beer, and the Bee’s Knees, which combines the floral sweetness of honey with a tart hint of lemon and the bite of strong gin.

But of course, we’re not here for fancy cocktails. We’re here to chow down on pig skull. Since we don’t want to leave any part of the porker feeling left out, we order everything, which constitutes almost an entire hog head. The ears are cut into three-bite-long straws, tempura battered, and then fried. When you crunch into them, there’s none of the chewy resistance you might expect if you’ve only seen pig ears offered as dog chews. Singhofen’s version melts in your mouth to reveal only the faintest hint of ham. A side of tartar sauce is a nice complement, but isn’t necessary to enjoy the dish.

Next up is the brain tortellini. There’s an odd, primal thrill that comes from knowing that you’re sucking down gray matter. That being said, if you didn’t know the pasta was filled with brain, you’d just think you were eating a mushy meat. The dish is interesting in theory, but unremarkable in execution. On the other hand, the chicken-fried tongue with lentils, pickled shallot, and spiced apple puree is interesting in both concept and execution. The other offal-centric starter, the FBLT, is pure genius. Foie gras stands in for the bacon on a decadently truffled brioche and each bite threatens to overwhelm you with fatty depravity. It’s a haute cuisine glutton bomb of epic proportions.

All in all, Singhofen’s 360-degree ethos works to create a symbiotic relationship between the chef and his purveyors, like David Ober of West Virginia’s Cedarbrook Farms, who provides Eola with all things swine. “He’s maximizing his pigs and I’m keeping my customers happy,” explains Singhofen. “Because it means I’m getting all these odd little bits and pieces that we try to turn into beautiful meals.”

You’re not obligated to go the offal route at Eola. A vegetable-meets-fruit salad is a study in contrasts. The earthiness of the beets finds nice opposition in the tangy zing of the grapefruit slices, while the crunch of the pistachios contrasts nicely with the silkiness of the ricotta.

The velvety celery velouté is a little salty, so the main ingredient is drowned out behind a wall of saline. Celery has such a slight flavor profile to begin with that it has to be treated with incredible delicacy if it’s going to register. The crispy wild rice scattered across the soup adds a snap, crackle, and pop to the proceedings, but still don’t bring back that elusive celery flavor.

More successful are the quarter-sized scoops of trout rillette that rest on miniature toast chips and come topped with a caper and a sliver of lemon. The briny fish provides a nice backdrop for the salty pop of the caper and the spiky tang of the citrus.

Still, there’s a restraint and surprising lightness to Singhofen’s entrees. Where a more classically influenced chef might be heavy-handed with sauces and preparations, Singhofen lets his ingredients speak for themselves. The claws are left on the confited quail, reaching out in supplication for a prayer that was clearly never answered. This faithful departed rests next to a griddled rye cake and a tumble of jus-dressed winter root vegetables. The bird’s rich, duck-like flavor, works well with the slightly sweet jus and the grassy, earthy tones of the rye. It’s totally irresistible; in a short time it’s reduced to a pile of toothpick-thin bones sucked clean and a picked over miniature ribcage.

There are other appealing main courses. A tangle of oxtail sits in a savory broth filled with barley. It looks like it could be a soggy mess, but when you bite into it the beef it’s pleasantly chewy and the barley kernels have the consistency of wild rice. The Tamworth pork is glazed in sarsaparilla, easily the most underrated root soda of all time—bravo to Singhofen for recognizing its rightful place at the forefront of American cuisine. The sweetness of sarsaparilla is a nice complement to the pork’s own sugary tones, but never threaten to drown out its natural flavors.

This is all a nice lead-up to dessert. The brioche bread pudding is perfectly caramelized on the edges and served with a chantilly whipped cream sprinkled with nuts and dried fruits, which ties back to the pudding’s innards. Buttery and moist, it recalls the richness of the offal starters, but the portion is restrained so that diners don’t overstuff themselves in the final leg of the race.

A cookie plate full of choices like a crunchy chocolate hazelnut biscotti, a duo of soft brownie cubes, a bittersweet chocolate chunk cookie and a pair of ginger infused molasses drops is a comforting swansong. A peppermint meringue disc is picked up without design at the very end and becomes the perfect last bite, leaving a lingering freshness on the tongue.

Eola, 2020 P St. NW; 202-466-4441

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Food trucks flooded our streets and Twitter feeds. Connecticut Avenue welcomed a whole lot of ground-meat options (and then kicked one out.) In an age of comfort food, family-style Italian filled our carb-deprived bellies. But will mobile food, burgers and comfort food dominate 2011? Will small plates finally die? Here's our break down on what we'll eat in 2011.

