Nickel & Dine

T.G.I. Friday's (multiple locations) offers a coupon for buy-one-entrée get-one-free here that will be good through June 22 at participating restaurants. You need the coupon, and it works for one offer per party, per visit. Entrees run about $6 to $22.

New additions

• Zink American Kitchen (201 N. Tryon St.) begins family-style barbecue Sundays this week, serving brisket, pulled pork, chicken, corn on the cob, molasses baked beans and more for $18.95 for all you can eat. (Kids 10 and younger eat free from a kids’ menu.) 704-444-9001. Also coming up at Zink: A Brooklyn Brewery beer dinner June 10.
  

• The Common Market Plaza Midwood deli (2007 Commonwealth Ave.) is now open Wednesday-Saturday evenings for dinner. (Also new: The Common Market is now making its own bacon from Grateful Growers’ pork bellies.) 704-334-6209.
  

• Zen Asian Fusion (1716 Kenilworth Ave.) has added a sushi menu (it’s here.) 704-358-9688.

A world without fish?

I do not expect to be dead by 2048, so the documentary "The End of the Line" -- in which it's predicted our world will have nearly completely run out of fish -- scares me. It premiered at Sundance in January and will be shown in cinemas on World Ocean Day. (That's June 8, in case it's not on your calendar.) The trailer follows. Warning: It's powerful and difficult in spots. Get more info -- and an origami skate pattern! -- here.

Free Krispy Kremes! and more

Doughnuts ...

Participating Krispy Kremes celebrate National Doughnut Day on June 5, giving away a free doughnut to each customer. For locations, check www.krispykreme.com/storelocator.html.

Softshell crabs ...

Special at TOMI (7741 Colony Road): East Coast softshell crabs, pan-seared and dusted with salt and sansho (a pepper powder), and served with steamed vegetable. You get two crabs for $18. 704-759-1288.

... And whatever they're having...

Simply telling diners a dish is popular increases the chances they'll order it, according to a new study by Duke economist Hanming Fang and others, conducted in Beijing. Fang attributes it to "the Google effect" -- "People want to sort through large amounts of information by learning from others who faced similar choices."

The "Observational Learning" study is slated to be published in the June 2009 American Economic Review. For one week in 2006 at Mei Zhou Dong Po restaurants in Beijing, researchers gathered data on customer choices with no intervention. For the second week, they put placards on some tables. Half named the top five most-popular dishes from the previous week; the other half listed "sample dishes" not identified as popular. The demand for the dishes listed as top-five increased by 13 to 20 percent. Demand for dishes listed as samples wasn't significantly higher. (That lessens the possibility diners were responding to mere suggestion.)

Why is service so bad? they whined...

Seventy percent of diner complaints in the national Zagat surveys have to do with service, say Tim and Nina Zagat in The Atlantic's food pages here.

(And you thought it was just Charlotte!)

The Zagats posit that a front-of-the-house division in culinary schools would fix the problem. Commenters beg to differ. I agree that most servers aren't in it as a career (therefore won't likely pursue excellence over time), and with the idea that dining in this country has become an "entitled" experience -- diners feel they deserve the best, without participating in the process.

Also pretty good: the part about how most diners know when something's late or cold, but don't know whether it's well-executed.

Top Chef approaches!

The sixth season of "Top Chef" wrapped shooting in Las Vegas, says Eater, which offers photos, too, here. No definitive word (that I can find) on when the series premieres, but October looks likely.

Those who can't stand to wait can tune in June 10 to the spinoff "Top Chef Masters," which I predict will be more fun to watch for food-o-philes and less fun for thrivers on drama. (Gordon Ramsay isn't in it, for example, although -- yay! -- Wylie Dufresne and Hubert Keller are. That's Dufresne at right.) Take a look at the bios here.

The host is requisite model-turned-foodie (Kelly Choi, who, lest you give her short shrift, has a master's degree from Columbia). Judges include the requisite Gael (Greene, this time) and the requisite acid-tongued Brit. This series' is Jay Rayner. Recent review quote, musing on why chef Marco Pierre White puts his own photo on his menu: "I like to think he is offering it as a service to the diners in this restaurant. Because once you have finished your meal you can take home a copy of the menu and then throw darts at the face of the man responsible. It will give you far more satisfaction than any other part of the experience offered here."

Carolinas flavor, with hot chef Eric Ripert...

... in the nation's capital? Yes, Charleston-restaurant (and College of Charleston) alum Joe Palma is chef de cuisine at Westend Bistro, the D.C. outpost of superstar Eric Ripert (he of New York City's Le Bernardin and "Top Chef" fame).

The restaurant made the Washington Post's top 100 of the year list, and dinner there Thursday produced some stellar food: delicate salmon with lentils, black truffle butter and tiny pickled mushrooms; loup de mer ("wolf of the sea," also called branzino or Mediterranean or European sea bass -- not Chilean, which is something else altogether) with a picholine-artichoke relish that was downright buttery; and amazing biscuit-style strawberry shortcake.

And really good bread, too, plus a house ale and a Californian IPA (India Pale Ale) called Lagunitas that's just shown up in Charlotte. Colleague Peter St. Onge clued us in to this one, offered at Flying Saucer (9605 N. Tryon St.) on draft, he says, and it's a spritely winner indeed.

Westend Bistro: 1190 22nd St. NW; 202-974-4900; www.westendbistrodc.com.