Allow me to offer a disclaimer before I start: You can trust my picks for the District's best shopping districts as much as you can trust Bernie Madoff's financial advice. Through years of selective focus, I can walk through any neighborhood and ignore all manner of shoe shops, clothing stores, and perfumeries, my mind singularly focused on the latest eatery to open its doors.

As such, you'll have to cut me some friggin' slack if I missed one of your favorite shopping meccas. This ain't my area of expertise. So, with that in mind, here are the best neighborhoods to mix shopping and eating on Black Friday, the day that I personally plan to stay at home, far from the marauding hordes armed with their razor-sharp plastic cards.

• Dupont Circle: I've heard you can buy good shit around here. I know you can eat well, although that hasn't always been the case. I think some recent additions have significantly improved the dining in Dupont, particularly in the fast-casual area, which will probably capture most of the shoppers on Black Friday. You can't go wrong (well, you can, but not usually) at BGR: The Burger Joint, Panas Gourmet, Sweetgreen, Nando's Peri-Peri, and even Pizzeria Paradiso (if the place is on its game that day.) For more upscale options, you have the exquisite Obelisk and the newcomer Eola.
• Georgetown: With a few exceptions — Citronelle, La Chaumiere, and Leopold's Kafe + Konditorei — I've long considered Georgetown a wasteland of food options, a tourist destination where many eateries are content to slide by on mediocre fare. The neighborhood has improved of late. I like the big juicy patties at Thunder Burger & Bar (and the craft beer selection). I admire the Neapolitan pies at Il Canale, and I know I can always get some decent sweets at Georgetown Cupcake and Baked & Wired. And if all else fails, I can just slip into my favorite little bistro in the area.
• U Street Corridor/14th Street Strip/Logan Circle: OK, granted, this is really several neighborhoods clumped together, but what the hell. It's the holidays. I'm feeling generous. The dining options in this area have exploded. The hard part is not finding a decent place to eat, but deciding which one to pick. There's Masa 14, Teak Wood, Bar Pilar, Oohhs & Aahhs, Cork Wine Bar, Great Wall-Szechuan House, Little Ethiopia, JJ's Cheesesteaks, and, of course, the mother of all beer emporiums, Birch & Barley/ChurchKey. I know where I'll be shopping this holiday season.
• Capitol Hill/Barracks Row: I've heard this is a good shopping area, but I have my doubts. I do know that you can get quality bites in the neighborhood. You, of course, have Spike Mendelsohn's fast-food two-fer, Good Stuff Eatery and We, the Pizza. Come to think of it, casual dining (some more refined than others, obviously) rules in this neighborhood. You have Matchbox, Ted's Bulletin, DC-3, Zest Bistro, Montmartre, Ba Bay, Market Lunch, Taqueria Nacional, and Tunnicliff's Tavern. If you want to take a few steps up the gastronomic ladder, you can always hit a pair of restaurants run by two of the District's most notable chefs: Johnny's Half Shell under Ann Cashion and Bistro Bis under Jeffrey Buben.

Good luck with your shopping on Friday, and please, someone, let me know when it's over.

UPDATED: 5:13 p.m. 8/9/2010

R.J. Cooper, the chef who won a James Beard award in 2007 while helming the Vidalia kitchen, has abruptly left the downtown restaurant. Cooper confirmed his departure this afternoon but declined to provide further details.

Cooper did say that he would try to resurrect his celebrated "24" tasting menu elsewhere while he prepares to open his own restaurant, Pigtails, a reference to his twin daughters and his love of pork products. He's close to signing a deal on a neighborhood location away from downtown.

The Detroit native has been at Vidalia since 2004, after working at New Heights and Toka Cafe. In a 2006 interview with StarChefs.com, Cooper said that he considered Vidalia and Bistro Bis owner Jeffrey Buben a mentor.

"Jeffrey Buben taught me about running a business, corporate structure, and keeping systems in place — things that make you successful," Cooper said.

Buben could not immediately be reached for comment.

