Twice a year, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) <<EDIT: and the folks over at Destination DC – sorry for the omission!>> give DC diners a good incentive to head out and try one of those places they’ve been meaning to check out: Restaurant Week.  Whether you love these discount dining days or hate them, it’s a safe bet you’re just as quick to check out who’s participating as soon as you hear the next round is public.

Well it’s time.  Just a few minutes ago, RAMW posted the announcement of the dates and participants for DC Winter Restaurant Week 2011 to the official Restaurant Week site.  This year the foodfest will run from Monday, January 17th through Sunday, January 23rd and more than 210 restaurants have already signed on.  OpenTable may have spilled the beans on the dates a bit early, having updated the header on the Restaurant Week page last week before it was officially supposed to talk about 2011, but otherwise RAMW has done an admirable job of keeping the details of Restaurant Week under wraps.

As we’ve done in the past, we wanted to help you visualize just what 210+ restaurants look like – not to mention map out your plan of attack.  Click on the image below to go to our semi-annual, color-coded Google map to figure out where you’ll be lunching and dining from the 17th through the 23rd.  And be on the lookout for some of our fellow bloggers’ usual contributions, like DC Foodies’ and Dining in DC’s menu roundups and lists of restaurants that will be extending their deals even further into the new year.

If you’ve got additional questions – like “Why isn’t that restaurant I’ve been dying to try on the list?” – visit the official site and ask the folks at RAMW.  They anticipate additional participants between now and Restaurant Week, so be on the lookout for updates.

Click on the image to go to our Google map that locates every restaurant participating in DC's Winter Restaurant Week 2011.