Fans of fast food and craft brew will get a mouthful tonight at The Big Board on H Street NE, which is co-hosting a beer dinner with the folks from D.C. own's Chocolate City brewery. On the menu: "Animal-style" french fries in homage to the West Coast's heralded In-N-Out Burger chain, veal sweetbread "McNuggets," and a braised beef short rib “Mexican Pizza,” a la Taco Bell, among other dishes, each paired with beers selected by the guest brewmaster. Price is $60 per person.

Hungry for something else? Oysters maybe? We've got the scoop on half-shell price specials galore in the new and continually updated Y&H food events calendar above. Click on each link for more info.

Got something tasty going on? Send event listings to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com

Damage Control: Did you hear about the class-action lawsuit in Alabama that accuses Taco Bell of using a taco meat filler that's only 36 percent beef? According to Taco Bell, the chain uses 88 percent "USDA-inspected quality beef." Yum! [Eater Nat'l]

Perplexing Quote of the Day: "I’m not quite sure what this 'AOL' is but this seems promising..." [PoP]

Step by Step: What's the first step in making Belgian waffles at home? As Tim Carman found out, it involves a trip to Strosniders to buy a waffle iron. [WaPo]

Warnings: Ever wonder how to use mustard seed for home cooking? Read this primer, but be aware: "Burnt mustard seeds taste a little like motor oil." [Serious Eats]

Photo by Flickr user Like_the_Grand_Canyon via an Attribution 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license

Leave it to Chow's enterprising James Norton, he of the supertaster disposition, to tackle the latest fast-food controversy: Taco Bell's roll out this month of its Cantina Tacos line, which is the national chain's attempt to keep it real, man. The mega-food-service tacos are allegedly based on genuine Latin street food.

The media backlash has been swift, with food writers from taco-truck-heavy areas employing pet food metaphors, as you might expect:

• The OC Weekly compared the proteins in TB's tacos to "Fancy Feast™ chunky-style kibble."
• The Fresno Bee compared the carnitas to "wet dog food."

Norton is not about to stoop to standard-issue Purina references. He conducts a side-by-side comparison of Taco Bell's products with those from a Mexican taqueria in Minneapolis, where Norton is based, just to "see how far apart the two are." Spoiler alert: Norton, with his dry affectation, calls Taco Bell's carnitas a "hot mess."

If the Super Delicious Ingredient Force is part of Taco Bell's plan to build an icon as cuddly to kids as Ronald McDonald, I have just one small piece of advice: You might want to rethink the cartoon character that looks like it was pinched out by a Labrador.

I mean, seriously, doesn't Commander Seasoned Beef look like a dog turd in tights? Surely a child's need for fantasy superheroes can't be so cheaply co-opted by this Super Friends knockoff.

The message Taco Bell wants to get across is as poorly conceived as Commander Seasoned Beefhead: that a three-item meal for $2 — which includes a bag of Doritos — is somehow morally superior and more flavorful than, say, a Happy Meal or something.

Consider this quote from a trio of shirtless, fist-pumping French fries dressed in hip-hugging khakis:

"In today's economy, people could care less what their food tastes like. We're cheap and easy, and we're their only option. Hahaha!"

Yeah, as opposed to that Taco Bell $2 Meal Deal, which is obviously built on fruit, veggies, and Niman Ranch beef? If that TB $2 meal doesn't represent the height of flavor-added food industrialization, I don't know what does.

For some reason, the whole cynical attitude of this Taco Bell campaign reminds me of what James McMurtry wrote in "We Can't Make It Here Anymore," a righteously angry song about faceless power sticking it to the people for their own profit:

Let 'em eat jellybeans, let 'em eat cake

Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes

They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps

If they can't make it here anymore

It's been more than two years since Wingmaster's Grill, the beloved chicken outlet on the lower-level food court at Union Station, was run out on a rail. At the time, a number of vendors feared they would eventually suffer a similar fate, as management company Jones Lang LaSalle looked to replace the independent food-court operators with deep-pocketed chains.

It would seem their fears have started to come true. This weekend, Y&H walked around the food court and noticed that a Subway had just opened three weeks ago — and that a Taco Bell is coming soon (picture after the jump).

Y&H hopes Jones Lang LaSalle will return his phone calls this time around and maybe even cop to its apparent plan: to remake the Union Station food court to look like every other mall food court in America.

I don't know about you, but between the cold weather and the post-vacation stupor, your semi-friendly Y&H just hasn't been able to embrace the work-at-all-costs mentality yet. I'm feeling so, so unAmerican.

