• The Taste of Wheaton on Sunday is a great opportunity to sample some of the best ethnic eats in the D.C. region. This year, the festival will not only feature bites from a few of Y&H's favorite restaurants — like Nava Thai and Max's Kosher Cafe — but also an Ethnic Food and Wine Tasting Pavilion boasting dishes from Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Carla Hall, the near-miss Top Chef whose catering company is located in Wheaton, will also be on hand for the event.
• That same day, you can also wander over to Taste of Arlington. While the city doesn't have a culinary identity as distinctive as Wheaton's, Arlington has enjoyed a higher profile lately, thanks to such additions as Liberty Tavern and Eventide, which have gone a long way to rinsing out the chalky aftertaste of those big-box chain restaurants that dominate Clarendon. Sadly, Eventide doesn't look to be a player in this year's event, but there are plenty of other tasty options, including Jackson's Roasting and Carving Co., Yaku, Cafe Pizzaiolo, and Me Jana.

More festival news after the jump.

• The Fiesta Asia Street Fair — call me crazy, but doesn't that name strike you as a multi-culti mess? — takes place on Saturday on Pennsylvania Avenue between 3rd and 6th streets NW. The day-long event will feature cooking demos, ranging from Cambodian to Vietnamese cuisines.
• Finally, there's the Saint Sophia Greek Festival all weekend long at the Greek Orthodox cathedral at 36th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW. I have just five words to share with you: whole lambs roasted on spits!

Many of you, I suspect, will be too busy with Thanksgiving preparations today to jump into the car and fetch lunch. But for those who still need a mid-day break while pushing around papers and hiding your facebook page from the boss, I have something you might like: a make-our-own Reuben at Jackson's Roasting and Carving Co. in Arlington, where they cure their own brisket.

The woman behind the counter at Jackson's tells me that people call her the Green Giant, and once you spend just a few minutes with her, you can understand why. She's a towering young woman with a passion for local, sustainable ingredients. She can tell you the source of just about everything at Jackson's, from 'kraut to cheese, and she's just an employee, not the owner Stefanie Reiser, who named the place after her Jack Russell terrier. You could say I'm a sucker for these kind of women.

I'm also a sucker for the way that the Green Giant makes a Reuben. She tells me the brisket, these thick slices of rosy red meat, has been braised in beer earlier in the morning. She places a generous pile of the corned beef onto my rye bread and tops it with sauerkraut (not made in-house, but it may be in the future, she says) and Thousand Island dressing. The Green Giant then grills the thing on a panini press to add those dark ruts that I so love on a sandwich.

My Reuben is so warm and gooey and meaty. I'm quite pleased with how tender the brisket is. My only real quibble is with the 'kraut, which is quite sour; it tends to dominate the other flavors, but some quick surgery on the sammie, a little sauer-ectomy, and everything is just fine.

Jackson's Roasting and Carving Co., 933 N. Quincy St., Arlington. (703) 312-1073.