OUT     →     IN

Burgers     →      Hot Dogs

Mansion-Sized Bars     →     Apartment-Sized Bars

Anthony Bourdain     →     Ruth Bourdain

Vegetarian     →     Vegivore

Where the Obamas Eat     →     Where Sam Kass Eats

Bacon     →     Offal

4 Loko     →     Spiked Hot Chocolate

Gulf Seafood     →     Gulf Sweets

Traditional Tacos     →    Korean Tacos

Jose Andrés in D.C.     →     Jose Andrés Everywhere

Brickskeller     →     American Tap Rooms

H Street's Food Identity     →     Wheaton's Food Identity

Small Plates     →     No Small Plates (at least here!)

Michael Landrum Doing Meat     →     Michael Landrum Doing Salads

Food Trucks     →     Food Trucks Buy Store Fronts

Andrew George and Scott Reitz contributed to this article
Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Anthony Bourdain may have been among the first to skewer the vapidity of celebrity chef TV culture, but South Park has taken it to a whole new level with its recent "Creme Fraiche" episode. The animators eviscerated the Food Network and its many imitators, leaving no sacred cow with its entrails intact.

Not surprisingly, the episode has been a hit among cynical ink-stained (radiation-scorched?) wretches like me. Take a look at some recent commentary:

• Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice offers a giddy blow-by-blow.
• FNH says that South Park "somehow managed to cram almost every celebrity chef stereotype into a 22-minute episode."
• Broward/Palm Beach New Times says the show "might just be the best episode of South Park in years."
• Eater calls the episode a "story of modern-day suburban sexual frustration channeled into unhealthy food obsessions and celebrity worship."
• Even the Chowhounds were delighted to watch their celebrity chefs take pot shots.

You can watch more scenes from the episode here.

And when I say "scenes," I mean it. My crappy little video camera didn't capture the sounds well, if at all, but the final in this year's Capital Food Fight came down to a cook-off between Spike Mendelsohn of Good Stuff Eatery and Scott Drewno of The Source. The judges gushed over both plates, which used wasabi arugula as the secret ingredient, but in the end, gave the title to Drewno for his seared scallops on a puree of the green stuff.

For more details on the evening, check out the Washingtonian's coverage as well as Washington Business Journal's. D.C. Central Kitchen also has a Flickr page full of images from the event, which raised $500,000 for the organization that provides culinary training for "adults overcoming homelessness, addiction, and incarceration."

Finally, you can check out my other crappy video, which shows scenes from the evening's surprise event, a cook-off between the celebrity-chef hosts and judges: Tom Colicchio and Jose Andres took on Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert. The latter team won by audience applause. (I think looks had something to do with it, frankly.)

Let's get right to the news:

• There's a bourbon dinner going down on Oct. 26 at Fourth Estate Restaurant at 529 14th St. NW, featuring five courses and, well, bourbon. (Girl Meets Food)
• The Red Derby opened a roof deck over the weekend, and it looks like it even has heaters! (Prince of Petworth)
• The folks over at D.C. Central Kitchen are gearing up for next month's Capital Food Fight, featuring local chefs such as Spike Mendelsohn (Good Stuff Eatery) and Victor Albisu (BLT Steak) and special guest judges such as Anthony Bourdain and José Andrés. (WeLoveDC)

• News from Twitter is that food truck, DC Empanadas, will start rolling out this week in the District — with plans to extend into Maryland. (TBD)
• Beer and wings specialists, Buffalo Wild Wings, will open up a location in Crystal City as early as December at the corner of 23rd Street and Crystal Drive. (ARLnow)
• Craft beer on tap, gourmet pizzas, Chicago dogs, and pulled pork sandwiches — at the movies? Liz Stevenson describes the beauty that is NoVa's Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Look out, Arlington Cinema N Drafthouse. (Northern Virginia magazine)
• The owners behind the popular Foggy Bottom eatery, Founding Farmers, and its sister operation, Farmers & Fishers, are planning to open a new restaurant in Potomac. (Bethesda magazine)
• Don't feel like dishing out the usual assortment of Halloween candies this year? Deep-fry 'em. Yeah, that's right, deep-fry 'em! (Cakespy)
• Because procrastination always ends with bad turkeys. Alejandra Owens reminds us it's time to start ordering that Thanksgiving turkey from the 14th & U Farmers Market. (Borderstan)
• Liquor and knives really do go together. This Wednesday, Helix Lounge is hosting a pumpkin carving contest, featuring festive drinks like its pumpkin martini and a prize for the "most ghoulish gourd." (Thrillist)

