Digging the Cuisine in DC

When Ben was little (7ish), his parents took them to Washington, DC. He apparently remembers every detail of this trip, particularly the Air and Space Museum. Ever since I've known him, he's dreamed about going back and enjoying tons of museums as an adult. When we were considering our options for this summer, DC came up again and seemed like a good possibility, given that his brother Joe and his girlfriend live there. We were psyched to find a nice little bed and breakfast directly next to Joe's apartment building, which had a fantastic breakfast every morning.

On our last night in DC, Joe says, "Wow! You guys really did DC!" And that we did. We took in a minimum of 16 different museums/monuments, etc. It was a great place to get stamps in our National Parks/Monuments Passport book :-) We even managed to teach Joe something new: the art of planking. (See below.)

While Ben was thrilled at the museums (he would have preferred to have gone to more!), I thoroughly enjoyed going out to eat every night. Added to that, Joe and Jocie live in Dupont Circle, which between it and the next neighborhood over, seems to be foodie central. Here are some of the places we ate: 

• Wood-fired pizza at Pizzeria Paradiso and yummy gelato at Dolcezza
• Ben had signed up for the DC area Groupon service, and had come across this Indian restaurant called Heritage India that was close to Joe's apartment, so we went there (and used the Groupon) and it was great! I had some nice appetizers including a fantastic yogurt and curry chicken, tomatoes in a balsamic reduction and a mango lassi (my favorite). 
• After a rainy afternoon to clear the heat and humidity on Friday, we ate at Ben's Chili Bowl, famous for having been an organizing spot for civil rights activists in the 50s and 60s.
• We took in the Hirshhorn Museum of Art and the Air and Space Museum (see pic below for Ben's gleeful eyes!) and then found an upscale, fast-food Indian place in Chinatown called Merzi. It was very similar to Chipotle, and very good! Here's a pretty accurate review of it. 
• We also got Joe his fix of Astronaut ice cream. He hadn't had it since he had visited DC as a child, but this is how he described the flavor: "It's like hard cotton candy that tastes like ice cream with the consistency of chalk." Turns out, that was a pretty accurate memory! (See pic above)

• Another day we had an early supper of Korean dumplings at a place called Mandu, which were quite enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised, given my general dislike for Korean flavors. We finished that day off several hours later after a thunderstorm at Shake Shack with a peanut butter shake that was amazing!! Added bonus: Michelle Obama had eaten there for lunch!
• And just for irony, we went to Washington, DC, and had some excellent Mexican food :-) at a beautiful restaurant called Lauriol Plaza. I had tamales with a fantastic green sauce (my best guess: oil, broth, green chilis, cilantro and cumin).
• Since our flight wasn't supposed to leave until 5 PM on Wednesday (and ended up being delayed another 2 1/2 hours), we had time to bum around that day as well. After an interesting walk through Ford's theater, I decided to stop and get some ice cream at a place in the guidebook called Cowgirl Creamery and have a late lunch at the airport. I walked into the store, and it turns out that it's a cheese store! (This is the next best thing to an ice cream store, in my book.) So I got some very flavorful string cheese and a fresh dill pickle and called it a day. 

And that, folks, is some of our culinary adventures through DC!