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Last week I attended a FoodBuzz publishers dinner at Michel Richard’s James Beard winning Central in Washington, DC. Together with eight other DC bloggers, we enjoyed good wine, food, and conversation about food, of course.

We started with the much lauded gougeres. While they were enjoyable, I was wishing for a slightly more pronounced explosion of cheese upon biting in. This may just reflect my personal cheese addiction, though.

As an entree, I had the braised beef cheeks with tagliatelle and carrot puree. The carrot was topped with crispy carrot ribbons, a nifty contrast in texture. The beef cheeks were rich, falling apart tender and flavorful. I sampled another person’s brussels sprouts, which were sweet and creamy and appropriately loaded with bacon, of course.

For dessert, I took the advice of our waiter and ordered Michel Richard’s chocolate bar, a rich chocolate bar paired with decadent hazelnut ice cream and caramel sauce. Truly not to be missed. Overall, I thought the food was outstanding. Sort of like the comfort food your mom would have made, if your mom were a classically trained French chef.

Thank you, FoodBuzz! And thank you to Olga (Mango and Tomato) and Rivka (Not Derby Pie) for organizing the dinner. Photos thanks to Anna of Meals from the Girl in the Little Black Dress. And also attending were Lauren from Capital Cooking Show, Quinn from Daily Moderation, Maddy from Cook Like Mad, Matt from Foodphoria, and Taresa from Cook and Book. Check out their blogs for more pictures and reviews.

Around Town: Looking for a good meal next week? Open Table’s Appetite Stimulus Plan offers $24 lunches and $35 dinners at participating restaurants Nov. 17-21. Capital Spice created a terrific Google map of participating DC restaurants, to help you map out which ones you can comfortably hit up on your lunch hour. (This deal is being offered in all of Open Table’s cities, including NY, Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco.)