Saturday, September 26

Das Best Oktoberfest

Nosh on sour beef, potato pancakes, and a variety of sausages at this outdoor festival at National Harbor (137 National Plaza, National Harbor; 800-830-3976). Organizers took a cue from last year’s long lines and added more food stands, more beer stations, and more staff. This is the only Oktoberfest event where you can sample every German beer available in the state of Maryland—over 100 will be on hand. Tickets—which include a souvenir tasting mug and nine beer tokens (six if you buy at the door)—cost $25 in advance, or $30 at the door. Show up sporting lederhosen or a dirndl, and you’ll score both German street cred and a few extra beer tokens. 2 to 8.

PS 7’s Cooking Class “Beer and Brats”

Feel like cooking at home? Discover the tricks of the sausage-making trade when PS 7’s head chef Peter Smith invites meat lovers into his kitchen. Smith, assisted by bartender Gina Chersevani and pastry chef Leon Baker, will demonstrate how to prepare bratwurst from scratch. The Philly-based Victory Brewing Company will distribute samples of its malted beverages. The class, $65 per person, goes from 1 to 3:30. Participants must be 21 or older. Call 202-742-8550 for reservations.

Call it a form of withdrawal: We just can’t get enough of those restaurant weeks. And this week, there’s yet another promotion to make room for. Running now through Saturday, September 26, Turkish Restaurant Week spotlights seven restaurants serving $25 four-course menus filled with traditional dishes such as sigara borek and hunkar begendi. This week might mean a tough call for bargain hunters: Will you opt for a Bethesda hot spot—Bethesda Row is putting on its own version of Restaurant Week through Sunday—or Middle Eastern eats?

The official Bethesda Restaurant Week happened earlier this summer, but Bethesda Row, the glossy new street mall of upscale shops and restaurants, is putting on a promotion of its own. Today through Sunday, September 27, nine restaurants—including Redwood, Assaggi, and Lebanese Taverna—will offer two-course lunches for $12 and three-course dinners for $30. The menus aren’t as generous as the ones you’ll find during the official Restaurant Week (you could eat your way through plenty of house salads)—but check out the menus below.

Tuesday September 8
Passionfish , Jeff Tunks’s Reston seafood dining room, is hosting a sake and sushi dinner.  The special menu—created by No Won Park, the restaurant’s sushi chef—is available from 7 to 10 and costs $75 per person. Call 703-230-3474 for reservations.

Wednesday September 9
DC foodies looking to lend a hand should head to PS7’s tonight for Taste of the Nation’s  volunteer recruitment happy hour.  Learn about volunteering for the 2010 tasting event, which last year featured 50 restaurants, and talk to committee chairs—including Vidalia Chef R.J. Cooper—about the battle against childhood hunger in the District.  The event, which runs from 6 to 8, includes complimentary appetizers and $3 and $4 deals on select wine and beers. RSVP to DCTaste@gmail.com.  To learn more about the organization, click here.  

Monday, August 31
Sad you missed Restaurant Week? Don’t be—we’ve rounded up all the places extending the offer here.

Tuesday, September 1
The Fish Market (105-107 King St., Alexandria) in Old Town will celebrate its recent remodeling tonight in a big way. Starting at 4, guests can watch an oyster-eating contest, sample from the menu at the newly added Anchor Bar, sip on $2 house drafts, and enjoy 1980s seafood prices on today’s catches, all to the sound of live music. For more information, call 703-683-1135 or click here.

Related:

• Restaurant Week Menus
• Todd Kliman's Restaurant Week Picks
• Who is Extending Restaurant Week?
  

It’s the first day of DC’s summer Restaurant Week (see our menu guide here), when lots of the city’s eateries have special three-course lunch ($20.09) and/or dinner ($35.09) menus—a chance to try some of the best restaurants in town for a fraction of the price. Some places allow diners to choose from their regular menu, while others offer a paltry list of choices with the only attractive dishes bearing a surcharge.

Our food and wine editor, Todd Kliman, gave you his picks for Restaurant Week, and now we want you to weigh in on your experiences. Where did you score a great deal, and where did you feel ripped off? Which restaurants were generous with portions and menu offerings, and which ones skimped? Did your meal feel relaxed or rushed? Every morning, we’ll ask you to tweet @bestbitesblog with your reports from the day before (use the hashtag #DCRW). If you’re not on Twitter, feel free to leave your thoughts in our comments below.

(Psst—you can also follow Washingtonian on Twitter here, and food and dining editor Todd Kliman here.)

Judith Jones is the editor behind many a kitchen bible. Photograph by Christopher Hersheimer.

Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is just hitting the top of the New York Times bestseller list this week. And though Julie & Julia author Julie Powell (not to mention Meryl Streep) is getting much of the credit, the woman responsible for putting it on bookshelves in the first place is Knopf editor Judith Jones. She took a chance on the book after it had been rejected from another publisher as out of sync with the can-opening times, and over the next five decades she went on to polish the work of plenty more culinary all-stars, including Marcella Hazan, Edna Lewis, and Jeffrey Steingarten. On October 21, Jones will be in town to talk about her own book, The Pleasures of Cooking for One.

She’s inaugurating Stir Food Group and Hooks Books Events’ new Food for Thoughts author series at Zola Wine + Kitchen (505 Ninth St., NW; 202-654-2855). The event, which runs from 6 to 8, will include a discussion with Jones and a cooking demo. The $75 ticket price includes a copy of her book, a round of appetizers made from its recipes, and two glasses of wine. And of course, the chance to ask the funny, frank Jones about her adventures with Child. Oh, how we’d have loved to see Judith & Julia play out on the big screen.