James Hoban's Irish Restaurant and Bar, Washington, D.C.

After spending the whole day yesterday with the lodge, as soon as we were done, I went straight home. Kevin and Robert, however, had other ideas, and soon drove over to abduct me and make me go with them to join several others at James Hoban's Irish Restaurant and Bar. That's getting to be a regular post-event haunt of several lodge members, since namesake James Hoban, the architect of the White House, was the first master (president) of our lodge back in 1793.

We sat outside on the patio. A bunch of guys were already there; some had already come and gone. Kevin and Robert got glasses of Guinness; I got an Irish whiskey.

Kevin and I wanted "traditional" Irish food to get. He got "bangers and mash" (or, in Amurricun, that's pork sausages with mashed potatoes and onion gravy) that looked pretty good for that sort of thing.


I got fish and chips. I liked mine (I even used the malt vinegar on the fish), but one of the other guys at the table who got the same thing wasn't a big fan of his. They came with little tiny ramekins of "mushy peas," which were just smashed-up, American-style peas instead of the truly authentic, brownish, English-style, mushy peas.


Even with the other American-style food, they try to take the Irish theme through with Irish-inspired ingredients. For example, on these sandwiches, a burger and a chicken sandwich, they included a big slice of Irish bacon and some Irish cheeses.



This is the first time I've sat out on the patio at Hoban's. I thought the service was very, very slow out there.....usually inside the restaurant, service is "normal." At one point, Kevin ran into the restaurant to try to find and fetch a server. Alas. It was still early enough, too, that the Saturday night crowds weren't there yet.

Nobody had dessert. We thought it was more important to have a second round on drinks! LOL