Lots of dinners, trips and fun food events afoot. Here’s a sampling:
If you haven’t already heard, this Saturday, September 22nd, Redwood Restaurant will be holding its second annual Oktoberfest on Bethesda Lane from 1 to 8 p.m. The Germany-comes-to-Bethesda event will feature food and drink from local restaurants and fifteen different breweries. Lots of live music, too.
Day-of-admission is $25, which includes ten tickets worth $20 for food and beer, a commemorative mug, and a donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. For more information, visit Redwood’s Oktoberfest website at www.redwoodoktoberfest.com.
There’s more beer to be had on Tuesday, September 25, at Praline Bakery & Bistro’s Flying Dog beer dinner. The five-course meal will pair dishes with beers from the Frederick brewery (e.g. grilled shrimp with white corn, fennel, tomato, black olives and arugula dressing with Wildeman Farmhouse IPA). The dinner, which starts at 6:30 p.m., will be preceded by a 6 p.m. reception. Cost is $65. For reservations, call 301-229-8180, or go to www.praline-bakery.com and click on the link to the dinner or email pralinecatering@gmail.com. 4611 Sangamore Road, Bethesda.
Culinary trips to France and Italy are a dime a dozen, but how about India? K.N. Vinod, chef and owner of Chevy Chase’s Indique Heights, Rockville’s Bombay Bistro and Cleveland Park’s Indique, will be leading a culinary tour this winter to Southern India. The 13-day expedition, which begins on January 31, will include market visits, cooking classes and a backwater lunch cruise, as well as special dinners and a beach barbecue. Vinod said he will be donating his royalties as trip leader to the D.C. Central Kitchen, the downtown organization that provides meals, culinary job training and other assistance to low-income, at-risk and homeless individuals. For more information, click here.
Aside from the much-awaited Range, Bryan Voltaggio’s new restaurant that’s slated to open in mid-November in The Chevy Chase Pavillion, two other noteworthy local restaurants are set to debut the same month. Polly Wiedmaier, wife of chef Robert Wiedmaier, estimates that their new Wildwood Kitchen in Bethesda’s Wildwood Shopping Center will be opening sometime in November. Same goes for the re-opening of Bethesda’s Persimmon restaurant, which is undergoing renovation into a more casual, neighborhood bistro with lower prices, and probably a new name. The place will have a similar feel to Damian and Stephanie Salvatore’s sister restaurant, Wild Tomato, in Cabin John.