When we think of D.C. restaurants synonymous with the term "power lunch," several venues immediately come to mind: The Monocle, Bombay Club, Oval Room, Tosca, Charlie Palmer Steak, to name a few. But...Belga Café? That's a new one. The "little bit of Brussels" on Barracks Row oddly kicks off a recent USA Today travel article [...]
It wouldn’t have been hard to include every one of Ashok Bajaj’s seven restaurants on this list. Not that I would ever do that. I mean, I’ve never been very fond of ball hogs, if you’ll allow me to use such a crude metaphor in reference to one of the most refined restaurateurs in town. [...]
Cooking for babies: So Tom and Padma both have infants. Tom and Padma are both judges on Top Chef. Tom and Padma are busy, flying here and there to run restaurants or write cookbooks or get pregnant. Tom and Padma don't have time for babies. Tom and Padma don't want to be turned into Child [...]
Top Chef recently announced the contestants for its upcoming season, which will not only feature D.C., the city, but also a couple of D.C. area chefs. Two of the competitors include Tamesha Warren, sous chef at the Oval Room, and Timothy Dean, owner/chef of Prime steakhouse in Baltimore and a forthcoming steakhouse in D.C. Dean [...]
Jackie Greenbaum was fairly nervous last year as she launched a search to replace Sam Adkins, the only chef she had ever employed at the Silver Spring restaurant that bares her name. Adkins had been at Jackie's for more than five years, and the owner figured she had better find a strong kitchen manager to [...]
Just call Derek Brown, left, Mr. Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional Y&H is a behind on this (hey, if you want excuses, I got a million of 'em!), but I wanted to offer my congratulations to the local semi-finalists for this year's James Beard Awards. It's an impressive list, one filled with many of Y&H's [...]
It hasn't even been a week since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, but I bet you've already been hit up 500 times for a donation to help the victims. You can barely turn to a Web site, a restaurant, a party, or a social network without finding some solicitation asking for more cash for [...]
The foie gras brûlée on Tony Conte's menu last week at The Oval Room was too tempting to pass up, no matter how many imaginary animal-welfare protesters I had dancing in my head. I say that even though the appetizer that landed on my table wasn't custard-based at all. It was, in fact, a small [...]
A friend of Young & Hungry's recently e-mailed to ask about gift-certificate etiquette: Do you present the certificates to your server at the end of the meal or right at the beginning? "I always feel that with the latter," writes my buddy, Lou, "that the staff goes 'Ugh, one of these types,' and you get [...]
Try as they might to prevent it, downtown restaurants, even fine ones like The Source by Wolfgang Puck or Central Michel Richard, will lose customers on Inauguration Night. Some folks won't show up because they got a better, last-minute offer, like a ball invite. Others simply won't arrive because they've decided the benefits of the [...]
