You can say that again

POLITICO's "Playbook" channels its inner-Frank Bruni, and I like it (June 25, 2011):

Good Saturday morning. TWEET DU JOUR: @MichaelPFalcone: Saint-Ex just banished us, citing a "no late joiner" rule. We thought they were joking @abcgregory

PLAYBOOK RANT: Saint-Ex: dead to us! This is even worse than the full-parties rule, which we find so irritating and counterproductive that we won’t stay at a place that tries to enforce it (bye, bye, Founding Farmers). There are too many other amazing places to eat. Usually we start with a passive-aggressive, “Oh, I’m so sorry: We’re in a hurry, and need to start ordering,” and that often works. At Lauriol Plaza, we go with the aggressive-aggressive, “OK, it’s a party of one,” and make them keep adding chairs, tables and set-ups. Even works on the patio.

Pipón was similarly unimpressed with this 14th Street mainstay (March 3, 2010):

It'd be way too generous to say that Saint-Ex (1847 14th Street NW) suffers, à la Obama, from unfairly high expectations. It is simply overpriced, overhyped and overrated. I'm not sure why it's so in demand, other then inertia and the long lines created by its frustrating policy of not accepting reservations. It's certainly not the "charming" ambiance. The basement is a shadowy bar; the main level, lacking a coat rack and adequate lighting, gets packed like a rush hour Metrobus. I tried the $36 prix fixe menu, sampling a special tortilla appetizer that showcased chopped, soggy chicken, and an overcooked steak. One of the fish entrees looked enticing, but our Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch app recommended "avoid." I'd say the same about Saint-Ex.

Strikes no gutters

The wedding favors included a homemade cookbook with a recipe for the couple's favorite spinach, chiptole and lime dip. So for a pre-wedding, Mexican-style lunch on the lively, downtown pedestrian mall in Charlottesville, Va., I followed their recommendations. Sadly, Mono Loco was closed, and so was Cinema Taco. But the huevos rancheros at Bizou offered a soft landing, runny eggs on crunchy tacos crowned by punchy feta.

Closer to home, I've got a few more Darts & Laurels/Strikes & Gutters/"Fillet of Sole, De La Soul, Seoul (that place in Korea)" for you, only in honor of summer, only strikes today.

Strikes:

The portions at Carmine's (425 7th St. NW), in Chinatown, no match in quality to Pasta Mia (1790 Columbia Rd. NW), or Cafe Milano (3000 Whitehaven St. NW), at the Italian Embassy, but enough pasta to feed you for an entire weekend.
 
The girlie but refreshing "Sojutinis" at Mandu (18th/K NW), just $4 during happy hour.

The whole menu at Bar Pilar (1833 14th St. NW), where patrolling for an empty seat gives the meal a real hunter-gatherer vibe.

The fried chicken at Founding Farmers (1924 Pennsylvania Ave. NW), a "Man v. Food" kinda adventure, paired with the obligatory waffles, but also with viscous white gravy and syrup, mac ‘n cheese and Brussels sprouts.

The New Orleans sausages at Creme (1322 U St. NW), an inspired pick-me-up for poached eggs.

The fish taco appetizer at Perry's (1811 Columbia Rd. NW), with guacamole and cabbage, good enough to justify ordering Tex-Mex at that schizophrenic sushi joint.

The name of Ping Pong (900 7th St. NW) (I'm trying to be positive), the oddly popular dim sum restaurant in Chinatown.

Everything at Bodega (3116 M St. NW), in Georgetown, the best small plates I've had in DC, including the "Ensaladilla de Palmitos con Gambas" (hearts of palm, chilled shrimp, avocado and salsa rosa) and the "Dátiles con Tocino" (crispy fried dates wrapped in bacon). Bodega is tastier than the well-meaning Mezè (2437 18th Street NW) in Adams Morgan, with its strange fascination with mojitos, and even the exceptional Bar Pilar. It's so good, in fact, that you don't feel pick-pocketed afterward, the emotional hangover of a meal  at most small plates spots around town, like Agora (1527 17th St. NW) in Dupont.


The kielbasa and cabbage and meat pierogis at the Polish Embassy open house.

The arepas at the Sabor'a food truck.

The goat curry with jollof rice at the Ghana Cafe (1336 14th St. NW), where the fufu is as gloppy, and the groundnut soup as greasy, as tradition demands.

