The City's Most Expensive Dinner

And you thought Nobu was pricey. Bringing with him the gridlock that is part and parcel of any presidential visit to our island, Barack Obama arrived in town last night for a whistle-stop tour that included a fund-raiser dinner at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for 200 deep-pocketed donors, each of whom paid $30,400--the legal maximum--for the privilege. (To be fair, that did include a plus-one.) The commander-in-chief also spoke at an event at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Compared to the fête at the Mandarin, entry to that fund-raiser was a steal, at $1,000 per head or less. Nearly 2,500 supporters were estimated to have turned out for the cheaper of the two presidential-viewing opportunities, both of which supported the Democratic National Committee.

Not feeling the love, however, was New York's Democratic mayoral hopeful, Bill Thompson, who got a gentle nod from the president with the comment that he is "our candidate," but nothing resembling the endorsement he so sorely needs in his race against Michael Bloomberg.

The Rising

When Bruce Springsteen urged listeners to "Come on up for the rising..." he most certainly wasn't thinking of food, but that's exactly what was on the minds of the attendees at last night's Rising Stars Revue, sponsored by StarChefs. The walk-around tasting, held in the grand ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, in the Time Warner Center, was the closing event for the annual Chef's Congress, capping three days of eye-opening seminars for serious foodies, on everything from maple syrup to mixing cocktails. Fifteen heretofore uncelebrated chefs, mixologists and restaurateurs (relatively uncelebrated anyway) were honored during the evening's festivities, and to mark the occasion, each chose a signature dish to serve to the ready and eager crowd.

For more photos, click here.

The winners (all of whom are based in New York and all of whom are chefs, unless otherwise noted) were as follows:

Jamison Blankenship of Morimoto
Patrick Connolly of Bobo
George Mendes of Aldea
Jason Neroni of 10 Downing
Damian Sansonetti (pictured above, middle) of Bar Boulud
Isao Yamada of Upstairs at Bouley
Harold Dieterle of Perilla
Amanda Cohen of Dirt Candy
Colin Devlin of Dumont, Dumont Burger and Dressler (restaurateur)
Angelo Sosa of Xie Xie
Brooks Headley of Del Posto (pastry chef)
Robert Truit of Corton (pastry chef)
Maxwell Britton of Freemans (mixologist)
Orson Salicetti of Apothéke (mixologist)
Claire Paparazzo of Blue Hill (sommelier)
Brandon Kida of Asiate (host chef)