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. Although some restaurateurs interviewed for the article said that they’d jacked up prices beyond the psychological $40 barrier in response to increasing costs, a “menu engineer”…

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…

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,…

Viridian Crosses Starting Line 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. According to the owners, Rebecca Byrnes (formerly of The Reef) will be head chef at the 14th Street NW joint, and Kenan Forman will be in charge of the adult grape juice….

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…

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…