Photo by Jessie Oleson (aka Cakespy) via cakespy.com

It's Monday, which means it's time to dig into a big, heaping plate of food news. We start with an item close to home:

• Amsterdam Falafelshop is looking to franchise. Where and when? The guessing (begging?) game begins. (DCist)
• New Tex-Mex joint to replace AM PM Carryout at 14th and V: Liquor license and sidewalk cafe, oh my! (Prince of Petworth)

• The Culinary Ambassadors' guide to eating through a proper Oktoberfest. Wolfgang, pass the kraut. (Serious Eats)
• Metropolitan Cooking & Entertaining Show is coming back to the District in November. (Northern Virginia magazine)
• We have two words for you: Beer garden. This Saturday's 17th Street Festival will have live music and a beer garden. Did we mention a beer garden? (Borderstan)
• Get 'em while they're hot: Afro-Portuguese inspired Nando's Peri-Peri opens a new location in Silver Spring. (Thrillist)
• The guy seriously has no reservations.  TV bad boy Anthony Bourdain is writing a graphic novel about "ultraviolent food nerds." (MTV)
• Leave it to a group of Washington doctors to politically attack McDonald's.  Ba da ba ba ba, I'm lovin' it. (Treehugger)
• It hurts so good. Men's Health has named Five Guys one of the worst foods in America. (WeLoveDC)

Did Amanda deserve the heave-ho instead of Alex?

As is our habit when we watch Top Chef, Carrie and I placed informal bets on who'd get the boot during last night's "Covert Affairs" episode. I figured the judges would finally send Alex packing, given his controversial history this season and the fact that he looks like a space alien love child (never good for TV). Besides, Unca Tom told Alex that he's eaten better food at street fairs after sampling the chef's veal Parmesan "disguised" as tortellini. Not Top Chef material there.

Carrie, however, had the more cogent argument: She said Amanda deserved the heave-ho because she failed on two counts. Her French onion soup was not only nasty (I believe one judge compared it to dishwater) but it was not even cleverly disguised, as the challenged called for. Hell, it wasn't disguised at all. Amanda concealed the identity of her soup by transforming it into...a soup.

Carol Blymire over at the Washingtonian agreed with Carrie on this point: Amanda should have been shown the door.

So when Padma wet her precious lips and told Alex to pack his knives and go, I figured it was yet another example of Top Chef producers futzing with the results. They couldn't bare the idea of losing semi-eye-candy like Amanda or Angelo. Alex was the easy sacrifice: He was unpopular and a lousy cook to boot.

Which then reminded me of a passage in Anthony Bourdain's new book, Medium Raw, in which he claims the judging results are on the up-and-up. Consider this passage:

What I can assure you — without hesitation or qualification — is that the judging I've been witness to or part of, in five appearances as a judge, has always been straight. Meaning, no matter how much the producers of the show may want the contestant with the heartbreakingly tragic personal story (and amazing chesticles) to survive until next week, the worst cook that particular week goes home. On Top Chef — as long as Tom Colicchio is head judge — the best food that week gets you the win. The worst gets you the loss. It's the "what have you done for me lately" criterion at the judges' table. Due to the fact that guest judges can't and haven't been witness to a contestant's previous efforts, past works do NOT factor into the final judgment. I feel sorry for the producers sometimes, imagining their silent screams as Tom reluctantly decides that the all-around better contestant, with the movie-star looks and the huge popularity with viewers, just fucked up too bad to make it to next week and has to go home.

I don't know, Tony. I have a sneaking suspicion that the producers won the battle last night.

During my vacation, I read Anthony Bourdain's new book, Medium Raw, an uneven collection of essays in which the chef-cum-writer turns his jaundiced eye to a number of subjects, including José Andrés (a hero), Alan Richman (a douchebag), David Chang (the future of dining), and Alice Waters (an apolitical sensualist).

But late in the book, Bourdain turns his attention to his former place of employment, Les Halles, in New York City and its few satellites, including the now-shuttered D.C. location. Writes Bourdain:

Les Halles Washington, DC, closed its doors, and Les Halles Miami changed ownership. Thank God, the way I look at it. They were always, in my experience, a drag on the reputation and finances of the mother ship on Park Avenue — and the successful downtown branch of John Street. I still love those two restaurants, still swing by whenever I can, and am much relieved that their bastard cousins in the hinterlands have stopped being a problem.

Then again, that douchebag Richman would claim that NYC's Les Halles doesn't have a reputation to lose, if you go by his March 2008 review, which the GQ critic admitted was a revenge hit.

Photo courtesy of No Reservations