I have, however,  enjoyed mixing it up again on the blog, and you readers have been clicking in droves this week. I (and the publisher) appreciate that. Here's what you've been clicking on most:

1. The Restaurants Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You
2. The Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet: You Don't Even Have to Lift Your Ass from the Car to Lose Weight! (*)
3. Critics of Iron Chef America, White House Edition, Wonder If the Fix Was In
4. The Whole Foods' Ground Beef Grind Clock
5. 2009: Looking Back at a Growing Beer City Part 2
   

* A certain light-drinking Budweiser beer was, once again, a popular item, but we’ve stopped counting it.

It's the phrase "Drive-Thru" that's pure genius. That simple hyphenated word triggers a dopamine reaction faster than a line of high-grade coke. Think of all the many pleasurable associations Americans have with the drive-thru: hamburgers, childhood, convenience, french fries, comfort, soft drinks, Ronald McDonald, music, summer, chocolate shakes, practical jokes, Jack Black, and baristas in bikinis.  

That's advertising gold right there, even if Taco Bell is shamelessly searching for its own iconic Jared to trot across these fair states to promote the "benefits" of the chain's Fresco menu. (By the way, you have to admire the cojones of a so-called Mexican chain for using a word of Italian-German origin in its marketing.) 

Well, it's pretty clear, despite Taco Bell's mad pulling of the levers, Wizard of Oz-style, that poor Christine Dougherty is no Jared Fogle. Dougherty lost a mere 54 pounds (compared to Fogle's 235) by reducing her intake to a near starvation diet of 1,250 calories a day, which is a good 400 calories less than what the Mayo Clinic recommends for an inactive woman, age 30, who is 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds.

Dougherty could down another Fresco burrito supreme a day and still have cals to spare.

It's also pretty obvious that the Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet is no diet at all. It says so right in the fine print of the ad.

Here are two of several disclaimers slipped into the bottom of the screen during Taco Bell's commercial:

• "150-340 calories. Not a low calorie food." (Presumably, they're talking about the seven items on the Fresco Menu.)
• "Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet is not a weight loss program. Pay attention to total calorie and fat intake and regular exercise."

In other words, pay no attention to the message of this commercial. According a recent article in Advertising Age, the Drive-Thru Diet idea has seriously backfired for Taco Bell. Check out this pertinent section of the story:

According to Zeta Buzz, which mines blogs, message boards and social media postings to measure buzz about a subject, Taco Bell's buzz rating has dropped six points after launching the diet. While volume of posts increased 44%, the tone has become more negative.

Prior to launch, posts were 73% positive, putting it ahead of beloved chains like Subway, Wendy's and Domino's. Words associated with the brand online were "love," "delicious," and "favorite." Postings are now 67% positive, putting Taco Bell behind White Castle, Blimpie and Arby's, which rank among the category's lower tier. Now three of the words most closely associated with Taco Bell and its campaign have been "fat," "stop," and "joke."

Somehow I don't see CBS doing a story, years from now, about Dougherty turning into the Taco Bell Gal.

Not that your friendly Y&H is a cynic, but when I saw this article on Mental Floss, I immediately thought, "I bet you can't get half of these 'secret' menu items at your local _____ (fill in the fast-food outlet)." So I went to my nearby Starbucks in Adams Morgan and asked the barista for the smallest cup of coffee I could get.

I was expecting one of those thimble-sized sample cups.

He wasn't quite sure what I wanted, so he started showing me all the various cups available — the Tall, the Grande, the Venti, the Ubermassenhaft. (OK, I joke about the last one, but only because Starbucks deserves it for corrupting the language.) Among the cups he showed me was this petite white cone that holds a reasonable eight-ounce pour.

"That's what I want," I told the barista. "I've never seen those before."

"We use them for espresso," he said, noting that I could also use it for coffee.

"Why don't you include those sizes on the menu?" I asked.

"They're too small."

I ignored what I considered an illogical response — too small? why? because they need to get everyone hooked on 20-ounces of pure, caffeine-injected java? — and went to the cashier. She didn't bat an eye over my mini-coffee, either, and promptly rang it up. It was around $1.60 (they rarely give me a damn receipt!) or about 20-some cents cheaper than the "Tall."

Frankly, I'm not interested in the savings. I'm interested in the smaller serving. Most afternoons I crave coffee. What I don't crave is 12 ounces of coffee. Sure, I could order the Tall and just not drink it all — but I always do.  Then I live to regret it, usually through a jitteriness that manifests itself in ADD Web-surfing and the inability to concentrate longer than, oh, 10 seconds at a stretch.

Is this good for the nation's crumbling economy, I ask?

But today, Y&H has hope, not only for his future afternoon coffee fixes but also for the rest of Mental Floss' secret menu roundup. Next up on Y&H's research agenda: See if I can really get green sauce at Taco Bell.

Photo by jerine via Flickr Creative Commons, Attribution License.