Yelp (@yelpdc) had a contest recently via twitter to see who could think of the most inventive ways to use dessert in fashion. The prize was two tickets to the Sweet Charity event on June 21st!

I’ve been to events like this before — Washingtonian’s “Best of” party, and just the week before (via Yelp) Toast of the Town. This is by far the best event of this sort that I’ve been to. Maybe it’s because of my sweet tooth, but I loved every moment of it. Thankfully there were some savory stations–lest I go into a diabetic coma–but most of them were sweet. There were so many options that were so delicious that I didn’t have time to photograph everything.

My boyfriend (my +1) and I reached a consensus that Chef Geoff’s espresso brownie was the best dish of the night, followed by the dishes from the Ritz. Another great thing that set this event apart from others — the bar. This event was 100% open bar with beer, wine, and mixed drinks. The event was the whole bottom floor of the Mandarin Oriental, which contained many different rooms and hallways. Since it wasn’t just one big open space, there were a lot of different areas to explore and discover.

The end of the night was capped off with awards, a live auction, and a fashion show. The fashion show all had models wearing clothing that was a hybrid of chocolate, marzipan, and/or sugar and fabric. I think the theme was “movies” since there was a Cruella DeVil, “Birds”, Tinkerbell, and a few warriors.

All in all, the event had great people, great food, and it was for a great cause. I honestly would consider going again next year, on my own ticket!

On the evening of July 15th, I went to Washingtonian’s “Best of DC” Party. I had seen the information about this party prior to the event, but only went when I purchased a Groupon, making the $95 ticket only $50. I arrived at around 7:30 to the National Building Museum. The crowd here was a lot younger than I expected, mostly people in their upper 20s and lower 30s.

After waiting in line to check-in (I saw many people with Groupon print-outs in hand), we received our wrist bands and walked into the museum, which was decorated with an “Asian” motif. Not sure how I feel about that since it’s a little kitsch and an easy way out instead of coming up with an original theme, but I liked the ribbons and fishie cut outs as well as the imperial sun flower artwork (which  I saw someone wearing one of these flowers–I can’t believe they defaced the art like that!).

We stopped and got some Sweetgreen yogurt from the truck on the way to the building. I got tart yogurt with mini chocolate chips. I really liked the refreshing tartness of the yogurt, much better than some that I’ve had elsewhere.

After taking a program and a Washingtoninan “Best of” issue from a nearby table (which I don’t think we were supposed to), we made our way around. A lot of the tables were already sold out or were getting close because the building had opened up at 6pm for people that had “presidental ($125) tickets. Some of the food was good, some of it was not good, but none of it was amazing. I was sad to miss Rasika and the Source (as well as many others that had deserted their tables by about 8:30). I did get to meet one of the owners of Matchbox, who offered to buy us margarita’s, but sadly, the bar did not have alcohol–just beer and wine.

Below is the list of what we had:

• Sweetgreen: tart yogurt with strawberries/chocolate chips
• co.co sala: strawberry cheesecake lollipops, crab corn dogs
• commonwealth: beef brisket on toasted baguette topped with scallions
• founding farmers: nut mix, bread with roasted red pepper or guacamole dips
• 2941: chocolate pistachio diamant, seasonal pate de fruit, strawberry blueberry macaroon pops, milk chocolate ice cream sandwiches, chocolates
• the oval room: shrimp ceviche with “chorizo” and micorgreens
• georgetown cupcake: Red Velvet / Peanut Butter Fudge cupcakes
• bgr the burger joint: cheeseburger with pickle, diced onions, mustard
• kitchen: smoked salmon with truffle emulsion and small salad
• hook: summer berry shortcake, tuna w/ raspberry foam
• bangkok joe’s: pumpkin vegetarian “best” potsticker
• citronelle: chilled eggplant soup
• matchbox dc: sliders
• majestic: homemade mini hotdogs
• asian nine: some sushi roll with panko and sauce
• baked & wired: Peach/Cherry/Blueberry Pie, brownies
• domain de canton: ginger liquer
• stella artois
• hakutsuru: plum wine
• poste: lemon thyme “lemonade”
• water
• kirin ichiban
• cafe bonaparte/napolean cafe: pink pomegranate champane

I was so glad that they had plum wine at a tasting booth, that I went back multiple times. One of the best dishes was the pumpkin potsticker from Bangkok Joe’s, which I haven’t been able to get out of my mind since. They were steaming hot and the perfect blend of sweet and savory. At co.co. sala, I voiced my opinion on the restaurant, stating that I had a previously horrible experience, and the manager invited me back. Not that I’m going to go back, but it was nice to see a face with a name. Many dishes here were half-eaten before going in the garbage, such as Commonwealth’s brisket, the Crab Corn Dog at co.co. sala, both ‘sliders’ here, whose buns were atrocious. I was excited by seeing Citronelle, but the soup they offered was slightly off-putting. I loved the Peanut Butter Fudge cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake, but it was waay too rich for me. The molten fudge filling inside oozed out when you took a bite and I’m sure I had frosting and filling all over my face and hands by the end of it. Definitely a plate/fork deal, not napkin-hovering-while-standing-struggle. 2941’s macaroon pops were nice and fluffy, yet crispy on the outside. We also got chocolate-nut-toffee bark to take home. Hook’s cake was alright, but I spit the tuna right out when it went in my mouth. How disgusting! And I eat raw fish all the time, so it wasn’t that.

