With this week’s opening of Masa 14, the Latin-Asian fusion restaurant owned jointly by Richard Sandoval and Kaz Okochi, Y&H naturally turned his attention to CommonWealth.

Why? Because neither Okochi (Kaz Sushi Bistro) nor Sandoval (Zengo and too many other places to name) are handling the daily kitchen chores at Masa. They’ve left that to former CommonWealth chef de cuisine, Antonio Burrell.

So where does that leave CommonWealth, Jamie Leeds’Columbia Heights gastropub that was a top 50 performer in this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide? It leaves the place looking toward Europe.

Read More “CommonWealth Casts an Eye to the Continent” »

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.

Read More “My Three-Course Indulgence at Hook” »

Here at Y&H Central, we’ve received plenty of static about noisy restaurants from readers and even more readers. But so far the hospitality industry has been quiet on the subject.

Until this morning, when I got a note via facebook from the general manager at Eventide, a top 50 performer in this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. Dave Pressley has plenty to say on the subject (some of it self-serving, but hey, can you blame the guy?). He gave me permission to rerun it here:

Read More “Eventide’s General Manager on Noisy Restaurants” »

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Ever since Mike Isabella took over the kitchen at Zaytinya in 2007, I have been drawn to this downtown power spot in an unhealthy (and unsustainable) way for someone of my tax bracket. I dare say that, these days, I’m far more likely to be ordering small plates here than at José Andrés’ three temples to Spanish gastronomy, which either means that Isabella’s one helluva chef or that I’ve picked up some seasonal allergy to cured meats. I think it’s the former. Isabella has, to my mind, solved Zaytinya’s once-maddening inconsistencies while injecting a creative seasonality into the mezze menu. A recent plate of spring bean plaki was as fresh as a snap pea from the garden, while a special of fried squash blossoms pulled off a neat trick: They were simultaneously rich and delicate.

Addendum: Will Mike Isabella stick around Zaytinya following his Top Chef appearance?

 Zaytinya, 701 9th St. NW, (202) 638-0800

Photo courtesy of Zaytinya

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Laugh if you will, but the WFM Smokehouse inside the Fair Lakes Whole Foods store is no joke. The woman in charge is Maria Mercado, a Salvadoran native who used to cook almost exclusively with wood back in her home country. She now smokes hundreds of pounds of beef, chicken, and pork in a massive Southern Pride unit on the premises, employing a combination of cherry, maple, and hickory wood. She and her team pull out meats at all hours of the day, whether for takeout orders or those souls who want to dine right there at the counter, just a stone’s throw from the Emeril Green set. The “Kitchen Sink” platter, which comes with four meats and three sides, is enough to feed two hungry people and a stray dog. The simple spice-rubbed brisket is the star; it’s carved into these thick, intense, sweetly smoked slices that bulge with fatty deposits. Best of all, you can chase your Kitchen Sink of smoked meats with a bottle of suds available at the nearby craft-beer refrigeration case.

Addendum: Read Y&H’s full report on the WFM Smokehouse.

WFM Smokehouse, 4501 Market Commons Drive, Fairfax, Va. 22033, (703) 222-2058

Photo by Tim Carman

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

The influx of celebrity chefs to D.C. can excite local diners, but it can deflate local chefs, who see these carpetbaggers stealing their customers, their line cooks, maybe even their thunder. Back in 2007, before Eric Ripert or Michael Mina or even Alain Ducasse opened doors here, chef R.J. Cooper at Vidalia was one of the reigning badasses in the kitchen, fresh off his Mid-Atlantic Beard Award, which he split with Frank Ruta at Palena. But if Cooper and/or Vidalia have suffered since these culinary hawks have swooped into town, you wouldn’t know it from eating at this downtown institution. Cooper, in fact, seems to be cooking with a renewed passion since the competition increased. My most recent meal at Vidalia included a number of dishes that blew me away, notably a pigtail croquette with strawberry-rhubarb mostarda and an artistic plate of mix-and-match bites, from raw cubes of hamachi to squares of lime gelee to tiny diced pieces of watermelon to little slivers of jalapeño. Cooper even plated something I had never seen before—a deep-fried blowfish from the lower Chesapeake, commonly known as the “sugar toad.” It tasted a thousand times better than the name would suggest.

