We DCists and our readers have tested a pretty wide selection of this summer’s Restaurant Week participants, and we’ve come to a conclusion: Restaurant Week is at once awesome and disappointing. In sum, Washington’s Restaurant Week is a two-faced Janus bastard. In order to have a good restaurant week experience, one must put in a little work. There are restaurants who do RW that are worth a visit, those that completely phone it in, and…

As far as I know, I am the only DCist Food and Drink staffer who does not have Restaurant Week reservations. It wasn’t because I forgot or because I signed up too late to score a reservation to my preferred destinations. Unlike Adam, I am not a big fan of Restaurant Week, and it was a conscious decision to skip out on what might be considered prime time dining for a cheapskate like me. First…

Food and Wine Names Komi’s Monis Best New Chef Food and Wine has released their list of best new chefs for 2007, and Komi’s chef Johnny Monis has made the cut. Focusing on “modest, low-key restaurants” and chefs who are “obsessed with ingredients,” Food and Wine selected ten chefs from across the country who are steadily climbing the vertical food tower of greatness. Well, ten chefs other than Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee, who they…

Wabeck Leaving Firefly, Chittum Leaving Dish and Notti Bianche Tom reports in this week’s Dish that John Wabeck, executive chef of Firefly just south of Dupont Circle, is departing at the end of the month. Wabeck has been plating up fantastic dishes for years at Firefly, which is why it ranks as one of my favorite places. Now he’s decided that he might want to pursue, according to Tom, either “the wine thing,” or “the…

If DCist hears one more person talk about how great Breadline is, we’ll scream. We’ll scream a “here’s where Cameron goes berserk” scream. Sure, the lunch spot on the 1700 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW turns out what it should turn out: decent and sometimes exceptional bread. But the quality of what’s inside those breads and what’s served alongside them (and, some say, the bread itself) has diminished significantly — especially since the French chain…

Todd Kliman was the only winner from D.C. at this year’s Beard Awards. Last night at the Beard Award’s Restaurant Gala (a separate event from the Journalism Gala Sunday evening), Marc Vetri of the eponymous Vetri in Philadelphia won the award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic region, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the category was dominated by the D.C. area. Michael Flynn, nominated for best wine service at Kinkead’s, lost out to wine…

A few weeks ago we reported that the City Paper’s Todd Kliman had been nominated for a prestigious Beard Award. And Friday night at a gala in New York, it was announced that Todd, who’s Young & Hungry column has recently covered suburban ethnic restaurants as well as the joys of shad, won the award for Best Newspaper Column. Kliman’s column for the City Paper is one of our favorite bits of weekly reading. More…