In the Baguette:  Paul, the Parisian bakery, cuts the ribbon on its first U.S. location flagship (pictured) right here in D.C. So what if it's a chain? [Greater Greater Washington]

Presidential Pickle: Which fancy burger would Obama like best? [Eater DC]

The Burger Bridge: Brooklyn is beginning to look a lot like Arlington, with D.C.-area chain Five Guys outpacing Shake Shack in outer-borough expansion. [Grub Street]

Venti, Venti Big: Starbucks is now more ubiquitous than Wendy's and Burger King. [USA Today]

Talk About Leftovers: Kimpton Hotels' 10 D.C.-area restaurants composted more than 408,000 pounds of food scrap last year. [MSNBC]

Photo courtesy of Paul bakery

Atwater's sells at 18 different farmer's markets in the region, according to McGuire, but Arlington is the only one of the five counties that does not offer a specific license for itinerant vendors, creating particular problems for those selling fresh bread from makeshift stalls. For morning farmer's markets Atwater's drives its bread fresh from its Baltimore county bakery and sells them without wrapping, which McGuire says would damage their warm crusts.

Atwater's has been operating out of code for years, but inspectors rarely appear at the Saturday market and on a few occasions in the past have not made an issue of the violation, says McGuire. "It's been overlooked before in the interest of keeping the market full and vibrant," he says. "I can claim no innocence here."

McGuire says that Atwater's expects not to put up a legal fight, but hopes to work with county officials to create a new licensing category more appropriate to market vendors. He expects to return to the market next weekend with some sort of appropriate packaging. "I'm a baker, not a lawyer," he says. "My solution will come on the bread end."

The Arlington County Public Health department was closed on Saturday and no one could be immediately reached for comment.

This week's Young & Hungry column delves into the coffee-shop-cum-wine-bar-cum-bakery known as Northside Social, which is one of two new projects (the other being Lyon Hall) from the team behind Liberty Tavern.

Northside has a rather painful genesis: Owner Stephen Fedorchak and his partners slowly pieced together their Frankenshop after deep-sixing their original plan, a partnership with pastry chef David Guas to open Bayou Bakery.

So why did Bayou Bakery not materialize in the former Murky Coffee spot in Clarendon? It's a sensitive subject to all parties involved. Here's what Fedorchak had to say recently on the divorce:

"I have a lot of respect for David. We had met in Clarendon, just kind of randomly and had become friendly. When that space became available, he was looking for a venue. We were looking for someone who could bring quality food to a coffee shop environment. I've enjoyed his work for a number of years at all the various Passion Food locations. I thought he was a good guy.

"My decision to move away from the Bayou Bakery and into something like Northside Social was largely based on the fact that I wanted to make sure that Liberty Tavern and our team at Liberty Tavern had a strong role in the development of the project and in the identity of the project and in the execution of the project," Fedorchak adds.

"And David was more intent on it being a business relationship with it being pretty closely identified with him and his culinary vision, and I think David will be successful with Bayou Bakery because I think it's a really interesting idea. I think fresh beignets, I mean people are really excited about those. In ways, I'm sorry it didn't work out because I think it could have been really cool. But as I've said on the record in the past, I think it is a business idea best pursued by David as an individual as opposed to in a partnership with an existing restaurant group."

Last fall, I spoke with Guas about the very same subject. He was likewise hesitant to dredge up the past for public comment.

"I woke up one day and realized we had our eyes set in different directions," the award-nominated pastry chef told me. "It was their decision to part...We didn’t see eye to eye at the end of the day."

Guas said it wasn't any one thing that broke up the partnership. "Stephen's a great guy and had a lot of confidence in my ideas," Guas added. In the end, though, "It may not have been everything they wanted."

The pastry chef is still working on launching Bayou Bakery on his own.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Eagle-eye Carrie spotted this monstrosity at our local Shoppers Food Warehouse, where the bakery department either has a good sense of humor or is bored out of its skull. Yes, it's my first ever St. Paddy's Day bagel.

Erin go bupkis!