Any appetizer, entree or dessert on offer at Tastebuds (49 W. Ferry St.) in New Hope, Penn., in Bucks County, worth the journey to the Delaware, where all bridges, and Bridge Roads, lead to New Hope.

Tusker

Last night, at a pan-African happy hour, I felt subtly bullied into ordering the Tusker, a Kenyan beer I had never heard of but that apparently sells 700,000 hectoliters per year (whatever the heck a hectoliter is).

Then this morning, at brunch at Dupont's Stoney's Lounge (1433 P St. NW), the waiter (dressed in shorts, no less!) laughed hysterically when I asked for English Breakfast tea to wash down the undercooked, soggy, $9 chili cheeseburger that I had only ordered to recapture an once of masculinity.

Chinatown, overachieving

In another installment in an occasional series of Pipón posts about the national Chinatown exceeding its high sodium, low quality expectations, I recommend the Mee Goreng noodles ($14), a "famous Malay–Indo style noodle dish" of stir–fried egg noodles, chicken, scallions and bean sprouts in a curry and peanut sauce, at Asian Spice (717 H. St. NW). Be prepared to fend off (or surrender to) a hard sell for the "Filipino Caramelized Fried Banana" ($6), fried fresh bananas coated in cinnamon and brown sugar and topped with honey and sesame seeds, but keep in mind that the marauding manager will generally be satisfied if you agree to a bowl of the creamy, crunchy, "tropical coconut" ice cream.

Fruiting body

I blame smart phones. I had convinced myself to order "The Wellington" (deep roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions, garlic, black truffles, with mustard seed, blue cheese and "mojo sauce" on a fresh toasted buttery brioche bun) at bgr (1514 Connecticut Ave. NW) in Dupont, grumpy that Rogue States (1300 Connecticut Ave.) still had not reopened and so eager to pamper myself a bit with some fancy forest treats. (Originally, I was going to settle for the standard burger, and double it for $2.) Then the iPhone at the other side of the table had to announce that the uber-haute truffle is actually just "the fruiting body of an underground mushroom," and after that, the whole burger kinda tasted like mud.

¡Creepy crawlers!

I thought I was courageous when I braved lunch lakeside at Honduras's Lago de Yojoa, a beautiful body of water where the fresh catch is said to be seasoned by heavy metals. (I was not brave enough for the pescado entero, however, so the fish you see below, beside the fried plantains, was picked clean by my driver and lunch companion.)

The real fearless eater? My buddy Nicole Firment, who crunched on some cucarachas (grasshoppers, actually) in Mexico in December. Photo (above) and video (below) by Julia Oliver.



Looking for bugs closer to home? I remember that La Laiterie, in Providence's Wayland Square, used to serve up some insects every Halloween.

For still creative but not creepy-crawly fare, I recommend the "lamb slider trio" ($18), with curry and coconut organic lamb, lime yogurt crème and rosemary and Parmesan fries, paired with any dessert, at Co Co. Sala (929 F St. NW) in DC's Chinatown, and the Cascade Cafe (6th/Constitution NW) in the National Gallery of Art (10 percent discount for federal employees, free view of the cascade waterfall for all comers). Avoid maoz (1817 M Street NW), in Dupont, where the grammatical errors in the mission statement hint at the carelessness in the food preparation. Amsterdam Falafelshop (2425 18th Street NW), in Adams Morgan, and even the Old City Cafe (1773 Columbia Rd. NW) and Shawarma King (1654 Columbia Rd. NW), are better options.

Ice fishing for pickled herring

"You don't think there are guys in Nepal who are, like, 'What should I do? Should I carry packs of heavy shit for Westerners to the top of the base camp of Everest? Or should I stay down here in Kathmandu and chant all day and check out chicks and pretend to be holy?' Why is everything cooler when it happens in a foreign country?" - Tao Of Steve

I've realized lately how vulnerable I am to this commonplace traveler's affliction. Particularly when it comes to food. When I was traveling in Southern France and Spain last May, I started wolfing down baguettes filled with  jamón ibérico as if the ingredients were not available at any decent market in DC.

