The Food Network show Heat Seekers tackles DC-3's Q's Seoul Bulgogi & Kimchi Dog (pictured) and Three-Alarm Cruncher. [HuffPo]

A peak inside Irish Whiskey [Washingtonian]

St. Arnold's Mussel Bar opens tonight in Cleveland Park [Uptown Girl]

From General Tso's to Buffalo-style: some new sweetbreads at Cafe Saint-Ex. [Twitter]

The gang behind Petworth's forthcoming Chez Billy are hosting a preview at Montserrat House in Shaw. [Prince of Petworth]

Old wood lends a new look to The Passenger. [DCist]

Poll: restaurateurs are more worried about health care reform than menu-labeling legislation [The Daily Meal]

The maker of Twinkies is filing for Chapter 11. [LA Weekly]

Image courtesy of DC-3

Illustration by Brooke Hatfield

The Spot: Domku Bar & Cafe, 821 Upshur Street NW, (202) 722-7475

The Cuisine: Scandinavian, Polish, Slovak

The Go-To Dishes: Gypsy kielbasa sandwich, Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberry preserves, split pea soup with ham and applewood-smoked bacon

The Scoop: Domku is the type of place that you can't just stumble across without having heard about it first. Doing a quick Google search will get you a ton of reviews, ranging from five stars and a yippie-ki-yay to "I WILL NEVER SET FOOT HERE AGAIN." However thrilling or chilling the accounts of eating at Domku were, I put them all in the back of my brain and decided to find out for myself,  along with two of my trusted companions.

I arrived just after 6 p.m. on a weekday to find a fairly empty restaurant and took a table in the corner. The atmosphere is typical urban-chic with wooden tables, exposed dim lighting, and funky art on the walls to give it an edge. One of my companions said it reminded her of the more hip eateries she had stumbled across in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. While this was all fine and dandy, I was more interested in the food.

Our waitress arrived promptly and gave me the best news I'd heard all day: Domku had just switched over to its fall/winter menu and were debuting a few new eats. I felt like a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning — in Helsinki. The new menu would require some time to inspect and so to assist in my investigatory process, I ordered an Aldaris Porter, a dark-brewed Latvian import.

My mood turned as dark as my drink when the waitress informed us that the perogies wouldn't be available for awhile.  I got over this small roadblock and decided on the traditional Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberry preserves. My companions ordered the gypsy kielbasa sandwich and a lamb burger (bunless) with mashed potatoes. I also asked for a cup of the split pea soup with ham and applewood-smoked bacon to start us off.

After a considerable amount of time, our waitress reemerged carrying my soup. The split pea was delicious and hot, providing the perfect mixture of pea, ham, and bacon. It unfortunately got passed around the table faster than I could get a spoon into my hand. Nevertheless, it was appetizing and got me excited for the mains.

My mother always used to tell me that good things come to those who wait. At Domku, this rings true. My Swedish meatballs were absolutely scrumptious, but it was the attention to detail in the mashed potatoes that really made the dish. They were fluffy and buttery, the perfect complement to the well-cooked meatballs. The kielbasa sandwich came on ciabatta bread with onions, red peppers, arugula, blue cheese, and a glaze of dijon. The bold, pungent ingredients came together for a really fresh and appetizing sandwich. The lamb burger was my least favorite, but then again, I could seek relief in those delicious mashed potatoes on the side.

The Verdict: Patience is a virtue, and if you got it, head on over to Domku. There is nowhere else in Washington that offers such an interesting take on Eastern European and Scandinavian cuisines.

Photo courtesy of domkucafe.com

The Spot: Sweet Mango Cafe, 3701 New Hampshire Ave. NW (202-726-2646)

The Cuisine: Jamaican, Caribbean

The Go-To Dishes: fried plantains, oxtail, jerk chicken

The Scoop: There are only a few things in this world that get me as excited as Jamaican food. I had been hearing about Reginald James' Sweet Mango Cafe for some time now, and when I got the chance to try it last Friday night, I pounced. I quickly assembled a team of three of my trusted companions to join me for dinner, not because I particularly enjoy their company but because I wanted to try everything on the menu.

Entering through the front entrance, located across the street from the Georgia Avenue Metro, we were met with a room full of takeout patrons waiting for their plantains and oxtails. My initial impression? Chaos. However, we quickly learned there was a sit-down section upstairs. Man, was I glad about that.

While there was a little outdoor balcony overlooking the Metro, the tables were full, so we settled on a spot inside, in a space clearly built for drinking and deejaying. For entrees, we decided on the goat curry, oxtail, red snapper, and jerk chicken (both white and dark meat), while for starters, we opted for the fried plantains, a beef patty, and a loaf of coco bread. To wash it down, I ordered a Jamaican soda, mostly out of curiosity, and the standard island lager, Red Stripe.

