Thursday's the night for Dining Out for Life

A salmon bagel sandwich, a bowl of fresh fruit and caf? con leche for breakfast at Dos Gringos in the nation's capital, a strawberry smoothie, cheese and tomato spinach pie and a cucumber salad for lunch at Miami's The Last Carrot, or a cheese plate, chicken breast in a walnut pomegranate sauce at Chicago's for dessert-- whatever your tastes, this Thursday offers a bevy of choices coast to coast to dabble and dine like a connoisseur of fine cuisine, feeding your dietary curiosity while benefitting worthy AIDS service organizations.

Dining Out For Life, a nationwide fund-raiser which this year will directly benefit local AIDS service organizations in more than 50 locations across the United States and Canada, was started 19 years ago in Philadelphia. In the program, participating restaurants enrolled with a local AIDS service organization donate anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of their food bill back to the service organization. Virtually all of the cities in the program hold their events on the same night: this Thursday, April 30.

This year the program added Queer Eye for the Straight Guy food guru Ted Allen as its public spokesman. "Dining Out For Life is a great way to make a meaningful contribution to the fight against AIDS while also supporting the hardworking restaurant community, right in your own backyard," Allen says on videos shown on the pages of the participating cities. DOFL reports that last year it raised $3.9 million for AIDS/HIV service agencies. This year 250,000 diners are expected to eat at 3,500 participating restaurants.

Atlanta's Open Hand reports it has raised close to $2 million since 1993 through DOFL, helping it prep and deliver one million meals a year. Chicago, participating for the 16th time this year, pulled in $80,000 last year for AIDSCare. In the Miami and Ft. Lauderdale area, 25 percent of the food bill at participating restaurants will go to the community-based Care Resource, South Florida's largest and oldest HIV service organization.

That same percent of the check in participating restaurants in the Los Angeles area will help Project Angel Food, which just joined DOFL, deliver daily meals to more than 2,000 individuals housebound with serious illnesses. Food bills from participating restaurants in the Las Vegas area benefit St. Therese Center HIV Outreach. San Diego's The Center HIV/AIDS services gets 25 percent of the sales from more than 80 participating restaurants.

San Francisco's Stop AIDS Project said it raised $220,000 through DOFL in 2008; across the bay, Oakland's Vital Life Services, which will benefit from proceeds from East Bay area restaurants, raised $110,000 from the meals consumed by 8,000 diners. Twenty-four restaurants are participating in DOFL in the San Jose area to benefit the Health Trust.

In the Philadelphia area, a bevy of non-profit organizations will benefit from the event with more than 200 restaurants donating one third of their take: ActionAIDS, AIDS Coalition of Southern New Jersey, AIDS Activity Office at Lehigh Valley Hospital, AIDS Delaware, Family and Community Service of Delaware County, and the Planned Parenthood Associations of Bucks and Chester counties.

DOFL spokesperson Nancy Becker said efforts by an AIDS organization in New York City to recruit enough participating restaurants for 2009 were unsuccessful. DOFL nights are expected to be held in both Dallas and New York City in 2010, Becker said.

Participating restaurants for the various cities can be found at www.diningoutforlife.com. Most participating restaurants offer dinner; some restaurants include breakfast or lunch in the program. Advance reservations are strongly encouraged for most of the finer dining establishments.