MelGold

Some of the area's best chefs will be serving up signature tastes on June 1st at the Hilton Washington (yep, that Hilton) to benefit Food & Friends. More information, including a list of participating chefs & tickets, available on Food & Friends Website.

Huge! I know I'm going to get blasted for this, for I do love pork fat, but I tend to prefer lean pork in my vermicelli. Present's version was a bit fatty for my taste, but that didn't stop me. All in all, I thought it was good but not as good as a variety of other things I've eaten at Present.

I can not wait!

Daniel - if someone drops out, let me know. I'd be happy to step in!

Got the spring roll & pork vermicelli last night as take out around 6:30. The place was absolutely empty. I'm not talking one or two tables either. No one but the servers, who obviously are so used to the dead room that they were having family meal at one of the large tables. The manager said they usually get 7 or 8 tables in around 7:30 on weeknights, but that was status quo. So if you want amazingly attentive service & a chef focused on the food he's preparing for your table, I suggest hitting Present on a weeknight sometime before 7:30. You'll be treated as if you were the only customer in the joint!

bagged lettuce with store-bought goddess dressing ravioli a la Chef Boyardee (stirfry on the menu for tomorrow)

I forgot to mention that I popped my Pinkberry cherry on St. Marks Place Saturday night (was enormously saddened to see the gentrification on that street). We got a "small" serving of pomegranate/original swirl topped with milk chocolate shavings. It was tart, tingly and overall amazing. I loved every spoonful of it, but was glad to be sharing the ginormous serving with two others. Found it quite interesting that Red Mango was literally across the street. Next trip I might have to do a Pat's/Geno's type taste off between the two.

I prefer udon to soba when it's in a broth. I grew up with yakisoba made at home by my mom, so I have a hard time wrapping my head around thin noodles in a broth (perhaps why I don't love pho). I haven't tried Ippudo but sounds like something that should be put on my list for the next visit.

I just got off the bus from a jammed packed weekend in NYC. Not only did I get to show my 15-year-old cousin one of my favorite places on earth, but I got to introduce her to new foods as well (it was SO much fun)! We had dinner at craftbar on Friday night. Rhone, that might be a good option as well. The cousin had her first oysters on the half shell and chose the mushroom ragout with polenta for her main. I had the braised short ribs which were really tasty. My one complaint was the sauteed peppers on the dish - didn't add a thing and seemed a bit out of place. If they needed to include a veggie, they should have gone with a hearty green of some sort. We also ordered some chickpea fries to start, which are a bit past the trend, but the standout part of the dish was the black olive aioli. Skipped dessert since my sister wanted frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity once she joined us later that night. Saturday included a bagel breakfast, Carnegie Deli (which is not my favorite, but she loved the kitch of it all), and then dinner at Soba-ya on 9th Street in the East Village. I wish we had an outpost of the Udon shop here. I had the weekend special udon, Chirashi, which was a hearty broth full of housemade udon noodles, a large piece of tamago, a shiitake mushroom, fish cake, spinach and some other goodies I'm too tired to remember. My sister was a bit disappointed in her tempura soba, which sported a large piece of shrimp tempura and one other piece of tempura and not much else. The cousin got the veggie udon and was quite content. We got out of there under $50, which was way below what I had budgeted for Saturday night. Today was not really notable with the exception of a red velvet cupcake from Magnolia Bakery at their Rockafeller Center branch. The cake itself was awesome, but ended up scraping off the mound of ubersaccrine vanilla icing on top. Note to anyone taking the DC2NY bus - they don't stop at one of the horrid little rest stops along the turnpike, so stop somewhere before boarding the bus at Penn Station to pick up lunch/dinner. It's a long 4.5 hours if you're hungry!

Please don't answer that!

Thank you to everyone who went out to lunch and/or dinner yesterday at one of the Dining Out for Life restaurants!

The Open Table list definitely had issues today (of all days indeed). It seems to be working now: clickity

Promise this is the last post, but it's a good one! If for some reason you can't go out to dinner tonight, but you want to help out a great cause, consider making a donation online (any size - grossly generous down to a buck). In doing so, not only will you be helping Food & Friends continue supplying meals to people with serious illnesses, BUT you will be entered into a drawing for two roundtrip tickets on American Airlines. If you are going to a DOL restaurant tonight AND want to enter the drawing, talk to one of the Brand Ambassadors on site about the special envelopes they're carrying. What's that they say about good karma?

Who's going out to dinner tomorrow night?

Congrats on the opportunity, Eric!

I made lazy-man's spaghetti & meatballs last night using the TJ basil marinara jar sauce and their frozen turkey meatballs. YUM! Glad I made enough for leftovers today.

It really is truly a beautiful space. I can't wait to get back to try it out.

It's a bump +... Don't forget to make plans to eat out this Thursday night at one of the more than 150 restaurants participating in Dining Out for Life. If you feel the need to really put up bonus points, check out the list to see which places are signed up for lunch AND dinner, and give that brown bag a rest! Now for the plus: if you are bummed out because you have plans on Thursday that preclude you from participating in DOL, I have the perfect opportunity to join in the fun on Wednesday night, March 4th. The folks at CommonWealth have generously agreed to host a happy hour from 6 to 7:30 on Wednesday night to kick off the fundraiser with Food & Friends' executive director guest bartending (which will be a site to see, trust me). Bring friends, family, co-workers or just little ole you to help us make this year's Dining Out for Life a huge success. Hope to see you all there! Mel

It's actually a pretty awesome list - except that they left off Dino & CommonWealth.

There were no scallops that I saw, but I really liked that salad. It was especially tasty when you added in the second hot sauce. I don't think there were any misses with what was ordered at lunch - probably would have ordered a different roll to break up the fried dishes, but they were good (I'll stick with a fresh spring roll in the future most likely).

That was yummy! Thanks guys for setting things in motion. Joe, it was nice to finally put a face with your name & postings.

Looking forward to it!

There are now more than 150 restaurants participating. Check out the full list here. Have you made your reservations for March 5th yet?

Count me in if there's room. I keep passing it thinking I need to go, but never stop.

Congrats to Shaggy, et al, for trading out paint brushes & hammers for knives and burners. I can't wait to come in!!!!