Photographs by Kelly DiNardo and Amanda McClements

Time, as the saying goes, is money, which may be why Brendan Cox and Derek Brown are zipping through the grocery store. They’re not speeding, rushing, or giving off that harried vibe that most shoppers exude this time of year, but they’re not dawdling. Their challenge: Pull together a cocktail party for ten for less than $75.

Goat cheese? Too expensive. Cox nixes a dish from his menu.

Want more Frugal Foodie challenges and recipes from local chefs? Check out the Frugal Foodie archive.

Meals end with a flourish thanks to winners such as lemon pie, which has a graham-cracker crust and a marvelous fluff of marshmallow meringue. Photograph by Chris Leaman.

A basket of warm, savory rolls with honey butter is placed in front of you as soon as you sit down. Servers refill your Coke before you think to ask, then scrawl smiley faces on the to-go boxes. All-booth seating means there’s not a bad table.

Comfort, in the room and on the plate, is the biggest reason the Great American Restaurants brand—which includes such establishments as Coastal Flats, Carlyle, and Artie’s—has garnered such loyal audiences. Jackson’s Mighty Fine Food & Lucky Lounge appears destined to follow those successes: The Saturday-night wait at the 260-seat restaurant clocks in at about an hour and a half. You can avoid standing around with a buzzer by calling ahead and putting your name on the list.

The menu, a mash-up of the last decade’s culinary trends, veers from miso-glazed black cod to steak frites to sushi and spring rolls. Meals sometimes sag in the middle, save for reliable main courses like crab cakes and sea bass in ginger broth—entrées also served at the restaurant’s siblings. Better to focus mostly on starters: chopped-pecan-accented deviled eggs with decadent sugar-brûléed bacon strips; a duo of dips that includes zingy guacamole and a riff on pimiento cheese; and a gratin of mac and cheese, its golden crust hiding generous chunks of fresh lobster.

We’re embracing the cold with memories of last winter’s rich, hot cocoa. Since then, chocolate-centric cafes have popped up all over town, which means the list of warming mugs just got longer. So we want to know where you’ve found your favorite hot-chocolaty treats to ward off the chill. Let us know in the comments!

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Monday, December 1
Leesburg’s Tuscarora Mill (203 Harrison St.), located in a 19th-century grain mill, is hosting a dinner and Bell’s Brewery tasting tonight at 7. The Michigan-based Bell’s Brewery, formerly the Kalamazoo Brewing Company, started in 1983 as a homebrewing-supply shop. The dinner costs $75 per person; call 703-771-9300 for reservations.

Tuesday, December 2
Vinoteca (1940 11th St., NW) hosts a winetasting class on Sauvignon Blancs from around the world. Participants will taste five to six wines and a cheese board chosen to complement the selections. Beginners and seasoned veterans are welcome to the tasting, which costs $35 per person; 7 to 8 PM. Call 202-332-9463 for reservations.

Let’s start with the good: Has there ever been a fast-food joint as dazzling as Nando’s Peri-Peri (819 Seventh St., NW; 202-898-1225)? In looks, it is to McDonald’s as Prada is to Payless.

Done up with artfully roughed-up wood, long leather booths, and a night sky’s worth of twinkling pendant lights, this order-at-the-counter chicken chain—the first stateside outpost of the popular South Africa–based franchise—feels more like a cousin to its Penn Quarter neighbor Rasika, the stylized Indian fusion restaurant.

Hemingway called Paris “a moveable feast,” but he never cruised Washington in a limo with ten girlfriends and a stack of takeout menus. Believing that takeout doesn’t have to mean Kung Pao chicken, we piled into a stretch Lincoln at dusk on a Friday with a mission to eat in style at lots of restaurants. The catch? We’d be noshing on the road, not at a table. There would be car-friendly finger food from Equinox, perhaps mezze from Zaytinya, crab cakes from Legal Sea Foods. We knew the risks: rémoulade on the leather seats, lobster on the Louis Vuitton. It didn’t matter. A group of friends who see one another mostly in business clothes, we needed a Sex and the City night.

For avid foodies, the recent release of celebrated chef Thomas Keller’s book Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide is as exciting as the latest iPhone is for tech nerds. So when the American Institute of Wine and Food announced that Keller, owner of the French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley and Per Se in New York, would be coming to DC’s Mandarin Oriental hotel to talk about the cookbook, industry professionals elbowed each other out of the way to get one of the hundred $95 tickets.