Just Fabio-lous. (Italia!)

As our latest episode opens, we get a glimpse of the cheftestants’ Brooklyn digs: sleek wood tables, modern couches—what is this, The Real World? Actually, it’s more like the Fabio show: The cameras stay so focused on him, we almost forget there are other contestants.

Fabio, who incidentally is William Shatner’s private chef, and Stefan immediately start talking about one another when each is alone in front of the camera, but we love the Italian’s quote: “It’s not how many dragons you kill; it’s who takes home the princess—and I go for princess.”

Fabio’s in luck: The guest judge is flouncy-haired New York restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, an Italian who seems to have an affinity for her countrymen. But will Fabio’s background be a handicap in the quick-fire challenge? The cheftestants have 45 minutes to make a hot dog that’ll be judged against one from the beloved Domenick’s Hot Dogs in Queens. The pint-size Angelina D’Angelo wheels in her street cart, waves hello, and is silent for the rest of her ten minutes on the show. We want to know why Arpaia and her blond mane get to judge the wieners when D’Angelo is the real expert.

Frozen dinners have come a long way since Swanson’s—such a long way that they now include lobster mac ’n’ cheese from the famed French Laundry in Napa Valley and braised beef short ribs from Daniel in Manhattan.

Cuisine Solutions—the Alexandria frozen-food company that specializes in the sous vide technique of slow-cooking food in a vacuum-sealed pouch submerged in water—offers, under its FiveLeaf brand, a line of frozen gourmet dinners created in collaboration with top chefs like Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud. The meals are fully cooked and bagged in plastic; instead of putting them in the microwave, you drop them into hot water to heat.

Art Smith starts his mornings with crab cakes at Johnny's Half Shell.

Last month, Art Smith—best known for his decade-long stint as Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef—opened Art and Soul on Capitol Hill. Now the Chicago-based chef is spending 12 days a month in DC, hanging his hat at the Affinia Liaison hotel, where his restaurant is located.

The Southern-born Smith is no stranger to the District: Before connecting with Oprah, he cooked for former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham’s family and spent lots of time with them in Washington. “My family has a lot of DC connections, too—my dad was a congressional page, and my aunt was one of the Washington Redskins weather girls,” Smith laughs. “She told the weather in a bathing suit.”

With an incoming President who’s also from Chicago, there have been plenty of murmurs about Smith as a potential White House chef. He’s cooked for the Obamas before, at a dinner hosted by Winfrey. So has he been approached by the new administration? “They’re just rumors, but it’s nice to hear those rumors,” is all he’ll say.

On a day off back home in the Windy City, Smith took a few minutes to share some of his (and Oprah’s!) Kitchen Favorites.

CommonWealth does up a proper fish and chips. Photograph by Scott Suchman.

The latest addition to the development boom in DC’s Columbia Heights is CommonWealth, which bills itself as “the people’s gastropub.” But one look at the menu begs the question: Who are these people?

Chef Jamie Leeds envisioned the place as “blue-collar, pubby,” but would your average diner view house-made head cheese for $8 or a tomato salad with crispy pig’s ear for $11 as anything more than a pricey novelty? Cured meats such as bresaola and fuet (a Catalan pork sausage) would be more at home at a trendy wine bar.

CommonWealth succeeds best when it exerts itself least. “Pint of prawns”—brined, heads-on prawns in a pint glass—makes for a terrific starter, while fried, lemon-stuffed olives are perfect little poppers with a Guinness. Scotch eggs—battered and deep-fried—ring true, as do fish and chips, the haddock enclosed in a wonderfully puffy beer-battered carapace. Other evocations of English pub food, such as the Cornish-pasty turnover and the meat-heavy Butcher Breakfast—are tasty if overly upscaled.

The space echoes the mixed messages. Wooden accents and a British phone-box entryway are upstaged by the clean-lined, industrial setting, buttressed by a cinder-block wall that screams “cafeteria.” Still, it’s nice to see people hanging out and using the chessboard tables, bringing a needed neighborhood vibe to a pocket of the city in transition.

This week, restaurant-reservations Web site Opentable.com is spearheading a promotion to get all you cash-strapped diners back into the city’s banquettes: Now until Friday, over 150 restaurants (click here for the full list) are offering $24 three-course lunches and $35 dinners. So if you’ve been jonesing for a meal at Poste, PS7’s, Rasika, or Corduroy or are looking to try new spots such as Art and Soul or Passionfish, here’s your chance. If you can’t make it out this week, plenty of other restaurant deals are going strong.

$19.90 lunch at Vidalia
This airy new-Southern downtown dining room is known for generous Restaurant Week specials. Its latest offering is a three-course lunch that lets you choose any appetizer, main course, and dessert from its regular menu. The portions are “tasting-sized” (Read: shrunken), but it’s still a deal.
 

Brasserie Les Halles has served its last onglet. The Gallic-inspired chain is shutting down its DC branch after 15 years, effective immediately.

Philippe Lajaunie, the charming, permanently tanned owner, told me last night, "I tried using my option but the new rent conditions were just unbearable. It has been swell."

When our December issue hits the stands next week, you’ll be able to read about 61 of our favorite Dirt Cheap Eats in the Washington area—everything from fabulous streetcart pizza to a West Coast-worthy coffeehouse to crab cakes that are just as satisfying (and half as expensive) as the ones at Johnny’s Half Shell.

So we want to know: What’s your go-to spot for a meal for $15 or less? Give us your insider tips in the comments!

Related:
Chew on This: How Much Do You Tip?
Chew on This: Where Should Barack Obama Eat?
Dirt Cheap Eats 2007