Restaurant Week!!

Washington, DC Winter Restaurant Week
is February 16-22, 2009.
Join us this February when nearly 180 of metropolitan Washington, DC's finest restaurants offer awe-inspiring, multi-course meals prepared especially for this gourmet event.

Destination DC and the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington are proud to present the 14th Washington, DC Restaurant Week from February 16-22.

Lunch: $20.09 for a three-course fixed-price meal
Dinner: $35.09 for a three-course fixed-price meal
Beverages, gratuity and tax are not included.



*Most, but not all, restaurants participating in Restaurant Week offer online reservations through OpenTable.com. Your reservations are FREE and confirmed instantly 24 hours a day. No phone calls. No hassles.

Click here to make your Restaurant Week reservations.

http://www.washington.org/restaurantwk/


Featured Events

Reading and Discussion - OutWrite Presents: Sea, Swallow Me
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7:00 PM
Location: The DC Center
Outwrite is proud to present a book reading and discussion featuring Craig Gydney, and his book Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories, recently nominaed for a Lambda Literary Award.

Lecture - 200 Years After Darwin and Lincoln: Freedom, Choice, and Human Survival in the Contemporary American Democratic Society
Friday, February 20, 2009
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: National Academy of Sciences
People make complex behavioral choices about health care that are informed by their social, political, and cultural reality. Dr. Reed Tuckson’s lecture will explore the intersection between social issues and individual accountability in healthcare.

Music and Dance: International Mother Language Day
Saturday, February 21, 2009
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Location: Embassy of Bangladesh
The Embassy of Bangladesh invites you to an evening of global music and colorful dance performances to commemorate UN International Mother Language Day. This event is aimed at celebrating the world's 7,000 languages and the cultures they embody.

Walking Tour: Uptown on U Street
Sunday, February 22, 2009
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Location: U Street Corridor
Stroll down the "Black Broadway" that flourished in the 1920s through the early 1960s. See stately buildings designed and built by black architects and developers. Visit the African American Civil War Memorial, Ben's Chili Bowl, and more!





Today's Events

Exhibition - Medellín: Arts and Development
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - Friday, April 24, 2009
Location: IDB Cultural Center
This exhibition explores the development and projection of the city of Medellín, Colombia, site of the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank, as interpreted by the work of 19th- and 20th-century artists and photographers.
Exhibition: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - Saturday, May 30, 2009
Location: Folger Shakespeare Library
Sleeping and dreaming were topics of abiding fascination to the early modern English. Dreams were held to predict the future, or show what was occurring far away. Perhaps more surprisingly, sleep was also believed to reveal hidden truths.

Films at the Avalon: I've Loved You So Long
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Location: Avalon Theatre
I've Loved You So Long tells the profoundly moving story of two sisters rediscovering their feelings of family after years of separation. "A scintillating drama about pain and healing made with intelligence and compassion." - Maggie Lee, The Hollywood Reporter

Films at the Avalon: Slumdog Millionaire
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 12:00 noon
Location: Avalon Theatre
Jamal Malik is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much?

Gallery Talk - Painting Provence: The Riviera of van Gogh and Bonnard
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Location: The Phillips Collection
Travel to southern France through paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Pierre Bonnard, examining how the golden light of the Mediterranean climate invigorated their artwork.

Music - National Symphony Orchestra: Charles Dutoit, Conductor / Yuja Wang, Piano, Plays Prokofiev
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - Saturday, February 21, 2009
Location: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Charles Dutoit - praised for his "keenly propulsive conducting" by the New York Times - leads the Orchestra in Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 featuring the NSO debut of Yuja Wang. The program also includes Stravinsky's The Firebird.

Lunchtime Gallery Talk: Design Transfers
Thursday, February 19, 2009
12:00 noon - 12:30 PM
Location: The Textile Museum
Sumru Belger Krody, Associate Curator for Eastern Hemisphere Collections, delves into how individual weavers conjured, copied, and commercialized designs from the palace to the village market.

Lunchtime Tour of the Conservatory
Thursday, February 19, 2009
12:00 noon - 1:00 PM
Location: U.S. Botanic Gardens
Take a lunchtime tour with a knowledgeable guide who will connect the exotic plant world to your everyday life. You might see bananas and coffee ripening on the tree or learn about the next big breakthrough in medicinal plant research.

Gallery Talk: Balm by Bridget Riley
Thursday, February 19, 2009
1:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Location: National Gallery of Art
Join Sally Shelburne for a gallery talk on the topic of Balm by Bridget Riley.

Music - Take Five!: Night and Day Quintet
Thursday, February 19, 2009
5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum
Kick back and Take Five with live jazz, cool drinks, and stunning art! This month, the Night and Day Quintet - led by the soulful sounds of vocalist Rene Tannenbaum and the jazz stylings of pianist Michael Suser - offers a delightful mix of swing, soul, and blues.

Concert - Friday Morning Music Club: Student Recital
Thursday, February 19, 2009
6:00 PM
Location: Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts
Friday Morning Music Club presents a student recital at the Sitar Center.

Face to Face Portrait Talk - Black History Month: Jim Barber on Thelonious Monk by Boris Chaliapin
Thursday, February 19, 2009
6:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Location: National Portrait Gallery
Join Historian Jim Barber as he speaks on Thelonious Monk by Boris Chaliapin in celebration of Black History Month.

Performance: The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance
Thursday, February 19, 2009
6:00 PM
Location: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Students perform classical works.

Film - Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh
Thursday, February 19, 2009
6:30 PM
Location: The Phillips Collection
In this deeply felt and critically acclaimed film, actor John Hurt reads the painter's letters to his brother, leading viewers on a visual journey through the passion and tragedy of van Gogh's life and art.

Lecture: La cucina futurista
Thursday, February 19, 2009
6:30 PM
Location: Italian Cultural Institute
The Istituto invites you to the presentation by Professor Pietro Frassica of the anastatic reprint of Marinetti and Fillìa's Cucina futurista.

Gallery Tour: Surface Beauty
Thursday, February 19, 2009
6:45 PM
Location: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Through close examination of paintings and ceramics, discover Freer's interest in creating a total aesthetic environment and how this influenced his acquisition of art and the development of the museum he bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution.

Black History Month Lecture: Black Presidents Before Obama
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7:00 PM
Location: The Historical Society of Washington, DC
Join author, lecturer, and historian of the African diaspora C.R. Gibbs for a revealing look at some other surprising historic individuals of African descent who served as presidents of their nations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Film - 81st Academy Award Nominees: The Betrayal / Nerakhoon
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7:00 PM
Location: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
The Center for the National Archives Experience will host the fifth annual free screenings of the Academy Award® nominees in four categories. Today see The Betrayal, Documentary Feature nominee, hosted by Jennice Fuentes.

Film: Abraham Lincoln / The Son of Democracy: The Call to Arms
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: The Library of Congress
Abraham Lincoln, D. W. Griffith’s first sound film, is the only feature-length sound motion picture to date that chronicles Lincoln’s life from birth until death. In The Call to Arms, Lincoln is forced to assemble a voluntary military force to defend the Union.

Lecture: R. Larry Todd
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: The Library of Congress
R. Larry Todd, author of Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, presents a talk titled Reflections on the Mendelssohn Bicentenary.

Reading and Discussion - OutWrite Presents: Sea, Swallow Me
Thursday, February 19, 2009
7:00 PM
Location: The DC Center
Outwrite is proud to present a book reading and discussion featuring Craig Gydney, and his book Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories, recently nominaed for a Lambda Literary Award.