 Vidalia, 1990 M St. NW, (202) 659-1990

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

When I want to eat vegetarian, I don’t visit one of those mock-meat places that press mushrooms or tempeh into something that resembles a chicken breast. That strikes me as wishful eating, the saddest of all possible dining experiences. I prefer to sample cuisines that have a rich history of vegetarian cooking, like South India’s. Every day, Udupi Palace in Takoma Park offers a grazing tour of the South Indian cuisine inspired by the ancient Vedas texts. For a modest sum, you can have, if not a religious experience, then at least a damn fine meal pulled together from a buffet table filled with idly patties, vada doughnuts, sambar soup, pullavs, and an ever-changing lineup of curries, some so hot you’ll drink every drop of water from the carafe on your table.

 Udupi Palace, 1329 University Blvd. E., Takoma Park, (301) 434-1531

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

The dish was described on 2941’s prix-fixe lunch menu in the barest of terms: East Coast halibut, heirloom tomato, tomato gazpacho, basil salad. The early (out of?) season tomatoes did give me pause, but I ordered the entrée anyway. What chef Bertrand Chemel plated was something I never could have imagined: the halibut version of tomato and mozzarella salad. Let me explain: Chemel, former chef de cuisine at Café Boulud, prepared the halibut as medallions, which were laid atop slices of yellow tomatoes, then surrounded with the delicate gazpacho and topped with thin ribbons of asparagus, julienne red peppers, and other garnishes. The medallions were so fresh—and so moist and firm and white—that they took on an almost mozzarella-like quality when paired with the tomato preparations. Each garnish then added these precise little complementary flavors (a woodsy note here, a piquant one there) that only heightened the dish’s sense of freshness. I savored that lunch as if it were my last meal, seasonal tomatoes or not. This is the kind of creative cooking that Chemel has brought to 2941 since he arrived from New York, and he’s not the only master in the kitchen. Pastry chef Anthony Chavez turns out terrific seasonal desserts, while Patrick Deiss produces a wide line of in-house breads, some so good you’re tempted to gorge yourself on them before Chemel’s handiwork even arrives.

2941, 2941 Fairview Park Drive, Falls Church, (703) 270-1500

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Before he was installed as chef at Teatro Goldoni, that once-fading K Street institution, Enzo Fargione was perhaps best known as a Roberto Donna acolyte. Isn’t it funny how things have changed? These days, chef Donna, once lord over a vast empire, has no working restaurant to his name, while Fargione leads a kitchen that’s cooking up the most inventive Italian dishes I’ve tasted around these parts since Fabio Trabocchi left McLean for the hollow promise of New York City.

Addendum: Read Young & Hungry’s full review of Teatro Goldoni.

 Teatro Goldoni, 1909 K St. NW, (202) 955-9494

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Taylor is more than a deli. It’s a symbol of the affection we all have for the foods of our youth. Most folks when they arrive in D.C. bitch and moan that they can’t find their favorite hometown dishes—or can find only pale imitations. Not Casey Patten and David Mazza. Rather than complain, the duo decided to build an Italian deli like the ones they enjoyed back in their native Philadelphia. Their commitment was so unwavering that they spent months trying to find a local bread maker who could recreate the classic Sarcone’s rolls and, once defeated in that task, worked hard to convince the legendary Philly bakery to sell them the crusty rolls that serve as the base for the real-deal Italian hoagie. That passion has served Patten and Mazza well as they have quickly established themselves as one of D.C.’s premier sandwich shops.

Addendum: Read Y&H’s full review of Taylor Gourmet.

Taylor Gourmet, 1116 H St. NE, (202) 684-7001

Photo by Darrow Montgomery