Potential Venues for MDC's 2nd Year

Here's where the list of candidate restaurants stands for the second year of the MDC:

• Les Halles
• Central Michel Richard
• The Source
• Oyamel
• Proof
• Poste
• Sushi Ko
• Rosa Mexicano
• Cafe Divan
• Acadiana
• DC Coast
• Brasserie Beck
• Raaz
• Il Pizzico
• Passage to India
• Tavira
• Olazzo
• La Miche
• La Ferme
• One of the Latin Concepts restaurants
• Addie's
• Black Market Bistro
• Mannequin Pis
• Tandoori Nights
• Delhi Club
• Rabieng
• Shamshiry
• Layalina
• Yamazato
• Willow
• Artie's
• Coastal Flats
• Le Mistral
• Vermillion
• Bistrot Lafayette
• Farrah Olivia

There are enough places here for three year's worth of restaurants! Plus this upcoming year, there are plans to coordinate several extracurricular dining events. These may include a trip to the Arlington Cinema n' Draft House, a professional wine tasting at the vintner's at Ironbridge, a bus/limo tour of Virginia's wine country, a beer tasting dinner event at Silver Spring's historic Quarry House Tavern, and more.

Just to elaborate some more on some of the restaurants in the list so far:

The Source is Wolfgang Puck's new restaurant that recently opened and has not been advertised except through word-of-mouth (which is less impressive than it sounds since word-of-mouth nowadays includes people writing their own reviews on the internet). Pretentious as the ploy may seem, everyone who has been has come back raving with positive reviews.

Sushi Ko is more than just a simple sushi place. It's a sushi plae that pairs sushi with burgundy wines ... a new twist on an old favorite.

Raaz was not only recommended by an Indian, but he specifically mentioned it because it has Indo-Chinese food, which is rare to find and apparently very good. This is out in Gaithersburg and may warrant some scouting before we commit it to the MDC official list.

Passage to India is supposed to be fantastic but pricey ... this may be a Bethesda Restaurant Week choice similar to when we went to Rasika in Chinatown.

Tavira made the list again because this year's visit consisted of four people, three of whom had already been there. Those who missed it will have the opportunity to try again.

As for Rosa Mexicano and Cafe Divan, they were recommended by a Mexican and a Turk, respectively, as being more than just good, but also the real deal. Most places claiming to serve Mexican or Turkish food actually serve bastardized dishes of Tex-Mex or Greco-Mediterranean cuisine.

This is the list so far. This list will be updated as suggestions come in and hopefully there will be a great finalized agenda soon after this year's finale at Fogo de Chão ... the goal is to have a seamless transition from this year to the next.

Introduction to the MDC

Hello and welcome to the Metropolitan Dining Club website. This first post should help to familiarize you with the purpose of the club and bring you up to speed on events to date. The Metropolitan Dining Club, otherwise known as the MDC, was created in April 2007 by Tom Saffell. By posting an ad on Craigslist to feel out interested parties, Tom recruited seven people to go dining out in addition to his three roommates at the time. On May 6th, the first MDC meeting took place at David Craig Bethesda, a restaurant in the heart of Bethesda, MD. Only one of the Craigslist respondees showed up, but the club flourished anyway. The folks who did end up going to David Craig enjoyed delicacies like squid-ink-dyed pasta, fried green tomato salad, and myriad other tasty dishes.

After that, the rest is history. More people ended up coming to subsequent events and the core membership of the club is close to 30 or so participants. Meetings were planned to occur monthly and a set method for dinner meetings was established and now all events follow this methodology. It's really quite simple ... here are the steps:

1. The facilitator sends an e-mail to potential participants informing them of the arbitrarily selected date and location
   
2. The participants RSVP with their availability for the chosen date
3. Using the information gathered from the RSVPs, the facilitator makes reservations in his/her name
4. The facilitator then sends a e-mail with the time, date, location, and reservation information to all those who originally RSVPed
5. The diners arrive at the specified restaurant, enjoy their meal and their company, and disperse afterwards
   

Traditionally, for the core club constituency as it currently stands, dinner meetings have been held on Sundays and have alternated by location rather regularly on a monthly basis, that is, the original May meeting was in Maryland, the meeting in June following that one was in Virginia, and then July 2007's meeting was in DC proper.

With only two meetings left in the first year of the MDC's inaugural run, the group is seeking to expand its scope and close the first year out right with a close-out meeting at Fogo de Chão, a Brazilian brasserie in the District. With regards to the expansion of the MDC's scope, this blog was created to provide a forum for public expression of impressions of various dining experiences as well as to provide a central locus for news on upcoming events. The monthly dinner meeting, while truly the core of the club's events' schedule, is not the final boundary of the club's vision. Since the humble beginning, various members have used dining club contacts to coordinate dim sum brunches, wine tastings, and other social events.

Once the final dinner meeting and the Fogo de Chão finale are completed, the MDC will be put on a summer-long hiatus to plan the next year and determine the direction of expansion. As 30 people is a large party to bring to a single restaurant, the expansion of the club will likely take the form of ancillary, or splinter, groups of diners interested in pursuing the mission of the MDC. If you are interested in becoming a facilitator of MDC meetings for new members or have a few friends looking to meet some new people and try some interesting DC cuisine, feel free to contact Tom at metropolitan.dining.club@gmail.com with any questions you may have and/or to discuss planning coordinated dining events. The goal for this first year of expansion is simple: to find one interested facilitator to aid in the creation of the first branch off of the main MDC membership.

It should be noted that the MDC is free and open to all who wish to join. That is, there are no member dues, but each member does pay for his/her own meal, obviously.

That's about all the exposition there is. The MDC is relatively new on the DC scene, but has high hopes and is optimistic with regards to its future endeavors. Membership has been steadily growing since inception, new events have been proposed, and all indicators point to a bright future for the club. Check this site often for news on the MDC's overall progress, MDC news, events, and various other informational tidbits.