Banana Cafe and Piano Bar, Washington, D.C.

We were at Capitol Hill Wednesday night and ended up walking down towards Eastern Market for dinner, but we ultimately walked down Barracks Row in quest of a place to eat. When we got to the actual Marine barracks, I wanted to go in and watch the evening parade, but Robert didn't want to go on base. Alas. So, we walked back up the street and, after he nixed Belga Cafe, we went in to Banana Cafe and Piano Bar, a fun Cuban place that also has some Puerto Rican and Mexican menu items in addition to the Cuban cuisine.

Robert got the Cuban picadillo, a dish of spiced ground beef and pork simmered in Creole sauce he'd never before tried, and he reported good things about it. It came with rice and fried plantains.


I had a Cuban sandwich, the traditional pressed sandwich filled with roast pork, ham, and Swiss cheese, with fries. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the sandwich had a lot of meat and was quite delicious.


Robert also discovered for the first time a Brazilian cocktail, the caipirinha, a deliciously addictive drink made with fresh lime juice, sugar, and a fermented sugar cane liquor called cachaça. Many people think of the caipirinha as a sort of Brazilian margarita, but I think it's a whole lot more like a gimlet, only made with cachaça instead of vodka. They're quite tasty, whatever they remind one of, and I would have liked to have had one instead of my ubiquitous iced tea. The cocktail distracted him from the Hispanic art hanging on the walls, something apparently not very much to Robert's sophisticated Arkansan tastes.

Before we went home, we wandered into a liquor store in a more Hispanic neighborhood and found the cachaça. There's a standard grade that's about 80 proof and not terribly expensive at about $14 for a quart, and then a higher quality variety that's about $32 for a fifth. We may have to have a caipirinha party this summer.

I'm anxious to go back to Banana Cafe. They have a *lot* of things on their menu that sound delicious and I'm anxious to try them. Did I mention the handsome waiters?