Even less exotic travel can bring on a case of cooler-abroad-itis. I spent New Year's in northern Minnesota, and I would not say an unflattering word about the pickled herring my hosts generously dished out upon my arrival, let alone critique the delightful "stoup" ("soup" + "stew") of patiently simmered pheasant shotgunned by our host the previous fall; the tall stacks of Swedish pancakes at the Maplelag cross country skiing resort; or the "Lowden Zpecial" pizza at Zorbaz in downtown Detroit Lakes, slathered in peanut butter and crowned with pepperoni, jalapeños and cheese. ("Often Imitated, Never Duplicated.") Still, was Maplelag's creamy beef Strogonoff as heavenly as I remember it, or might I have been just a bit hungry from skiing the Sukkerbusk trail? Was the salsa at Juano's, in downtown Fargo, as sublime as it seemed at the time, or was I just overjoyed that the temperature was above freezing when we landed? Were the Knights of Columbus's French toast and breakfast sausages truly a religious experience, or was I just won over by the $3.50 price tag? (For the record, I stand by my awe over the deployment of cabbage in the minestrone at Capisce in Zephyr Cove, Nevada, a casual Italian joint I visited recently near Lake Tahoe that is run by a former Orioles prospect.)

This exercise in reconsideration has me second-guessing my excitement about a variety of recent out-of-town dining, in Boston and Austin (no relation). Specifically, my deep regret over every meal I've had at Baja Fresh in Dupont made me irrationally exuberant about a quick stop at the Anna's Taqueria in Coolidge Corner last October. Meanwhile, DC's underachieving Chinatown made me highly vulnerable to the charming waitress, brightly painted walls and bountiful amuse-bouche at Color, a Korean restaurant in Allston.

Similarly, I might have graded Austin on a curve (though I'm not the only one to be won over by its food scene). The chicken-fried sirloin, topped by creamy gravy, and fried okra at Threadgill's tasted a little less chewy and greasy thanks to the Sunday gospel brunch musical accompaniment and all the quirky memorabilia rescued from the historic Armadillo World Headquarters concert venue that once stood next door in the South Congress neighborhood. The migas and chorizo at Annies Cafe & Bar was a welcome break from an eggs Benedict brunch, but I'll admit I was predisposed to compliment the carne guisada at Guero's Taco Bar after a Texan friend, Grace, promised me that in Austin, "There are TONS of Mexican restaurants. In general they should all be like a 1000x better than anything on the east coast." The Peached Tortilla food truck serves its tacos with crunchy catfish (in a creamy, jalapeño slaw with bacon braised mustard greens) and vietnamese braised pork belly (pickled daikon and carrot salad, Sriracha mayo and cilantro) that puts to shame the local equivalent. But the best sidewalk bratwurst does not hold a candle to any decent choripán in the Southern Cone.

The lesson of all this rambling reconsideration? To show more love for local grub. Like the Heidenberger at the Mad Hatter (1321 Connecticut Ave. NW); the views of Woodley Park from the second floor window seats at Ipoh (2625 Connecticut Ave. NW); the small plates at Zaytinya (701 9th St. NW), good enough to ignore the tragic diversion of extra virgin olive oil into tall vases, and the Jamón Ibérico at Zatinya's sister restaurant, Jaleo (480 7th Street NW), cured ham from acorn-fed, black-footed, Spanish Ibérico pig; the patio at Hank's Oyster Bar (1624 Q St. NW), though I sat indoors on my only visit and somehow was hoodwinked into paying $23 for a lobster roll, more than even the Red Hook Lobster Pound gets away with charging; pretty much anything with raw fish at Raku (1900 Q St. NW); the entire menu at Indique (3518 Connecticut Ave. NW) and Sorriso (3512 Connecticut Ave. NW), which are good enough to convince me to move to Cleveland Park; brunch at Napoleon Bistro (1847 Columbia Rd. NW); dinner at Meskerem (2434 18th St. NW); and even though I was deprived of a partner for the whole fried fish at Bangkok 54 (2919 Columbia pike, Arlington, Va.), I can't hold that against the chef, who eased my pain with some crispy catfish curry and spicy roasted duck.

Public noodling

You're supposed to accept as an article of faith that the 7th Street Chipotle has got the only decent grub in Chinatown. I thought so for a while, after sampling some forgettable tofu at the mediocre (but descriptively named) Kanlaya Thai Cuisine (740 6th St. NW), and spending a few late-nights slurping the hot and sour soup at New Big Wong (610 H St. NW). But thanks to that voyeuristic, siren song, display window exhibition kitchen at Chinatown Express (746 6th St. NW), I can now recommend skipping Fuddruckers the next time you're hungry after a Gallery Place double feature. The fresh, "made on the spot" noodles, fried or in irresistibly gulpable broth, sell for just $6.50.

