Want to try Redwood? The newly opened spot is one of 33 eateries taking part in Bethesda's Restaurant Week. Photograph by Jasmine Touton.

The OpenTable reservation scramble is already in full gear for the District’s upcoming Restaurant Week (August 11 through 17). In the meantime, take advantage of Bethesda’s version of the dining deal—it started Monday and lasts through August 3.

At Bethesda and Chevy Chase restaurants, RW dinners are still $30—we’ve heard some grumbling about the promotion’s $5 price hike in DC—and it’s usually not as tough to score a prime-time reservation. RW lunch in Bethesda is an even better deal, with most restaurants offering two or more courses for $12 to $15. Some top choices may be booked, but last-minute cancellations abound during any Restaurant Week.

Our picks? We’d happily grab a table (and a discounted meal) at Chevy Chase’s new branch of Sushi-Ko; the recently renovated wine bar Grapeseed; or Passage to India, one of the area’s best Indian dining rooms. Other enticing options include David Craig Bethesda, Raku, Rock Creek (dinner only), Jaleo, and Faryab (dinner only). Or try out one of the newest additions to Bethesda’s dining scene: Assaggi (lunch only), Visions, and Redwood (dinner only) are all participating.

A week after the red carpet opening of Top Chef contestant Spike Mendelsohn's Good Stuff Eatery (303 Pennsylvania Ave., SE; 202-543-8222) we ventured back to Capitol Hill to find out what diners thought of the burgers, fries, and signature toasted marshmallow milkshake.

Deli City piles its corned-beef sandwiches with tender, slow-cooked brisket. Photograph by Matthew Worden

Maybe it’s a law of nature that being near anything named New York makes a deli sandwich better. Deli City Restaurant (2200 Bladensburg Rd., NE; 202-526-1800), off New York Avenue, stacks a corned-beef sandwich so rich you might think you’re on Manhattan’s Lower East Side (the illusion gets an assist from the restaurant’s diner atmosphere and view of the Budweiser distribution center). Owner Jay Eckstein slow-cooks the brisket, yielding tender morsels that soak the caraway-studded rye bread with flavor. Crumbling and almost sweet with a hint of spice, it doesn’t even need mustard. The pastrami? Imagine a beefy bacon, only softer.

Deli City may serve up Washington’s most delicious cured meat, but a sampling of area name-brand delis turned up other corned-beef and pastrami sandwiches with satisfying flavors. Around here, we tend to like our corned beef and pastrami lean. Our sandwiches are well stacked but not tottering. And don’t expect a crust of pepper; many Washingtonians seem to prefer a milder pastrami.

Hildegard Fehr, owner of Cafe Mozart, serves a brat that gets a standing ovation.

Washingtonian > Packages > Best of Washington

Memo to chefs: Bratwurst needs a bun.

At the Blue Duck Tavern in downtown DC’s Park Hyatt Washington, the pork-and-chicken-stuffed pig casing is drizzled with pork jus and served in a silver casserole. On the edge of DC’s Penn Quarter, PS 7’s chef Peter Smith wraps his brat in a Parker House roll after poaching it in court bouillon.

Court bouillon? Silver casseroles? This summer, take back the brat.

Start with places that honor the link’s homeland. Bratwurst is a German sausage usually made of pork, and it’s hard to beat the one at downtown DC’s Café Mozart (1331 H St., NW; 202-347-5732). Firm and coarsely textured with just the right amount of pepper, it puts a little zing on the tongue. At Arlington’s German Gourmet (7185 Lee Hwy.; 703-534-1908), the brats are milder but come with a staff-supplied sausage tutorial that’s worth listening to.

If you’re grilling at home and want to requisition supplies from America’s brat belt, try the nutmeg-scented sausage from Milwaukee-based Usinger (usinger.com). It’s studded with fat and flavor. The six-pound minimum is roughly $23 plus shipping.

Top Chef fans: Remember the tapioca “caviar” that hyperactive contestant Andrew D’Ambrosi made repeatedly last season? During the zoo challenge, he served balsamic tapioca on top of squid ceviche. Then, he whipped up a soy version for the collaborative smoked-salmon dish he made with Richard and Dale. Tom, Padma and crew loved the faux fish eggs . . . and so do we. After a recent meal at 701 in Penn Quarter, we raved to chef Bobby Varua about his crispy tempura-tuna roll, a beautiful dish strewn with tapioca pearls that bursted with soy sauce flavor. Had we seen those somewhere before? Turns out, D’Ambrosi learned the technique from Varua. “He was my sous-chef at China Grill in New York,” Varua told us with a laugh. “I didn’t give him too hard of a time about it.”

701 Restaurant, 701 Pennsylvania Ave., NW; 202-393-0701; 701restaurant.com

“Crab cake” and “frozen” are like Democrats and Republicans—they don’t go together. And lump crab mixed with artichokes and three cheeses? Sacrilege.

Yet the Frederick-based Crab Ladies contradict the conventional wisdom. Anointed by food critic David Rosengarten in his influential Rosengarten Report, the frozen, baseball-size mounds of jumbo lump crab meat turn golden, crisp, and irresistible after 45 minutes in the oven. They would shame the crab cakes at many highbrow restaurants.

We’ll kick off this heavy food-news week with some chef-hopping reports. First, Stefano Frigerio resigned from his executive chef post at Mio. His short, seven-month tenure earned the restaurant lots of favorable reviews, but the chef and owner Manuel Iguina apparently had some unresolvable issues—although Iguina told the Post’s Tom Sietsema that he’s “doing everything possible to keep him.” Frigerio is currently looking for a new chef post and hopes to stay in DC.

In Virginia, there’s a new chef at the Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s Tallula and its gastropub sibling, EatBar. Andrew Markert was most recently chef de cuisine under Anthony Chittum at Vermilion, another NRG spot. The 26-year-old chef has also done stints at Notti Bianche and Citronelle. Markert is taking over for Nathan Anda, but fans of Anda’s awesome house-cured bacon need not worry—he’s not going far. The meat-obsessed chef is helping NRG’s owners launch a butcher shop/restaurant, where he’ll be executive chef. He’s currently working on the concept and finding a space for the new venture.