Chef’s Best Dinner and Auction

Monday night was the 20^th anniversary of this event to raise funds for a very worth while organization — Food & Friends. Talk about kid in a candy store… Where to begin, where to begin…
The food samplings by the DC area’s top chefs were phenomenal. No matter what your taste in food is, you can’t miss here. Even though many selections were meaty, vegetarians and pescatarians had plenty of choices. I loved the multi-​colored cauliflower salad with tarragon mustard dressing sans the smoked duck breast (from the International Trade Center). Perry’s served an avocado roulade on a petite rice cracker and Urbana was offering a morel mushroom soup that was very tasty too! It is a foodies paradise here. My mom is going to be so jealous of me!
Let’s not forget dessert. The cupcake wars continue here with treats from Georgetown Cupcake and Hello Cupcake, amidst many other delectable choices for a final encore.
Of course the important thing to remember is that the $ 250 ticket price and the proceeds from the silent and live auction are supporting an organization which provides more than a million nutritious meals to individuals battling HIV/​AIDS, cancer and other life-​challenging illnesses.

Now that I’ve had some time to recover from Monday’s goings-​on…
Wow. I’ve never been so tempted to stuff things in my purse, or to take off my heels and sprint gleefully around a giant, convention-​hall size room snatching up food and stuffing my face until my stomach exploded. Seriously, this event was ridiculous.
Where to even begin? I guess I should get my regrets of the evening out of the way: I ate spicy chex mix at the hotel bar. I paid for a drink. I had three helpings of barbeque baby back ribs in the foyer before I realized there was an entire, Willy Wonka-​esque world of food and drink waiting for me in the main room. I wanted to cry when, after two hours of eating, I chanced upon the Hello Cupcake! table. I could barely handle a mini serving of peanut butter frosting and chocolate cake at that point.
I also should have checked the booklet listing all the offerings before I made my way across the floor; I missed out on fried chicken and waffles, blue crab salad, duck confit, grand marnier cured salmon…
I don’t regret betting $ 20 on a Crate & Barrel raffle that I didn’t win — people were bidding to donate $ 4,000, at the tail end of the evening, to support Food & Friends — it was the least I could do. I don’t regret telling Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington that I wouldn’t kneel before him (see Venu’s review). I don’t regret trying, and spitting out octopus & garbanzos, beet salad, and onion vichyssoise.
I don’t know whether it’s because I was wearing a nice black dress, or I’m female, but I didn’t meet with any of the snobbery Venu mentioned when I talked to any of the chefs manning their booths. The people I asked questions or shook hands with were informative and friendly, and I had no problems with those attending, either.
The service staff was lightning fast in whisking away plates, the people raising money were persistent with their mission, and I think the only annoyance of the evening was the laughable auctioneer’s voice we had to put up with for 20 minutes. Again, for a good cause.
At night I still dream of Perry’s seared ahi tuna with raspberry mousse, and I can only pray to the epicurean gods that I’m able to attend this event next year!

Attending the 19^th Annual Chef’s Best Dinner and Auction was a personal journey back to my days as a young toxic tort associate in Dallas, Texas. During that particular time of my life, I would often find myself surrounded by a mesh of individuals either sophisticated or pretentious in a number of locations, including charity events. This particular auction served as a reminder of what had been lost, and why it is so important to get back to a place where I can make tangible, positive contributions to needy individuals through a polished event focused on a subjective love of mine.
But you aren’t here to read about my personal dilemma. You are probably here because you would like to know more about the Chef’s Best Dinner. First and foremost, the event runs like a tasting menu. Approximately sixty of the best restaurants in the DC area provide one small tasting dish for individuals during a silent auction. Afterward, the auction takes on a new life in the form of a live auction where bidding is held on a number of items mostly involving exotic trips with a culinary focus. The proceeds benefit Foods & Friends, a charity that provides assistance to individuals facing life-​challenging illnesses.
Although the dinner is exceptionally expensive ($ 225/​ticket), the tasting was absolutely exsquisite. Even the Little Inn at Washington, one of the most well known restaurants in North America, participated in this extravagant event. Their particular contribution involved the introduction of «Heaven’s Kitchen», a concept booth where individuals were invited to slurp down oyster shooters provided to them by their divinely dressed staff. They even had a charming set-​up where one would take the oyster wafers as communion. This inventive take to a sampling certainly won the atmosphere category, but it wasn’t the best item I tried during the dinner.
Let that sink in. The best item was NOT from the Little Inn at Washington, a restaurant at the time of this writing that was over 20 Unilocal reviews none of which give a rating lower than the maximum five stars.
The item that absolutely stole the show for me was from the humble Poste restaurant in Gallery Place. Poste’s rendition of a rhubarb soda studded with a basil tapioca was superb. I’ve alway loved Poste for their truffle fries; this was so tasty it will make those heavenly truffle fries a mere afterthought on my next visit.
The next best item I sampled were the lobster grits presented by Georgia Brown’s. A stunning combination of black truffle, tomato, and smoked sausage masterfully complimented the corn grits. The lobster played the pivotal role in this exotic take on a humble Southern classic.
I could continue regarding the food, but let’s just say that the sheer selection of different cuisines, although obviously not perfectly matched given the number of participating restaurants and the utter lack of ability to serve complimenting dishes, presented like a 60 course tasting menu. Take that minibar and Komi!
It should go without saying that the items provided by the auction were exciting and memorable (I ended up purchasing an item at the silent auction, and I was happy to not only increase my own enjoyment, but to know that the proceeds are going towards an exceptional cause).
So why not 5 stars? A recurring issue I had at this event was dealing with a level of pretention that is absolutely unnecessary at a charity event. I mean, I get it. I wasn’t dressed to the nines, and I had loosened my tie. Still, I felt with some of the participating restaurants (most of which I have already been to on a number of occasions) that my requests for simple information were quickly trivialized in an unbecoming manner. Given that I should never be made to feel uncomfortable during an expensive dinner, especially one for charity, I must withhold a star. Having said that, this is an excellent charitable event, and Food and Friends should be commended for yet another year of providing a stellar, one-​of-​a-​kind event to the DC community.