After we paid the bill and were preparing to leave the server asked how we enjoyed the meal. Parry and I exchanged looks. This is that embarrassing part of a bad meal where guests feel compelled to lie. We opted for the truth. Parry asked to speak with the manager and seconds later Michael Nevarez, the General Manager of Vidalia appeared. We carefully and somewhat gently explained that we had been eager to dine at Vidalia because of Chef Buben’s reputation and the rave reviews many have afforded the establishment but that we were gravely disappointed in the five-course tasting menu because so much of the food was either bland or overcooked. I suspect many of you will doubt what you are about to read but Parry and I swear it is the absolute truth. Mr. Nevarez responded by telling us that the dishes we were served fell short of our expectations because it is Restaurant Week and that in order to provide the five-course tasting menu at the price of $45 the chefs had to cut costs and use inferior ingredients. I swear Parry’s mouth slipped open during this horrendous explanation. I wish I’d had a camera with me to capture it. My response differed from Parry’s. I looked right at Mr. Nevarez and asked why Vidalia would risk their fine reputation by participating in Restaurant Week if doing so meant serving shoddy food. His response? In this economy, Vidalia wouldn’t survive if they didn’t especially since Congress is out on a break and business has been so slow.

It's a serious charge that required a serious phone call to Jeffrey Buben, the owner of both Vidalia and Bistro Bis. He was hesitant to talk about the issue on the record. He didn't think any good could come from refuting a customer's experience; his main goal is to make his diners happy, he says, not treat them disrespectfully in the media.

Buben would allow this, though. "The menu for Restaurant Week is a menu created for Restaurant Week," the owner tells Y&H. "It's not lesser ingredients. It's different ingredients."

It's only reasonable to expect some changes in ingredients during RW, the chef notes. A five-course tasting menu during any other week will run a diner $75 at Vidalia ($115 with wine pairings), but the bulked-up five-course Restaurant Week menu is only $45. To make such a menu cost-effective for Vidalia, the restaurant has to use cheaper, not inferior, ingredients and then prepare them in the Buben/ R.J. Cooper style.

For example, Buben says, Vidalia's signature dish of shrimp and grits comes with smaller crustaceans, sans heads, during Restaurant Week as opposed to the larger, pricier head-on shrimp. Similarly, the kitchen substitutes Shenandoah lamb shoulder for the regular menu's Shenandoah lamb loin. "They different preparations," Buben adds. "They're not inferior."

For the most part, these ingredients are listed right on the RW menu (with the exception of the shrimp-and-grits description, which does not mention a change in crustaceans), but regardless, these ingredients should not translate into poor meals, if prepared correctly. Which is Buben's main point. The kitchen simply screwed up the preparations.

Buben says he was quick to respond to capitolfoodies' complaints.  Vidalia immediately implemented its Triple A response plan: acknowledge the problem to the customer, apologize for it, and take action on it. The last response, Buben says, usually means trying to bring the customer back for a "memorable experience."

"We make sure we're on top of every detail" during a customer's return visit, Buben says. "I'll do whatever to make sure they're a customer for life."

Buben's approach must have worked for capitolfoodies. The following night, the couple dined at Buben's Bistro Bis. Check out the glowing review they posted.

Jeffrey Buben is a glass act.

Jeffrey Buben's an old pro at examining every inch of Vidalia and Bistro Bis to find cost savings. He'll review phone bills, ordering imbalances (too much product for too few customers), and overtime costs, anything to save cash and keep his staff employed in a bad economy. But one trick he's currently using really caught my attention: It's a contest to encourage the staff to be more careful with glassware.

As in please, please, please don't break those long-stemmed wine glasses that can cost $4 each to replace.

The game goes like this: If the morning team makes it though a shift without breaking a wine glass, beer mug, Champagne flute, or any other glassware, Buben will throw a piece of paper with each employee's name from that shift into a jar. Same goes for the afternoon team. At the end of the month, the five employees with the most entries in the jar receive some sort of prize. It could be a bottle of wine or a gift certificate for dinner at some other restaurant with which Buben has established a trade out.

"If we cut glass breakage in half...that's huge," Buben says. "We can save a couple of hundred a month."

The only drawback is that Buben can't do the contest every month. Why not? It seems the game loses its import and meaning if done constantly. Buben can only put the contest to use about twice a year, he says.

Frankly, I've eaten out hundreds of times and have rarely spotted anyone famous, perhaps because my definition of famous run more along the West Coast/Hollywood axis than the East Coast/Wonk axis. Of course, it could be that I also don't have a table reserved at Cafe Milano, Bedard's No. 1 spot. Don't see that happening anytime soon either.

Bedard is promising more restaurant lists in the future, such as "the dives favored by Hill staffers, and where top federal officials huddle for after-dinner drinks..." I'm tingling in anticipation, but for now, check out his top star-magnet restaurants after the jump.

1. Cafe Milano
2. Charlie Palmer Steakhouse
3. Bistro Bis
4. The Palm
5. Equinox
6. Capital Grille
7. Bourbon Steak
8. Blue Duck Tavern
9. Tosca
10. Twigs

Photo by Darrow Montgomery