The hottest article over at the New York Times this weekend wasn't about Iraq, the World Series, or even that delusional Yale kid's video resume. No, Saturday's most-e-mailed article was a report that the $40 entree has popped up on menus in New York restaurants and across the country. more ›

Share Our Strength Benefit For Katrina Victims August 29 will mark the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, but clean-up, rebuilding, and resettling are still taking place. Charity group Share Our Strength will observe the date by holding Restaurants for Relief, an event in which restaurants will donate a portion of their proceeds to help recovery efforts and to end childhood hunger along the Gulf Coast. Almost 90 restaurants in the metro area plan to... more ›

Anthony Bourdain defines "food porn" as "the glorification of food as a substitute for sex." As with food porn, wine porn -- to paraphrase Bourdain -- describes certain mind-blowingly hedonistic and expensive wines for an audience that has little intention of actually drinking them. If Wine Spectator and Robert Parker's Wine Advocate are the respective Penthouse and Hustler of wine publications, then the 7th Annual Heart's Delight Wine Tasting and Auction -- running from Thursday, May 11 through Saturday, May 13 at locations in and around Washington -- is the industry's blockbuster AVN Awards Show. And if you're willing to shell out enough cash, you can buy yourself a role as a wine pornstar for a day -- or three. more ›

Engines thumping, and pumping in time. Everyone, including Daily Candy, Don Rockwell, aunts and uncles, etc. have been telling us that Viridian is opening this weekend. Looks like it's true, despite the dose of snark in last week's Feed. more ›

Are the standards of Post food reviewer Tom Sietsema declining? Some local diners seem to think so. Sunday's Post Magazine saw Sietsema give three stars to Etrusco, the five-year-old Italian restaurant in Dupont Circle. The three-star rating ranks Etrusco among the best restaurants in D.C., including CityZen, Le Paradou, Cashion's Eat Place, and Palena. eGullet member "BilRus" was surprised by the rating: "A restaurant broke out of the two-star parade and we haven't picked up on it ... We're slipping." Other forum members were quick to point out the negative reader reviews of Etrusco in response to Sietsema's piece, and their own negative experiences with the restaurant:

There were two fish on the menu, rockfish and snapper, prepared three or four ways (all sounded very good). We ordered wine and an antipasti while we decided. It wasn't until the waiter came to take our order that he bothered to inform us that they were out of rockfish ... about 15 minutes later the waiter returns to tell us they are out of snapper with no real apology. We were all dumbfounded that a place praised for its grilled fish had none on a Saturday night.

In a not-too-surprising nod to one of D.C.'s most famous chefs, the latest issue of Esquire has named Chef Yannick Cam's new restaurant Le Paradou one of the best new restaurants in the United States. Cam, perhaps most famous as the chef of Le Pavilion during the '80s, made his return to D.C. this April after a period at Le Relais in Great Falls. This is the second time one of Cam's restaurants has been... more ›