Tonight: Chef Todd Gray and wife-partner Ellen Gray of Equinox and Watershed host the 11th annual Sugar & Champagne charity event at Muse inside the Corcoran Gallery of Art, featuring all sorts of goodies from about 50 area restaurants. If you don't already have tickets, you're out of luck. The swanky soiree (priced at $90 to $150 per person) is completely sold out. Procrastinating carnivores planning to get their barbecue fix from the PORC truck at the latest D.C. Meat Week event on V Street NW will also miss out. That event, too, is completely booked. There's other stuff going on, of course. At Poste, chef Dennis Marron is offering a new three-course pre-theater dinner menu, priced at $36 a pop. And, like every Wednesday, Thunder Burger is going wild again. This time, chef Ryan Fichter is putting reindeer burgers on the menu. For the last time, apparently.

Coming up: there are a few tickets left for Thursday's Chez Billy preview at Montserrat House. (At least at the time of this posting.)  And there was just one 10 o'clock reservation left for Friday's "Year of the Dragon" dinner at The Source, attended by none other than Wolfgang Puck himself. Over the weekend, Taylor Gourmet debuts its new breakfast menu and, on Sunday, Fuel Pizza hosts a daring contest to see who can eat the most of its blazing "#!^%@< Hot!" chicken wings.

For more info, click on any link on the Y&H food events calendar above.

Got something tasty going on? Email tips, daily specials and event listings to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com

Photo courtesy of Michel Richard Citronelle

Ted's Bulletin

Photo by Chris Shott

Think of a pressed calzone warmed up on a panini press, stuffed with potatoes, scrambled eggs, a mix of cheddar and colby cheese, and your choice of meat. (I liked the bacon variety in particular.)

According to the Breggos website, "[a]ctive Coloradoans find Breggos to be the right balance of protein and carbohydrates to get them through the day." It's filling, easy to eat, and moderately priced. One Breggo in the morning tied my stomach over until a late lunch and early happy hour later in the day.

While Breggos are currently only distributed in and around Boulder, I imagine these treats could make a killing in D.C., perfect for local coffee shops or food trucks. The one drawback for consumption? Warming a Breggos breakfast treat isn't necessarily quick. For best results, it's a two-step process: first, microwave, then toast on a panini grill. Simply microwaving works, too, but you don't get that crispness.

Photos courtesy of Breggos

It seemed a bit silly to order the so-called American breakfast platter of eggs and grits at a venue promising more authentic Mexican fare, albeit stuff derived from local gringo and James Beard Award-winning chef Ann Cashion. So I went with the breakfast tacos: a double layer of white corn tortillas, spread with a thin goo of melted cheese, topped with softly scrambled egg and, at my request (and additional charge), piled high with crumbled chorizo. The bits of spicy sausage are so abundant that they’re prone to tumble all over your table and lap, if you don’t cradle your taco with enough care.

For an added kick, sauce it up with one of three available salsas available at the pumps, ranging from medium to medium-hot. (It seems Cashion’s peeps aren’t much on extremes, at least when it comes to the condiments.) The traditional huevos rancheros are also a viable option, though, in my experience, the ample supply of refried beans and cheesy eggs provided on the platter far outweighed the modest tortilla allowance. Sólo dos?

Ay dios mio! A small selection of Mexican-style pastries is also available. My repeated requests for a little horchata were disappointingly declined. “Not ready yet,” the cashier kept saying. Even an hour later my thirst for milky cinnamon refreshment went unquenched. Thankfully, the fresh pineapple juice, served slightly sweet but not too sugary, proved a suitable alternative. ¡Salud!

Taqueria Nacional, 400 North Capitol St. NW, (202) 737-7070

But that's not going to happen.

Reports Cleveland Park 2.0:

“The Cereal Bowl is out,” said George Pedas, a real estate broker who is searching for a new tenant for the space that held the restaurant. ... Pedas has received multiple inquiries about the space at 3420 Connecticut Ave. N.W. since he put a “Lease” sign in its window within the last week.

Perhaps that's for the best.

[via TBD]

File photo by Tim Carman

Y&H loves a good hot breakfast, but normally does not have time to do it right. Irish steel-cut oats made at home are great, but take too much time to prepare. So some sort of egg-cheese-bread combo at So's Your Mom deli is standard fare these days, cholesterol be damned!

It's hot, right? Healthy... not necessarily. Eat up, you early at-ems!

Photo by Flickr user snowpea&bokchoi using an Attribution 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license

Weekend French Toast from Food52 on Vimeo.

Hey, it's the weekend, live a little. Inject a little dark rum into your French toast.

It's a question, no matter how trite and stupid it sounds, that you have to ask a 90-year-old who still shows up for work every day: What's the secret to living a long, active life?

When I put the question to François Haeringer, the founding chef/owner of L'Auberge Chez François and the subject of this week's Young & Hungry, he acts like I just asked him what style of wine he prefers.

"It's all individual," he says and stops abruptly. He's done with the subject, I think.

"OK, then what is your individual secret to a long life?" I ask. I smile and laugh at my rephrase in hopes it doesn't sound snotty. I'm not sure why I'm worried about offending the chef; he seems, on some level, immune to such a feeling.

"My feet are going, my arms are going, but my brain is still there," he responds as if to another question. Then he gets to the heart of the question:

"Take good care of yourself," he says. "Eat breakfast."

I confess that breakfast is often a weak meal for me, typically coffee and a bagel or a pastry or something like that. I ask what his typical morning meal looks like.

The chef says he prefers fruit, oatmeal, and coffee, with perhaps a side of bread and marmalade. "Or a brioche," he adds, "or whatever." 

Haeringer also says he eats only two meals a day. Sometimes he enjoys a bowl of soup in between. I wonder if he always just ate twice a day.

"When I was younger, it was three meals a day," he says. "But now I'm down to two."

"You'll see."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery