PassionFish, the latest offering from Jeff Tunks’s Passion Food restaurant group and the newest addition to Reston Town Center, is surprisingly understated given its pedigree. No soaring mermaids à la DC Coast, no shiny pagodas or life-size Buddhas as at TenPenh. Instead, the seafood emporium’s touches are more subtle—fishtail knives and forks, chandeliers that call to mind oceanic bubbles, sweeping curves of iridescent tile.

The sprawling piscine menu will sound familiar if you’ve visited Passion Food’s other restaurants. The gumbo, which has an almost mole-like complexity, recalls Louisiana-inspired Acadiana, the Yucatán shrimp ceviche is straight out of the recipe book of the Nuevo Latino spot Ceiba, and the red curry with pineapple that shows off curls of butter-poached lobster is cribbed from TenPenh.

The most successful dishes are PassionFish’s alone. Fried oysters are dabbed with tarragon aïoli and set atop cool ribbons of apple. A Parmesan-crusted dip, inspired by clams casino, had us tearing through a baguette to get the last bits. And a simply roasted whole branzino with Meyer lemon becomes a standout with a slathering of herb-packed green sauce.

Top Chef/inauguration junkies rejoice! Season four contestant Spike Mendelsohn announced yesterday that he'll host an inaugural ball at his Capitol Hill hamburger joint Good Stuff Eatery on January 20. The theme, of course, is burgers.

For $99, you can party with the chef on while you nosh eight handcrafted mini burgers, mini hand-cut French fries, mini milkshakes, and salads. Beer and wine is included, and there will be vegetarian options available.

Before you run out to buy a gown or rent a tux for the occasion, note the dress code: blue jeans are "highly recommended." According to the invitation, Mendelsohn's looking to attract a "hip crowd," and he'll transform his restaurant into "a candlelit farmhouse chic atmosphere" where "people can jam to some awesome music."

Only 200 tickets are available, and they're expected to go fast. To purchase, call Micheline at 202-543-8222 or e-mail info@goodstuffeatery.com.

>> All Washingtonian.com inauguration coverage 

More>> Best Bites Blog | Food & Dining | Restaurant Finder

Theise is the Silver Spring–based wine importer who won a 2008 James Beard Foundation Award, and his name on an Austrian or German white is as close to a guarantee as there is in the world of wine.

Eve chef/owner Cathal Armstrong says the do-it-yourself water costs more, but he doesn’t miss the 80 cases of empty bottles that were ending up in the trash each month. Another perk: Some of the restaurants can customize the size and effervescence of their sparklers.

Ideal growing conditions in Virginia’s vineyards led to a superb 2008 harvest and a bumper crop of grapes. Prodigious yields, plus increased vineyard acreage statewide, means the cellar runneth over. So wineries with more grapes than fermentation tanks are offering Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc to home winemakers.

Looking for New Year Eve's plans and parties? We've got a huge roundup of the best events going on December 31st. 

FUN AND FESTIVE

Café Atlántico
405 Eighth St., NW; 202-393-0812; cafeatlantico.com
This colorful Penn Quarter restaurant invites guests to ring in Nochevieja with a DJ, party favors, a midnight Champagne toast, and an eight-course tasting menu. Dinner includes foie gras terrine with pressed pineapple and duck gelée and 72-hour braised short ribs with Brussels sprouts and a truffle-potato espuma. An à la carte menu will also be available at an earlier seating.
Dinner reservations from 5 to 7:30 for the à la carte menu; the tasting menu is available from 8:30 to 10:30 for $95 per person.

Cafe Milano
3521 Prospect St., NW; 202-333-6183; cafemilano.net
The truffle-heavy, fixed-price menu at this Georgetown Italian hangout includes braised Jerusalem-artichoke soup with sole polpettine and black truffle; seared pancetta-wrapped sea scallops; foie-gras raviolini with Norcia black truffle; a choice between sautéed fennel-pollen-crusted Mediterranean sea bass or roast beef tenderloin with porcini sauce and a truffle-polenta timbale. For dessert, there’s mocha-hazelnut meringue with coffee crème brûlée, bittersweet-chocolate mousse, and an assortment of miniature Italian holiday treats. Never a place to shy from a party, Cafe Milano will also have dance music and a Champagne toast.
Seatings at 6:30 or 9; $125 per person.

In this era of pork-belly BLTs, it's nice to know that some things never change. Take that old bistro staple the grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich, which has mostly remained immune to the deconstruction (and reconstruction) that chefs can't seem to resist these days. And although trendy restaurants like Poste and Westend Bistro serve well-sourced renditions of the classic croque monsieur (ham and cheese with bechamel sauce) or croque madame (the same sandwich topped with a fried egg), the homely version at the Diner delivers warm, cheesy comfort. Let's start with the haute: 

• Spike Mendelsohn, former Top Chef contestant and owner of Capitol Hill’s Good Stuff Eatery, signed a deal for a cookbook last Friday. In it, he’ll divulge recipes from his local burger joint, which he plans to duplicate in the Big Apple, according to New York Magazine. When we contacted Mendelsohn last week about Sunday’s latke-making class, he told us that his holiday wish list included sealing this book deal. Happy Hannukah, dude!

• The Washington Business Journal tells us that restaurateurs Jared Rager and Eli Hengst—owners of Sonoma, Mendocino Grille, and Redwood—will open a fourth restaurant in Glover Park, and they’re raising money in an unconventional way. They’re trying to find a couple dozen neighborhood residents to invest about $5,000 each so they can turn the former Thai restaurant Busara into Blue Ridge, a wine-focused eatery that will serve Southern-inspired cuisine. In return for the investors’ monetary support, they will earn dining credits and access to private events.

 

San Francisco chef Michael Mina is the latest Michelin-star restaurateur whose empire has found an empty kitchen in a high-end hotel: Later this month, he plans to open the 160-seat Bourbon Steak, his 15th restaurant, in the revamped Georgetown Four Seasons. He sat down to answer our either/or questionnaire.

Gilbert Arenas or Alex Ovechkin?

Definitely Arenas. He used to be a [Golden State] Warrior, so I used to watch him all the time.

Half-smoke or crab cake?

What’s a half-smoke?

Virginia Viognier or California Chardonnay?

California Chardonnay. It’s more familiar.

Wet-aged or dry-aged steak?

Dry-aged. With the technique I like to use to cook steaks—butter poaching—the dry-aged works better.

Power breakfast or power lunch?

Power lunch. I’m not a big breakfast eater.

Related: A Foodie Gift Guide 

Looking for our New Year's Eve Dining Guide? It's right here. 

1789 (1226 36th St., NW; 202-965-1789). This Washington institution will transform its six dining rooms into elegant Christmas parlors, complete with antique toys, candles, and carolers. While the restaurant is already booked for Christmas Eve and will be closed on Christmas, the festive atmosphere and cuisine will be available on other days as well. The decorations will be up from December 1 through January 6, and the restaurant will be offering a three-course, $40 prix-fixe menu. Executive chef Dan Giusti will present dishes such as rabbit terrine, North Atlantic skate wing, Muscovy duck-leg crepinette, and braised short ribs. Pastry chef Travis Olsen will provide a full selection of desserts. Available nightly.

2941 (2941 Fairview Park Dr., Falls Church; 703-270-1501). Celebrate the holidays with a festive four-course meal created by chef Bertrand Chemel. The dinner begins with a selection of three canapés, followed by appetizer choices such as a warm salsify velouté with fresh black truffles, sunchokes, and chives; yellowfin tuna tartar with celery salad and chives; Maine Peekytoe crab salad served with a tangerine gelée, Tasmanian black pepper, and basil; and seared Hudson Valley foie gras, persimmon confit, pain d’épice, and sunchokes. The middle course is homemade ricotta ravioli with Parmesan cheese and fresh black truffles. Main course options include a butter-poached lobster with savoy cabbage, Syrah sauce, and celery; roasted Chilean turbot, celery root, black trumpet mushrooms, and cipollini onion; a milk-fed-veal duo of braised cheeks, roasted loin, and white barley risotto; and beef tournados with baby carrots, truffle pomme purée, and Rossini sauce. For dessert, diners may choose an eggnog créme brulée with honey-roasted pears, and cognac ice cream; or a coffee moelleux with praline rice, Satusma tangerines, and Venezuelan-chocolate ice cream. $95.

