Baum + Whiteman has been a restaurant consulting group since the ’70s. The dudes know a few things about the hospitality biz, so when the company releases its annual food and dining trends for the coming year, restaurateurs tend to listen. (Or razz B+W for predicting “tongue” meat would become huge.)

Restaurateurs may want to hide under the covers after reading the No. 1 predicted trend for 2010: New priorities for beaten-up consumers.  Check out this strong language:

Read More “Baum + Whiteman’s No. 1 Food and Dining Trend for 2010? Lots of Economic Fear.” »

Note: Busboys & Poets owner Andy Shallal is taking an Iron Chef approach to hiring the chef for his forthcoming Eatonville, a Southern-oriented restaurant that pays homage to Zora Neale Hurston. This is the first in a series of blog posts chronicling the competition. This series will not announce the winner; it will be revealed later in the City Paper.

Six cooks have gathered at CulineAerie, the new cooking school near Thomas Circle, to see if they can earn the top prize in Andy Shallal’s unusual hiring competition: the executive chef gig at Eatonville, a job that comes with a $75,000 a year salary. The candidates have been whittled down from the more than 200 who originally applied, and before this session is over, these half-dozen will be further downsized to four.

Their task for this second phase of the competition? Prepare fried chicken and a Southern-minded sandwich, plus sides.

Read More “Scene 1 from the Eatonville Chef Contest: Fried Chicken” »

There’s a reason food stylists and photographers make real money to shoot cookbooks. They can make anything look appetizing. I, on the other hand, have made Gillian Clark’s fried chicken, now available at The General Store in Silver Spring after a loooong absence, look like something I just tripped over on the street. Forgive me. The bird tastes nothing like this picture suggests.

Read More “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Lashings: The General Store’s Fried Chicken” »