Where's the beef?

I don't know about you, but good sliders always put me in the mood for an adult-sized hamburger. This was especially true at Farmers & Fishers (3000 K St. NW), in the Georgetown waterfront, the other day, after munching on a pair of baby cheeseburgers assembled with ground-to-order, grass-fed beef, a thin blanket of Tillamook cheddar and a homemade butter bun, and served alongside homemade French fries. So you can imagine my dismay when my "Farmer’s Daughter" burger ($12) arrived (as provocatively named as Tryst) piled high with greens but with no burger in sight. The fact that this surreptitiously vegetarian entree was also missing its promised avocado, and that sliced Havarti was playing the role of the advertised brie, was just insult to injury. The lesson? Order carefully at Farmers & Fishers, or better yet, just stick to its sister restaurant, Founding Fathers (1924 Pennsylvania Ave. NW), because after sampling Farmers & Fishers and its neighbor, Tony and Joe's (3000 K St. NW), I've decided the best strategy for grabbing a meal while gazing at the Potomac River and Kennedy Center is to cook your own dinner and picnic on the promenade.


If you simply must go out to eat, try the double-cooked pork (see photo above) at the Great Wall Szechuan House (1527 14th St. NW), a casual and super cheap Chinese joint that has made it impossible for me to ever return to my trusted Oriental Cafe (1636 R Street NW), also in greater Dupont, where the plastic patio furniture had come to feel like home. If you simply must go out and Great Wall will simply not satisfy your Brewster's Millions spendthriftiness, then I recommend The Afghan Grill (2309 Calvert Street NW), in Adams Morgan, where the Badenjan Chalao ($16), eggplant sautéed with onion, garlic and tomato and served with rice and lamb, may leave you hungry, but also hungering for seconds.

Comfort food, fryalated

From the start, I had a bad attitude about Teak Wood (1323 14th St NW), in Logan Circle. I mean, given the delightful wordplaying at Thai Tanic, just across the street (and in Columbia Heights), and Thaiphoon, in Dupont Circle, I just couldn't imagine that Teak Wood would be all that creative in its menu either. It isn't. But neither is turkey and Brussels sprouts at Thanksgiving dinner.

I learned that lesson the other day when I helped two Canadian friends whip up and serve up poutine (French fries swaddled by brown gravy and topped by cheese curds) and I was chided for calling the dish, a classic Canadian comfort food, a "Montreal delicacy." A year ago, Calvin Trillin, in The New Yorker, wrote about the poutine phenomenon, noting that the dish, invented five decades ago in rural Quebec, may be "gross," disconcertingly squeaky and the go-to snack for late-night bar-hoppers, but it's also irresistible and rightly becoming a "national dish," arguably a bigger cultural force than even canoeing or moose spotting, and potentially an even more iconic Canadian foodstuff than maple syrup and Tim Hortons. (It's already so popular in Quebec that shopkeepers sell bags of cheese curds beside the cash register, and there's a restaurant in Toronto, Smoke's Poutinerie, that concocts 20 varieties of the dish.)

All this is to say that Teak Wood seems to offer a lot of familiar Thai curries, and that's good enough for me.

Steak snobbery

No disrespect to the steaks at the beloved bargain steakhouse Ray's: The Steaks, in Arlington (2300 Wilson Blvd.). But if they are going to get all preachy about their carving skills and the deliciousness of their corn-fed animals, and sanctimoniously swat away any "medium-well" or (gasp!) "well" orders, then why later drown all the meat in horseradish and sliced raw garlic and spicy diablo sauce and crumbled blue cheese and Cajun spice rubs? Anyone who has ever ordered a steak in Uruguay, Argentina or Brazil will have to wonder what condimint-happy Ray is trying to hide.

I hardly knew ya'

I thought I'd stumbled into an historic scene when I strolled past the Chilean Embassy tonight and spotted a crowd staring at a giant TV screen broadcasting the rescue of the 33 trapped miners. But after all that drama had given me an appetite, a friend and I hit up Rogue States (1300 Connecticut Ave.) for dinner, only to discover that my Rogue States burger ($7 for 1/2-pounds of spiced beef with chipotle, cilantro and grilled red onions) may turn out to be the last to ever come off that beloved mesquite wood-fired grill. It seems Rogue States has lost its court battle Vs. a neighboring law firm that was unhappy litigating to the scent of roasted ground chuck. At least it went out in style, the grim-faced short-order cooks blasting Ludacris and serving up sweet potato fries until the end.

