Nine year old daughter and I are going to Washington DC for long Memorial Day weekend (Sat - Tuesday, staying with a friend in the Petworth neighborhood.
So far I’m looking at Bad Saint and Thip Khao. Any recommendations for coffee, pastries, breakfast sandwiches, crab cakes? Any good sandwich places new the National Mall (assuming Trump doesn’t invite us in for the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake).
The most beautiful piece of chocolate cake is only at Mar-a-lago. Too bad.
Some good places for casual lunches are Sophie’s Cuban and Cava Grill. Cava Grill is like the Chipotle of middle eastern food but very good.
We enjoyed our dinner at Zatinya a few years back. Nice lively room with good drinks. Lots of mezze and different spreads that kids can usually find some good choices out of.
We enjoyed Zatinya a lot.
Bad Saint is solid choice. Be prepared to wait if you go at peak dining times.
Colada Shop for coffee and pastries, Cuban style.
Good place for sandwiches near the National Mall is Timgad (lower level of the Ronald Reagan Plaza).
Other places to consider for interesting DC eats: Tail Up Goat and Little Serow
Enjoy the crowds in DC during Memorial Day. Bring plenty of sunscreen and patience.
@ipsedixit do you have a rec for Ethiopian? We went to Etete a few years ago but it seems like it’s closed. I can’t imagine DC with that cuisine. TIA.
I believe Etete is closed for renovations.
In the interim, in DC proper, CherCher. Go with friends, order the Kitfo and the Vegetarian Deluxe plate and you’re all set.
Great, thanks for the recs, Colada Shop and Sophie’s Cuban look good. Maybe we will try Bad Saint on Sunday or Monday night when they first open to take advantage of early dinner - one of the few benefits of dining with a youngster.
Petworth Citizen and Reading Room appears to have an enticing happy hour and is near my friend’s place so might hit that as well.
The line forms well before they open.
Usually, the line starts forming about 2.5 hours before open. Meaning you have to get there at about 3 p.m. Just think of it as even more bonding time with your daughter.
Like I said up above, bring lots of sunscreen and patience.
Enjoy the trip.
Word on the street is the Sophie’s in DC Closed. Also, there’s now a Cava Grill in Culver City
+1 on this. I ate dinner there Tuesday night. Don’t ask me what all I had. We had a group of 12, and I think we tried at least half of the menu. Out of the whole lot, there was only one dessert that I didn’t care for. Everything else was great, and ain’t no joke.
Also went to Blue Jacket on Thursday night and had this piece of love. 30 oz. of pure short rib bliss (well, about 12 oz. for me after sharing). the pictured Brussels sprouts were also tasty, but the carrot salad on the left was pointless and actually made me a little angry. Service was lousy. We had reservations for 50 confirmed, but were not honored. Your mileage will likely vary with a smaller group. Great beer selection as well.
Sorry to be late with the post, but I just got home last night.
I loved visiting Blue Jacket.
I regretted staying for the food.
Please explain.
Good to know. I can only vouch for the one dish.
Reporting back:
Saturday
Old Ebbett’s Grill: After hours of wandering the monuments and no lunch we hit Old Ebbett’s Grill for a snack of crab cake sliders, cold clams casino and a Manhattan and Shirley temple. Decent Shirley Temple. Crab cakes had little crab flavor. Not recommended.
Timber Pizza, Petworth: After champagne and jazz in the park we walked over to Timber Pizza. Very good wood oven pizza, nice local saison from local brewer Hellbender nearby. Their empanadas were even better, especially the fruity/spicy pineapple and strawberry sauces they serve them with. So nice to be dining outside on a beautiful evening while getting reports of the cold fog blowing through San Francisco all weekend.
Sunday
Eastern Market: Crab cakes with fried green tomato at Market Lunch. Great crab flavor, lots of crab without much filler. Also picked up some local cheeses from the monger there. Eastern Market is the original DC market and is showing its age. Not a ton of food options so we headed over to Union Market.
Union Market: Sleek new market (5-6 years old maybe?), highly curated selection of food vendors. On a tip we grabbed some great jerk chicken wings from the Soup Up vendor there. BBQ and pastries looked really good but was saving room for dinner.
Bad Saint: Arrived at 4:30 (they open at 5:30) Sunday night and managed to get in for the second seating at 7:30, so just had decent cocktails next door at Room 11 and daughter had a fancy mac n cheese. Bad Saint was great. Really intimate – just 24 seats and only 2 4 tops, all the rest is bar seating. Great friendly service. We had banana flower salad with coconut milk and longpepper, grilled prawns in crab fat and habanero, clams in chrysanthemum leaf/ginger broth and their version of adobo with chicken and pork belly. Everything was great, the clam broth was a drinkable elixir and the adobo was really delicate and complex. Prawns were boldly flavored. The banana flower salad was dense, almost meaty. Really unique place.
Monday:
Tail up Goat: This place seems to have a bit of an identity crisis. Clean airy space and name give it a Caribbean beachy vibe but the food styles and portions are all over the map. We had salt cod fritters (really good), grilled rabbit sausage (good but tiny, about ¾ of a link) fried green tomato with straciattella di bufala and sort of preserved Myer lemon (breading on the tomato was like leather and the lemon was cut too large), seaweed sourdough with ciccioli and pickled fennel (good but giant slather of ciccioli so became boring after two bites, loved the pickled fennel), tagliatelle with tomato, pancetta, breadcrumbs (very good pasta but incongruous with the rest of the menu) and whole stuffed porgy with spicy bomba rice (good, but we were stuffed by this point). Nice interesting wine list.
Tuesday:
Colada Shop: Excellent Cubano. Croquetas were good but not as good as the ones I had recently at Media Noche in SF. Guava and cheese pastela was a nice little finish.
Thanks for the tips. Love all the opportunities for Al fresco dining in D.C. that we don’t have in SF.
I will have one day in the city. Will spend most of day split between the Smithsonian and wandering to some of the monuments I haven’t already seen.
Where should I eat before hopping the Amtrak to Baltimore? Won’t have time for dinner in DC, but open to breakfast, lunch and snacks.
Jose’ Andres has several places there. We’ve eaten at Zaytinya some years ago.
cafe YELLOW! If you could have dinner, albi next door is the way to go, but yellow is bomb