What about you, Y&H Nation? I'm curious about what kind of green-tinted tummy rumblers you've found as we approach St. Patrick's Day 2010. I'll buy a green beer for the first reader to send a photo of a foodstuff that's a brighter shade of green than the interior of my bagel. Check it out:

Note: In preparation for Young & Hungry's baguette column next week (not this week, as previously reported here), we stopped at Marvelous Market, originally founded in 1990 by Mark Furstenberg, to see how the local institution is faring so many years after Furstenberg was essentially forced to sell his much-beloved bakeries.

The heavy wooden beams and exposed red brick at the Marvelous Market on Dupont Circle give the place the kind of warm, rustic vibe that you want from your neighborhood bakery. The spell, however, is broken the moment you open your mouth and ask one basic question: Do you bake your own breads?

Marvelous doesn't. It gets daily deliveries from Baguette Republic, which is co-owned by Dahmane Benabane, who worked as executive chef for Marvelous Market for 15 years. The Republic plies this shop — and every other in the Marvelous chain — with all manner of product, from pastries to muffins to loaves of various shape and size. Many of them, despite their transit from Northern Virginia, are fresh and delicious.

Tops among them is the chocolate croissant, a bronzed buttery purse of puff pastry filled with a thin strip of rich chocolate and lots of air, which helps to create a false impression of lightness. The baguette is decent example of the breadmaker's art — crusty and airy and far superior to that bread wad over at Firehook. The sourdough boule gives you a blast of sour all right — somewhere just south of old wine — but its crust has an off-putting texture that I'd place somewhere between plastic and old cardboard.

The truth is, Marvelous Market has strayed far beyond the European breadmaking traditions of its founder, Mark Furstenberg. It has, by its own admission, morphed into something that blends "Panera, Starbucks, Potbelly, Dean & Deluca, and Seven 11 (sic)" under one roof. As such, it can get pretty crowded in the narrow aisle inside the Dupont store, as customers elbow for fruit-juice blends, pre-made sandwiches, pates, cheeses, coffee, hell even pre-cut flowers. The sandwiches, particularly the fresh-as-a-Mediterranean-breeze caprese, are a fine option for those who want a quick lunch without sacrificing their soul (and their arteries) to the practitioners of fast-food sorcery.

But can you ever expect to wrap your mouth around something as deliriously tasty as the sandwiches that Breadline turned out during its Furstenberg heyday? Get real. Marvelous Market figured out long ago that artisan ambitions don't pay the bills.

The best thing about getting my taxes finished this week — well, aside from getting my taxes finished this week — is that I got to visit my CPA's offices in Gaithersburg, home of Hot Breads & Cakes, the area's only outlet of the large Indo-French fusion chain that began more than 10 years ago in Chennai, India.

Hot Breads occupies a small, unassuming storefront in that corporate community known as Kentlands. Not The Kentlands. Just Kentlands. On the face of it — and by the name of it — Hot Breads doesn't seem to hold out much promise beyond the traditional breads, pastries, and holiday cakes found at any local bakeries. But then you scan the bottom of the display case and see all these fusion snacks. They look like breakfast foods — croissants and puff pastries, the standard big buttery explosions of dough, stuffed or otherwise — but they're not. These pastries come stuffed with chicken tikka and alu chili masala, the kinds of fillings most Americans would eat for breakfast only under duress.

But don't be intimated by the apparent disconnect — a bakery that opens early but whose display case features few traditional morning snacks and absolutely no fruit juices — and go ahead and order these savory-oriented pastries. Then save 'em and reheat them for lunch.

The chicken tikka croissant is fusion snacking at its finest. The buttery pastry conceals a florescent-red filling of chicken-and-tomato masala, which provides just enough heat and umami to counteract and enhance the richness of the dough. The alu chili puff (pictured above) may even be better. Its thin layer of filling is a cooked-down combination of potatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, spices, and tomato gravy, which plays off the puff pastry in two terrific ways: It serves as a foil to the butter-heavy pastry, yes, but it also gives your taste buds a soft, sensual reward after busting through the crackly exterior.

How good were these two surprising sammies? They impressed me even though I heated them up in a microwave, which compromised their pristine textures, turning the croissant somewhat rubbery and taking the hard edge off the puff pastry. Frankly, I didn't care.

Hot Breads & Cakes, 70 Market St., Gaithersburg, (301) 977-1919.