Sugar & Champagne Returns; The Pug Gets a House Beer

EVENTWIRE—It's that time of year again for the annual Washington Humane Society Sugar & Champagne charity event — set for Feb. 1 at the Ronald Reagan Building. And, once again, Todd and Ellen Gray will be hosting with tastings from their restaurants as well as the Think Food Group, Restaurant Eve, The Source, Brasserie Beck and Kushi. There will also be food for your dogs and contestants from the Next Great Baker on hand. Tickets are $90 for the regular folk and $150 for VIPs, available on the event's website. [EaterWire]

ATLAS DISTRICT—Frozen Tropics reports that as of this afternoon The Pug has itself its very own house beer named Tunney's Irish Red. It was brewed in Baltimore. [FT]

ARLINGTON—ARLnow reports that there's a new family-owned restaurant by the name of Hee Been Asian Bistro Buffet in the Eclipse condo building on Glebe Road. The restaurant has a buffet line that is nearly 80 feet long with dishes of the Korean, Japanese and Thai persuasions, as well as some a la carte options. [ARLnow]

WATERGATE—OK, now Elisir really, really has freed its water. The Washingtonian's Todd Kliman runs an email he received from chef Enzo Fargione that promises the restaurant "has decided to do away completely with charges for our in-house filtered and bottled sparkling and still water" after making some smaller steps toward that earlier this week. [The Washingtonian]

FURTHER READING—Speaking of made-up controversies, in their online chat today the Going Out Gurus fielded some tough questions about their 40 Essential Eats feature which — the horror! — has a bunch of Virginia and Maryland options. Some people are pretty mad about that! Oh yes, and your Eater editor was on hand, too. [WaPo]

The Pug [Photo: Official Site]