A few minutes later, a waiter arrived to tell us they were out of the red snapper, but to ease our pain, he presented us with an extra order of plantains on the house and offered to fry us up a piece of kingfish instead. Throughout the night, the waitstaff was extremely accommodating, courteous and attentive, and pretty damn funny, too.

It's safe to say those fried plantains rocked my world. They had a juicy texture and were perfectly sweet. The extra order did not go to waste. The beef patty, by contrast, seemed ordinary. Same for the coco bread. We could have skipped both and not lost any sleep it. But the plantains, we be jammin'!

As with the starters, the entrees arrived in Styrofoam takeout boxes. The aroma wafting from those containers put me in a drugged state of euphoria. I first started on the curry goat, which came with a side of rice. The meat was tender and the curry mild. It had good flavor, but I would have preferred more spice. The oxtail was especially tasty. I've had the pleasure of sampling a good deal of oxtail in my time, and this was quality stuff. The meat, however, was quite fatty, which meant it pretty much melted in my mouth. I was glad to share this with others, since it's not a dish I could eat by myself.

The kingfish was lightly fried and full of flavor, which led me to gnaw on the bones, trying to suck up every last bit. As good as the fish was, though, it paled next to the jerk chicken. You have an option of all white meat for an extra two bucks, which we tried, but I also asked for some dark meat on the side. The flavor was tremendous, with a spicy kick at the end. Nothing we tried, though, was too hot for our palates.

We must have looked like we couldn't handle heat, however. The waitstaff trotted out bottled water on the house for us to wash down all the food.

The Verdict: Go. Go now. Sweet Mango Cafe is not just a place that you should hit when in Petworth, it's a place that should be sought out.

No time to waste.  Let's get right to the news;

• Hook's Heather Chittum brandishes her pastry knife to do battle this Wednesday as Top Chef: Just Desserts makes its debut on Bravo. (DCist)
• Fuggedaboutit! The old pizza joint up Georgia Avenue NW is set to become a new West Indian takeout spot. (Prince of Petworth)
• Is there really such a thing as a Po’ Boy Diet? Ed Levine seems to think so. Let's hope so. (Serious Eats)

• Stiiiiir it up at Petworth’s newest digs: a Rastafarian/Ethiopian fusion joint called The Ras. (Thrillist)
• Food carts begin pulling into the Southwest Waterfront to commemorate the launch of the new 7^th Street Landing park. (STLQTC)
• Hot off the press! New study says Americans often lie about their weight! How on Earth did we not see this coming? (Time)
• Because nothing says autumn quite like beer: Punkin Ale is back on tap at the Dogfish Head Ale House for a limited time at both the NoVa and Gaithersburg locations. (Northern Virginia magazine)
• Three Bethesda bakers battle to paint the town in buttercream. (Bethesda magazine)
• As the football season has just commenced, so has the desire for finding the perfect football bar. You know, the one that just sorta feels right. (TBD)
• John Fleury uncovers the science of beer. Hooray, beer.(DCist)

I'm not sure that you can call it a renaissance yet, but Georgia Avenue keeps showing signs of life — at least in terms of more eating options. I drive this strip regularly and have noticed a few new storefronts popping up, including Washington Deli Pizza, the latest property from owners Jim and Debbie Doherty.

The operation draws its inspiration from New York in that it combines elements of a Jewish deli and an Italian by-the-slice joint. I'll be interested to see how it plays in Brightwood.

The other joint, located next to Moroni & Brothers, looks like some sort of Ethiopian operation. Best I can tell, it's called Ethio Jam, and it's promising "fine dining." Perhaps a lounge setting too?

Anymore know more about this place?

Safari DC, the District's only restaurant specializing in Kenyan cuisine, has apparently closed. The windows are papered. The awning has been stripped of the eatery''s name. And the telephone line has been disconnected.

This is sad news for the the loyal Kenyans who frequented the Petworth establishment and who were never happier than on Jan. 20 of last year, when one of their own become president of the United States.

As soon as the Æbleskiver hit our table at Domku, Carrie had a flash of déjà vu.  For my wife, these Danish balls of pancake dough brought back pleasant memories of her State Department childhood in the Netherlands, where the bite-sized breakfast snacks are known as poffertjes.

Your own Y&H, however, had a flash of horror. These babies in Petworth were practically blackened on one side, which no powdered sugar could hide! (See pic above.)

