We’ve been looking forward to Robert Wiedmaier’s latest effort – Mussel Bar By RW – but there’s much more, including Spike Mendelsohn’s pizza joint.  Zagat covers the high points here.

Bon Appetit posted a pretty good article about citizen criticism which focuses solely on what the paid critics think about the medium.  Overall, I’d say more critics are displeased or off-putting than embracing, and many fail to cite any solid reasons for their distaste.

Our opinion (since we heard you ask): it’s just one more avenue from which to make dining decisions.  We’re guessing if 20 out of 21 solid reviews all have nothing positive to say about a restaurant’s food it might be worth listening.  On the other hand, if the citizen critic seems to be preoccupied with the beautiful crowd or the time waiting to use the WC we’re not so sure this someone we’d listen to.

Heck, half the battle is making sure you’re getting food that didn’t fall of a SysCo truck the previous week.

Well, this and that $100 million contract to watch “this”, whatever the hell this is.

More from WaPo’s DC Sports Bog.

Have you ever sat around and wondered where you could fly on the money you have?  Better yet, do you want to narrow down the time but perhaps not down to the week, because you’re willing to be flexible in the interest of keeping your options open.

Enter Kayak Explore.  Just pop in your starting point, select the period of time you want to travel (you can even select “any time”) and there’s the entire world on a Google Map with nice little price tags on each location.

The best part for us is seeing just how expensive (or cheap) in relative terms we can fly all kinds of places, since we’re up for just about anything.

Our online friend and TV news pro Brian Bolter pointed us here for a recent wine request: Ashburn Wine Shop.  Not an endorsement on his part, just a solid place for Loudouners to get great wine.

BLT has announced their naming contest winners and their new burger joint’s name.  Not surprisingly, the winning name (GO Burger) was sumbitted by a number of people, so I guess they all get 50 cents apiece for their efforts.

More importantly we get another burger joint, opening soon in Georgetown.

Crêpes seem to be the latest big thing to join cupcakes and burgers.  Crêpe Amour, an early entrant to the incoming tsunami, opened last week.

Let us know your take.