New Jack Hustler

To clean up a sizable Pipón backlog, I say a few more Darts & Laurels (h/t to CJR) are in order.

Laurels:

The salmon tartare at Poste (555 8th St. NW), served in an ice cream cone, over crème fraiche, is so inventive and refreshing (and the Summer Selection of Farmstead Cheese, with thinly cut raisin-walnut toast is so lovingly assembled) that I have forgotten all about the whole mustard-ice-cream-in-the-gazpacho incident.

The remarkable beer list, scrumptious fries (with a highly recommendable chipotle mayo dip) and general just-hip-enough vibe at Granville Moore’s (1238 H St. NW) more than make up for the eye-popping price tag on the humble bison burger.

The traditional triumvirate in New Orleans: beignets at Cafe Du Monde (see photo), the red beans and rice at Mother's (see photo of hot sauces), and the Bananas Foster at Brennan's, a highly unoriginal, yet hard to resist culinary itinerary.


Darts:

The supremely lame, albeit understandable, no Wi-Fi on weekends policy at Tryst (2459 18th St. NW), from the same penny-pinching philosophy that leads Chef Geoff's (1301 Pennsylvania Ave. NW) to corral its happy hour crowd in a cramped quadrant by the bar.

The general laziness at Dos Gringos (3116 Mount Pleasant St. NW), a self-consciously quirky lunch spot that never offers Wi-Fi (social engineering), regularly runs out of ingredients (a supposed sign of freshness), and uses the microwave like it's going out of style. 

Throw it back

$35 is a bargain for a three-course meal at a restaurant where the lobster risotto alone normally sells for $29. Still, even if Hook (3241 M St. NW, in Georgetown) had paid me to eat there, I might still have been disappointed by its Restaurant Week performance. Yes, the Yellow Fin Tuna was served nice and rare, but Hook forgot to season the black beans, lazily relying on the bacon lardons and mismatched mango butter. Yes, a spring pea risotto is a cozy bed for Pacific Cod, but only if it's even a little creamy and the promised chili oil is detectable without a mass spectrometer.

Hook did a bit better with its appetizers and desserts, the Taylor Bay Scallop Pan Roast with roast corn succatash, chorizo and quicos was generously portioned, though the chorizo was hard to locate; ditto for the Grilled Calamari mushroom cappuccino, scallion and crispy poached egg, though the calamari tasted more burnt than grilled. No complaints whatsoever about the campily named but mesmerizingly sweet "Just Peachy" (cardamom panna cotta, peach preserves and pistachio cookie) and the "That's S'more Like It" (chocolate cinnamon cake, toasted marshmellow ice cream and bittersweet chocolate sauce). But none of that made up for Hook's impolite and inattentive host and waitress; the unfortunately positioned streetlight brightening the second floor like it was a crime scene; and the absence of information on the menu about Hook's admirable commitment to sustainable fish, leaving customers to wonder if the chef's fish selections are simply an attempt to sell cheaper, more abundant species to raise Hook's profit margin.

Zagat, tag it, sell it to the butcher in the store

More props for Arlington, Va.-based Five Guys, with a Zagat survey crowning the country's fastest-growing restaurant chain as home of the best fast food burger. I guess that's exciting, but I imagine sitting just a few slots above McDonald's and Burger King on any list would be a bit deflating for a company that takes pride in its fresh ground beef and just-say-no-to-freezers pledge.

Bossa no thanks

Maybe my expectations were too high, since I thought picanha was so good it'd be tasty even run over by a bullet train. But it turns out, the best thing The Grill From Ipanema (1858 Columbia Rd. NW, in Adams Morgan) has on the menu is its clever name. The caipirinhas ($7.50) are poured too short, the picanha ($21) is cooked too long, the onions in the linguiça a palito ($10), mixed in with the spicy sliced sausage, are basically raw, the black beans are practically unseasoned and the farofa, ground yuca roasted with garlic and butter, looks like a flavor-packed S. Asian spice, but tastes like pencil shavings.

Can Opener

For a minute, I truly contemplated okra tacos. But I flinched, in a moment of lame vegetable aisle wimpiness, and so sweet corn became the taco night headliner. "Sweet corn is an emotional food when you eat it picked fresh from the field, just full of feelings, you just sit and you weep" (A Prairie Home Companion). Perhaps at Lake Wobegon. Here in DC, the most I can say is it sure is cheap and crunchy.
   