Apparently there was a lion dance performance (which I missed), but oh did I see the glow-in-the-dark interpretive hula-hoop/nunchuk dance. I was stifling laughter. Other than that, the music was young and slightly confused, but I could tell they were trying.

I’m glad that I went this time, but I don’t think it was worth it. It was a fun night out on the town, but absolutely not worth full price, and I won’t go next time even at half-off.

Yes, that is one delicious cup-ful of Gifford’s 72% Chocolate Chip ice cream. Even though it was slightly melted, It was still one-hundred-percent delicious-ness.

I went to the Taste of Eleven event yesterday, housed by the Verizon Center to benefit the Capital Food Bank. I didn’t go to help the Capital Food Bank, though I’m glad my proceeds went somewhere–I went to get 6 tastings of over 30 restaurants for only $11. That’s right: ELEVEN DOLLARS. That’s a whole whopping $1.83 per taste. You better believe I was willing to pay that to get free Dasani, free Nestea Pommegranate Passion Fruit Red Tea, Source pork potstickers, Cafe Atlantico ceviche, Zengo ceviche, a Matchbox slider, Zaytiniya Octopus, and ice cream. In fact, I would have paid upwards of four bucks for that ice cream, thats how good it was.

The event only lasted two hours (12-2), and I made sure to get there at around 12:15 so I would have enough time to scope out the competition and dol out my tickets to the six most deserving vendors. The only downside was that, unlike Taste of Georgetown, the dishes didn’t seem to have been planned ahead of time, so weren’t displayed. I felt bad gawking at the booth or asking people what was there, but I didn’t want to wait in line at a great sounding place like Oyamel and get guacamole! Nah, I’m better than that. The only other down-side to this was that it was only two hours! Other than that, it was cheap, great location, and great food. This makes it #2 in the past year’s 3 tasting events so far.

1. Taste of Georgetown 2008
2. Second Annual Taste of Eleven
3. Taste of Arlington 2009

Pictures of all the dishes and descriptions under the cut.

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Is it just me, or are there a lot of “Taste of” festivals this year? I’ve heard of various festivals in Maryland, Crystal City, Reston, and of course: Arlington. After attending the Taste of Georgetown festival last year, this seemed a bit lack-luster. It was set in Ballston, and let’s be honest, there’s not a great collection of restaurants in Arlington. There were about forty restaurants there (Full list here), and for $25 you got 8 tasting tickets. We could have bought our ticket ahead of time and gotten 8 tickets for $20, but we weren’t 100% sure if we would be going to the event. But, for around $12.50 per person, Dan and I got pretty full! We had originally planned to go to El Pollo Rico after the festival, but we got too full!

Even though we got 8 tickets, it costs 1 ticket per taste and 2 tickets per drink (even water), so we brought our own drink. This festival was also geared more towards familys and kids. We had:

• Delhi Daba – Channa Masala with Rice
• Lebanese Taverna – Chicken Shwarama Pita
• Best Buns – Red Velvet Cupcake
• Bayou Bakery – Strawberry Shaved Ice with Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Me Jana – Hommos and Naan
• Restaurant 3 – BBQ Ribs
• Liberty Tavern – Grilled Octopus with Fennel, red onion, blood orange, mache/mint salad
• Front Page – Crab “Cakes” (Fritters) with Bruschetta

Delhi Daba was great, it was one of the first things we got when we went to the festival, and there was a long line (for a reason). You could choose butter chicken, chick peas, paneer (spinach), with rice or naan. Dan was hankering for some chick peas, so there was no debate. Restaurant 3’s ribs were okay. We had gone to Sweetwater the night before just to get ribs, and they were out, so again, Dan was jonesin’ for ribs. They were quite fatty, didn’t fall off the bone, had a lot of cartilage, and weren’t evenly cooked. Lebanese Taverna’s sandwich was okay. The chicken fell out and I don’t care for tomatoes. Me Jana offered whole containers of hummus with pre-packaged naan. The Best Buns cupcake was about half the size as the normal cupcakes (which I guess are twice the size of a standard cupcake). They had vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet to choose from. I had a feeling they would be dry, so I picked red velvet, which is the moistest cake due to the whole bottle of food coloring in there. The cake was still a little dry in some places, but the cream cheese frosting more than made up for that. Bayou Bakery isn’t even open yet (they took over Murky Coffee), but I’ll be interested to check them out! They had two different flavors of shaved ice — Wedding Cake (almond) and Strawberry. They packed a lot of ice in to a little Chinese take-out box and then asked me if I wanted “Sweetened Condensed milk floated on top”. Uh, yes! Liberty Tavern had strangely un-tavern food with the grilled octopus. The salad didn’t look appetizing, but the grilled octopus was okay. It had a slightly rubbery consistency, and no real seafood flavor. We thought Front page was burgers, but it was actually a really fresh and juicy tasting bruschetta with some mushy crab fritters.

All-in-all, it was okay, but it just made me miss Georgetown’s Festival! Georgetown is more for adults and there is better food there. You won’t see Chipotle or Mall Food Court Ghetto Sushi Places there — and they give out free soda (well, Arlington did give out free yummy Ice Cream Sandwiches!).

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