Dean Gold is giving it away...for Haitian relief

It's time for some housekeeping here at Y&H Central. Lots of news has passed through our inbox and computer screen. Here are the highlights:

• Following a slammed Restaurant Week, Hook and chef Jonathan Seningen parted ways; yesterday the Georgetown seafood emporium announced a replacement, former Blue Duck Tavern chef de cuisine, Mark Hellyar (via Top Shelf).
• Dino in Cleveland Park is setting aside Monday nights in February for Haitian earthquake relief. Owner Dean Gold is donating 10 percent of his Monday night sales to several charities.

• The International Wine and Food Festival takes place on Feb. 11-14, and Metrocurean is giving away a pair of tickets to Sunday's Grand Tasting.
• CakeLove has soured on Charm City (via Washington Business Journal).
• The new Hush underground supper club has an Indian accent (via Thrillist) — not to be confused with the old Hush supper club, which did not.
• The Pupatella Neapolitan Pizza Cart is heading indoors this spring.
• Chef Gerard Pangaud starts his military career (via Tom Sietsema)
• Two new cupcakes shops open in NoVa.
• J.D. Salinger and all things food (via Diner's Journal).
• Rumors are circulating that Wagamama won't be opening in Penn Quarter after all (via Don Rockwell)
• A.M. Wine Shoppe finally opens, nearly two months later than expected.

If the reviews submitted for our Restaurant Week writing contest are any indication of the places you frequented during the come-hither promotion, then Hook was very, very busy. No less than three readers entered reviews of the Georgetown seafood emporium. Perhaps this explains why the gifted chef Jonathan Seningen left the restaurant shortly after RW was over. Then again, maybe it doesn't explain anything at all.

Whatever your reviews say about Hook, they did confirm one thing about the cheap-eats week: Restaurants were all over the place in terms of quality and attentiveness. On one hand, readers like Anna Tuman practically had an out-of-body experience during her meal:

I have never been a very religious person. Sure there was the occasional Sunday mass I was forced to go to before a big meal at Nana's, but church, and religion itself, was never really my thing. So, it wasn't out of character for me to always question if there was every truly a heaven. Then, I went to lunch at Taberna del Alabardero and I realized Heaven does exist, on 18th street NW between H and I.

On the other hand, readers like Emily Stark could barely muster enough snark to describe her meal at 1789:

I ordered the shortrib. It was so bland it could have been served in a nursing home. Really quit [sic] perplexing because the meat was very tender, and had obviously cooked a long time, but had zero flavor (not even salt). I can't convey how little flavor this meat had. I ate maybe two or three bites of said shortrib — leaving the great majority of the dish uneaten and pushed the plate away. The server never knew this because he did not once ask how our food was.

To add insult to injured palate, "The bathroom was out of toilet paper" at 1789, Stark noted.

Yes, you turned lousy experiences into good, old-fashioned vitriol, sometimes with a dash of righteous outrage. Take this anecdote from Hilary Nelson, who dined at Bibiana during RW:

Although I found the service to be extremely underwhelming and the pasta extremely over salted, these glitches paled in comparison, once again, to the jewel of a family next to which we were seated. I'll spare you the more hideous details involving loud discussion of the between-the-sheets antics of a college-aged woman as she recounted them to her parents, and just sum it up by saying that this same teenaged woman closed their dinner by putting her hands in the air and singing, at full volume, her rendition of "Party In The USA" by one Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana).

But of all the submissions we received at Y&H Central, the best one came from Daniel Korn, a regular reader (and commenter) on the Y&H blog. His review of the new Kellari Taverna was strong of narrative and rich in detail. Korn also displayed a knowledge of both ingredients and restaurant operations.

I'll publish his full review later today on the blog, but here's a taste of the winner:

The RW menu had 6 choices each for the first two courses, far less than half the number of dishes that appear on the regular menu, but they weren't the cheaper choices, so their decision not to offer the full menu seems odd. Nonetheless, this was the same menu that appeared on the website, so we knew in advance there were things we wanted to order. My wife started with the Calamari, which was grilled with olive oil and lemon. Every bite was tender, definitely some of the better calamari we've had. This paled, however, next to the picture-perfect grilled octopus that I ordered, so tender it was nearly creamy in the center. These were two very generous servings, as well; no skimping on the portion size.

For his efforts, Korn wins a copy of the Best Food Writing 2009 collection — and my congratulations for a job well done. Actually, I enjoyed reading all the submissions, even when passages like this made me cringe: "I will admit, I took my time with this dish, so much so, that my fellow diners asked if I liked it. My response 'I'm really crushing on this tuna, right now, we are in a relationship...'"

While it's too late to send in your submission for the contest, I'm still interested in your Restaurant Week experiences. Please e-mail them to me, and I'll post the best comments online.

Chef Jonathan Seningen

Earlier this week, Y&H did something he hadn't done in nearly a year: hit the gym. Summoning up whatever athlete's pride I have left, this former cross country runner went 30 minutes on the elliptical without stopping, a solid 2.50 miles. (Don't figure out the time per mile, I'll just be embarrassed.)

I then went to Hook and downed a three-course lunch. I didn't even feel bad about it.

How could I? Despite one glaring technical error, this was a solid lunch, top to bottom, all for $24 for those three courses.  I instantly put Hook and executive chef Jonathan Seningen, former chef de cuisine at Oya, on my watch list for next year's Young & Hungry Dining Guide.

I started with the heirloom tomato gazpacho, a rather unusual take on the cold soup. Seningen's version doesn't try for an opaque, uniform texture. The look and texture of his gazpacho, I swear, reminded me of tomato placenta, the gelatinous interior of the summer fruit. It's not a turn-off, I promise. It looks light, even refreshing. The orange-colored liquid is dappled with lump crab meat, corn kernels, and pine nuts, which provide a crunchy element here or a sweet hit there. The most pleasant spoonfuls, though, were those loaded down with lump meat, whose sweetness seemed to multiple by a factor of 20 when surrounded by that ever-so-acidic soup.

My entree was the rather drab-sounding barramundi with broccoli and soft polenta. I ordered it mostly out of respect for my trip to the gym. I was really eyeballing that fried oyster sandwich. For once, I'm glad my conscience guided my choice. This dish was an unexpected pleasure. The fish's skin was crisp, its flesh melt-in-your-mouth soft. Its flavor was mild with a light undercurrent of the sea. The fish, however, wasn't complete without its plating partners. The flavors of all three ingredients — the barramundi, the steamed broccoli (with their final squeezes of lemon, yes?) and the polenta — just locked into place on first bite, as if nature somehow meant for field and stream to join together.

I wouldn't call the final course of corn crème brûlée disappointing, but it did have a serious technical flaw. Its dusting of sugar was torched to a five-alarm shade of black, providing an unmistakable bitter edge to Heather Chittum's dessert. It was an unfortunate misstep in the kitchen. The custard itself, part of Chittum's thematic "Cornucopia" dessert, is a brilliant combination of two different styles of sweet — those plump kernels of summer corn and the traditional sugary custard. The accompanying polenta cookies added little to my semi-enjoyment of the corny custard, although the salted grape tomatoes were an amazing counterpunch to the palate.

All said, that lunch was one helluva way to say goodbye to the summer — and to the calories I just burned on the elliptical.