Speaking of corn, I was excited to see Open City (2331 Calvert St. NW), the overrated Woodley Park cousin of Adams Morgan's underrated 24-hour Diner (2453 18th St. NW) and Tryst (next door to The Diner) trying to work some magic with creamed corn. You see, creamed corn was a childhood staple in our house, served with Heinz vegetarian baked beans and grated Parmesan. Open City's version? A concocted coconut creamed corn side sold for $3.50 a bowl. I'd hate to hate on the yellowy, gooey, crunchy gruel, since I'm a pretty nostalgic fellow, but I'm going to stick with the Gedan corn-and-beans recipe.

There are a few things that I can recommend. The beer flight at Meridian Pint (3400 11th St. NW, opposite RedRocks); the family style lunch specials at the shadowy Magic Gourd (528 23rd St NW, in Foggy Bottom); everything at Pho 14 (1436 Park Rd. NW, in Columbia Heights), the biggest food bargain in DC, and that's including the deeply discounted Morningstar products at the nearby Target; the happy hour cocktails at Bar Dupont (1500 New Hampshire Av. NW), but only out on the patio; the phoenix roll (shrimp tempura, spicy tuna and avocado) ($12), a nice mix of mushy mashed tuna and crunchy fried shrimp, at Perry's (1811 Columbia Rd. NW, in Adam's Morgan), but only up on the roof; the Texas Burger ($11), slathered with smoky chipotle BBQ sauce and topped by pickles, fried onion straws and coleslaw, but with the upper bun brilliantly held aloft by a toothpick, keeping it blissfully unsoggy, served alongside gimmicky but tasty Tater Tots, at Tonic (2036 G St. NW, in Foggy Bottom); and finally, arguably the best meal in South Dupont Circle (other than the once-a-year free burgers and hot dogs and pizza served up in the Circle by the DC police), the barbacoa burrito at Tomatillo Taqueria, the Mexican takeout lunch stand at The Big Hunt (1347 Connecticut Ave. NW), served best with the spicy tomatillo sauce, fresh pico de gallo and guacamole (it's an extra $1 for the avocado) and sauteed onions, but it's cash only and closed from August 9-13.

Have fruit, will freeze

I'm typing quickly. For now, Pleasant Pops is generating buzz and brain freeze in equal measure, but it is still inches below the foodie radar, hyped by the DCist and Prince of Petworth but unsung by the good ol' mainstream media. Apparently, however, The Washington Post, Washingtonian and others have started sniffing around the Pleasant Pops bike cart, parked on Saturdays at the Mount Pleasant Farmers’ Market. So just so Pipón can say it is in the frozen desserts vanguard, here are a few shots of the Pleasant Pops action this morning at the farmers’ market, where the good people from Pleasant Pops, founded in March 2009 by a friend's brother, Roger, offered up a handful of their 60 original flavors ($2.50 a pop, literally) including strawberries-and-cream and watermelon-and-cucumber, and hunted-and-gathered for ingredients for next week, including fresh basil, blackberries and peaches. (I had the strawberry pop, and it was delicious, even if I had to eat it in 30 seconds before it melted.)






UPDATE: MSM has found Pleasant Pops indeed, http://n.pr/cwtJiU, http://bit.ly/akSIUN.

Bogart that bubble

The $3 Summer Sam "long necks" live up to the "best happy hour in DC!" come-on, but corralling the happy hour crowd in a cramped quadrant by the bar, even while most of Chef Geoff's (1301 Pennsylvania Ave. NW) sits empty, is the type of self-defeating cheapskating I'm more accustomed to seeing at hotels that still charge for Wi-Fi and cities that don't give free transfers between subways and buses.

In other news, I saw a great anti-smoking ad last night before The Duchess, who apparently hit the bottle pretty hard and liked to gamble, but was not a smoker.

Caliente, not picante?

No disrespect to the mega restaurant Lauriol Plaza (1835 18th Street NW), where the chefs manage not only to feed hundreds of people nightly, on three floors and a packed patio, but also to come up with appealing specials, like the hulking leg of lamb I ordered last night. But seriously, doesn't it seem upside down to serve the homemade salsa hot in temperature and mild in spiciness, and not the other way around?