I asked Carrie if she remembered whether poffertjes were supposed to boast such burn marks. Best she could recall, the poffertjes of her youth were golden brown, free of any such renegade scorching. I looked around us. The folks at a table outside had also ordered Æbleskiver, and their dough balls looked like partial eclipses, too.

For my tastes, the Æbleskiver didn't taste any better than they looked. While half the exterior was burned, the interior was still partially moist and undercooked. I was mumbling to myself and Carrie that the very shape of these fat spheres would make it hard to cook the interior completely before blackening the exterior, particularly at the high heat with which these balls are griddled.

Carrie quickly grabbed her iTouch and started Googling both Æbleskiver and poffertjes. She found this page on Wiki, which included this all-importance sentence:  "Restaurant chefs are quite skilled in turning the almost baked poffertjes with a fork."

They apparently haven't learned that skill yet at Domku.

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

With their selection of serious wood-fired pizzas, the crusts both charred and slightly sweet with honey, owner Jose Velasquez and wife, Reyna Isabella Acosta, have done more than introduce Neapolitan-style pizza to an underserved Petworth neighborhood. They’ve also helped to break the stranglehold that Mexican cuisine has on Salvadoran restaurateurs. Well, sort of. The menu at Moroni & Brothers does feature a number of Mexican and Tex-Mex staples, but its focus is squarely on the wood-oven pizzas, which Velasquez learned to make under Ruth Gresser’s tutelage at Pizzeria Paradiso, and the Salvadoran dishes from the owners’ home country. This kitchen fusion can lead to some rare cultural fusion in the dining room, too, where Anglo foodies and Hispanic regulars mix together at this Georgia Avenue storefront, the Spanish-language music blaring from the jukebox at ear-splitting volumes. But it can also lead to a heady dining experience, whether you opt for the fiery Diavola pie with sausage and jalapeños or the fattier pleasures of Moroni’s pork-and-cheese pupusa.

Addendum: Y&H looks into the question of why Salvadoran and Mexican cuisines are forever entwined at area restaurants.

Moroni & Brothers, 4811 Georgia Ave. NW, (202) 829-2090

Photo courtesy of Moroni & Brothers

The wife and I stopped by Taqueria Distrito Federal II late last night, just in time to grab some tacos, a chicken milanese torta, and some face time with owner Luis Marroquin, who opened his second restaurant this summer in the Petworth neighborhood where he lives. He was sitting on one of the shiny new counter stools, next to his two daughters (including Jacqueline, named after the former First Lady whom Marroquin admired). The owner, a native Salvadorian, explained how he choose this semi-blighted stretch of Kennedy Street for his taqueria.

Every year, he says, he buys himself a Christmas gift, but last year he didn't follow through on that annual ritual. Then one day he was driving along Kennedy Street, and he noticed a for sale sign on a run-down piece of commercial property. He inquired about the spot and learned it used to be, many years ago, a Chinese restaurant, later transformed into a Salvadoran joint. The property owner wanted to sell Marroquin the business for a steep price and then lease him the space. Marroquin thought the asking price was, shall we say, a little over-the-top for a business that was no longer in operation, had no built-in clientele, and was essentially a pit. So they negotiated a deal to satisfy all parties.

Marroquin suddenly had himself a Christmas gift: another restaurant to run.

TDF II sticks out like a U.S. Federal Marshal on a city sidewalk (which I actually saw today on Kennedy Street). The operation, festooned with flapping pennants and painted in the primary colors of the Mexican flag, immediately catches your eye as you drive down the graying, decaying street, which Marroquin claims is set to rebound, much like the Columbia Heights 'hood where his original taqueria is located. It's hard to imagine, at present, that kind of rebirth for Kennedy, but who knows.

For now, TDF II is a welcome addition to a Petworth neighborhood that still struggles for decent dining options. The menu is exactly the same as the one in Columbia Heights, which is just fine by me. My goat taco was a supreme expression of that humble snack–moist, savory shredded meat wrapped in two-ply corn tortillas, topped with diced onions, radish slivers, cilantro, and hot sauce, then squirted with a healthy dose of lime juice. Mexican-style tacos don't get much better for $2.50, except, of course, when you can get three for $5, which you can now at the new taqueria.

I even liked that cultural cross-dresser, the chicken Milanese torta, which featured breaded white meat topped with strips of fresh cheese and slathered with a thin bean paste. When pressed between the bread, the ingredients made for some pleasing contradictions—dense and springy, earthy and light.

Marroquin says he has no plans to pursue a liquor license for his Petworth operation, so it can maintain its family focus, but he's toying with a plan to add beer and wine to the Columbia Heights location. But only, he says, if he places a limit on the number of drinks a customer can order.

I suspect Marroquin prefers his risks to be the economic kind, not the drunken, two-fisted kind.