• It’s the week of the second outpost:
The Washington Business Journal tells us that Mandalay, a family-owned Burmese restaurant in Silver Spring, is planning to take the ground floor of a new building at 1501 Ninth Street, Northwest. Owner Aung Myint is hoping to add 30 new dishes as well as a cocktail menu.
Wednesday, Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza started turning out its thin-crust pies—some of our favorite in the area—at a second location in Friendship Heights (4940 Wisconsin Ave., NW; 202-237-7383). Its 3,400 square feet can fit 84 customers, and a large patio holds 45 seats. There’s a separate area for takeout and delivery—a service the restaurant introduced at its original Columbia Heights location.
Whisk Group, the team behind the British gastropub Againn near DC’s Metro Center, has an opening date for its location in Rockville: Tuesday, June 29. The space, which measures 8,100 square feet, features a menu similar to that of the original restaurant.
• Top Chef DC premiered Wednesday, and while we saw a packed house at Good Stuff Eatery, there weren’t similar crowds nationwide. In the Washington Post TV Column, Lisa de Moraes says 1.8 million people tuned in, the smallest premiere audience for the cooking show since its inception in March 2006.
During filming, judge Gail Simmons told Grub Street that she ate good meals at Cork, CityZen, Sou’Wester, Oyamel, Jaleo, Zaytinya, Palena, and Komi. That’s a lot of eating to squeeze in between, um, eating for her job.
• We learned through a press release that Xavier Cervera, owner of the new Chesapeake Room in DC’s Barrack’s Row, is working on an 80-seat restaurant nearby. The new place, called Senart’s Oyster House, will take up residence at 520 Eighth Street, Southeast.
• There’s an expansion in the works for Hank’s Oyster Bar, the popular but tiny seafood spot in DC’s Dupont Circle. Borderstan has all the technical information about liquor licenses, alcohol administrators, and cranky neighborhood representatives.
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