• Former Colorado Kitchen chef/owner Gillian Clark is keeping busy, no question. After closing her Brightwood kitchen, she announced plans to open a new restaurant, Avenue Oven, in Takoma Park. Then there’s the General Store and Post Office Tavern in Silver Spring, which has been in the works for more than a year. And this week, she let Prince of Petworth in on her intent to open another restaurant, a “classically Southern” place called the Georgia Avenue Meeting House in Petworth, the neighborhood she’s called home for ten years. On the projected menu: trout, catfish, pheasant, and pigs’ feet.
    Clark tells City Paper’s Tim Carman that she hopes to have five restaurants or more by 2011 “in spots where nobody wants to open.”

The recently opened CulinAerie is targeted at a new generation of foodies who think of chefs as celebrities and farmers markets as social meeting spots. Some of the hands-on classes have ethnic themes—Persian, Far East fusion—and other sessions cover basics  cake making and knife skills. The calendar also features lunchtime lectures with talks on food writing, nutrition, and throwing a dinner party.

Have you been to Posto? What are your impressions? Tell us in the comments.

>>See all FeedBacks ]]> http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/10433.html Catherine Andrews <candrews@washingtonian.com> http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/10433.html With Henry’s Soul Café selling 50,000 sweet-potato pies annually, chances are you may have eaten one of them—whether your hostess fessed up to buying the pie or not.

The owners of the Oxon Hill cafe—an offshoot of Henry’s Deli Carryout, which opened on DC’s U Street in 1968—realized it had a good thing going and now offers pie kits online. For $27 plus shipping, two tins lined with pie crust and two vacuum-sealed pouches of filling are delivered to your door ready for assembly.

The pies are sweet—some might say too sweet—but there’s an unmistakable depth of flavor that can’t be masked. Plus, they’re aggressively spiced, made from all-natural ingredients, and when you’re baking them, sugar gathers around the edge of the crust to form a delicious ring of caramel.

While it's still worth visiting the cafe—at least until it figures out how to vacuum-seal and ship its delicious ribs or turkey legs with gravy—sweet-potato pie fans need go no farther than henryssweetpotatopie.com. And then you can tell the truth (sorta) when someone asks whether you made the pie yourself.

Leave your answers in the comments! 

Monday, December 8

Escape the cold and reserve a table by the toasty fireplace at Old Town’s Bar Baudelaire (1106 King St., Alexandria) tonight when it hosts a five-course wine dinner. Executive chef Tom Meyer’s menu includes a duck-confit-and-foie-gras salad paired with a Château Haut Bommes Sauterne 2003. Dinner starts at 7 and costs $75 per person. Call 703-739-9494 for reservations.

Tuesday, December 9

Train your nose with GiraMondo Wine Adventures’ beginners class, “The Ultimate Sensory Experience.” The class covers the origins of wine flavors and aromas, aroma categorization, and how to recognize different aromas. Appetizers and cheese will be available with the tasting of six wines. In honor of the holidays, two sparkling wines will also be served. The class, held at the Whitemore House (1526 New Hampshire Ave., NW), starts at 6:30 and costs $54 per person. Call 301-841-7609 for reservations.
 

• DC-based celebrity chef José Andrés wowed Los Angeles Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila with his newly opened Bazaar in Beverly Hills’ SLS Hotel. In her Early Bird review, she called the swanky, Philippe Starck-designed restaurant an “extravagantly weird and wonderful playroom.” She was particularly impressed with some of Andrés’s greatest hits from Minibar—his six-seater on the second floor of DC’s Café Atlántico—including his spin on a Philly cheesesteak and watermelon-and-tomato skewers.

