Dupont's edible esoterica

I'm proud to say ("proud" might be overstating it) that I've now lunched at Dupont Circle's two worst-kept secrets: The Well Dressed Burrito (1220 19th St. NW) and the Brookings Institution cafeteria (1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW). Both are vaguely hidden, a la the nightclubs featured in Swingers. The Well Dressed Burrito serves up its large, marinated beef burritos ($6.50), using actual pulled meat instead of cheap ground beef, in an alleyway; the Brookings Institution cafeteria is, you guessed it, inside the Brookings Institution.


Neither, however, is truly obscure. The Brookings lunch experience, for example, has been deconstructed on Yelp, where one reviewer judged its food to be "just like its politics," that is, "middle of the road." As for The Well Dressed Burrito, here's a Pipón tip: the staff must be used to regulars since they neglected to remind me that the burrito "platter" is just $1 extra and includes homemade enchilada sauce, beans, Southwestern rice and some greens; when I visited, I was so busy dissuading my friend Lauren Miller from ordering a salad that I missed the listing on the menu.

If you want to eat somewhere truly "off the beaten path," try my sister-in-law Marni's garden-level apartment, where I tried the turkey meatballs and Israeli couscous and roasted broccoli the other day.

Burrito photography by Lauren Miller.

Couscous, carrots

In a tagine, couscous with chickpeas and sauteed sliced carrots, onions and garlic, adapted from Pam Anderson's Perfect Recipes for Having People Over. I added ground cumin; next time, I'm going to sneak in some chopped pistachios.

Hard boiled couscous

My roommate had hidden the hard-boiled eggs in their, er, it's not called an "egg crate," is it? That's right, it's an "egg carton." Anyway, I found them. And I tossed them with leftover Near East roasted garlic & olive oil couscous, perhaps the fastest cooking food on the Earth, faster than an egg on a hot sidewalk, as they say. Of course, I also squirted on some Sriracha hot chili sauce, but only because I was eating (I don't yet use it as hair gel.)