• Capital Spice gets a sneak peek inside Next Door, the new restaurant from Ben’s Chili Bowl owners Nizam and Kamal Ali, which is, well, next door to their iconic landmark. Photos show the 53-foot wooden bar, space for live music, and a gleaming grill ready to sizzle some half-smokes.
 

More Gift Guides: Fashionista | Techie | Food Lover | Under $30 | Eco-Friendly 

Electrolux induction stovetop, $1,799 to $1,999
For a diehard home cook who wants to sauté like the pros, Tosca chef Massimo Fabbri’s advice is to install an induction stovetop. Fabbri is pining for a four-burner Electrolux version for his about-to-open casual trattoria, Posto: “It cooks super fast, and when it warms up, there’s an even distribution of heat. And it doesn’t use gas, so it’s a little greener.” The commercial version can go for up to $15,000, but we found you one for $1,799.

Time, as the saying goes, is money, which may be why Brendan Cox and Derek Brown are zipping through the grocery store. They’re not speeding, rushing, or giving off that harried vibe that most shoppers exude this time of year, but they’re not dawdling. Their challenge: Pull together a cocktail party for ten for less than $75.

Goat cheese? Too expensive. Cox nixes a dish from his menu.

A basket of warm, savory rolls with honey butter is placed in front of you as soon as you sit down. Servers refill your Coke before you think to ask, then scrawl smiley faces on the to-go boxes. All-booth seating means there’s not a bad table.

Comfort, in the room and on the plate, is the biggest reason the Great American Restaurants brand—which includes such establishments as Coastal Flats, Carlyle, and Artie’s—has garnered such loyal audiences. Jackson’s Mighty Fine Food & Lucky Lounge appears destined to follow those successes: The Saturday-night wait at the 260-seat restaurant clocks in at about an hour and a half. You can avoid standing around with a buzzer by calling ahead and putting your name on the list.

The menu, a mash-up of the last decade’s culinary trends, veers from miso-glazed black cod to steak frites to sushi and spring rolls. Meals sometimes sag in the middle, save for reliable main courses like crab cakes and sea bass in ginger broth—entrées also served at the restaurant’s siblings. Better to focus mostly on starters: chopped-pecan-accented deviled eggs with decadent sugar-brûléed bacon strips; a duo of dips that includes zingy guacamole and a riff on pimiento cheese; and a gratin of mac and cheese, its golden crust hiding generous chunks of fresh lobster.

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Done up with artfully roughed-up wood, long leather booths, and a night sky’s worth of twinkling pendant lights, this order-at-the-counter chicken chain—the first stateside outpost of the popular South Africa–based franchise—feels more like a cousin to its Penn Quarter neighbor Rasika, the stylized Indian fusion restaurant.

Hemingway called Paris “a moveable feast,” but he never cruised Washington in a limo with ten girlfriends and a stack of takeout menus. Believing that takeout doesn’t have to mean Kung Pao chicken, we piled into a stretch Lincoln at dusk on a Friday with a mission to eat in style at lots of restaurants. The catch? We’d be noshing on the road, not at a table. There would be car-friendly finger food from Equinox, perhaps mezze from Zaytinya, crab cakes from Legal Sea Foods. We knew the risks: rémoulade on the leather seats, lobster on the Louis Vuitton. It didn’t matter. A group of friends who see one another mostly in business clothes, we needed a Sex and the City night.

As soon as we saw the Thanksgiving meal that Vermilion chef Tony Chittum whipped up for our Frugal Foodie series, we wished he was coming to our house this Thursday. And we'd make sure he was prepared to replicate that savory cornbread pudding.

So tell us, if you could have your Thanksgiving meal cooked by a DC-area chef, who would you hire and what would you want him or her to serve? Give us your fantasy dinners in the comments!  

But in recent months we’ve seen Chilean sea bass on specials boards at Niwanohana in Rockville as well as on the regular menus at Oya in DC, Doraku Sushi in Bethesda, Raku in DC and Bethesda, Monterey Bay Fish Grotto in McLean, and every one of Bonefish Grill’s outlets.

So is the fish now okay to eat?