Election Night at RFD and Five Guys, Washington, D.C.

Ian, being the political scholar that he is, and what with his recent affiliation with Obama-supporting politicians on the Hill, seems much more highly invested in the Democratic primaries and elections than am I. He's also from Pennsylvania. Last night I'd just gotten in, but he dragged me out to dine and watch the Pennsylvania returns. It seemed all anticlimactic to me, since we know Obama has always trailed Clinton there, and the most recent polls gave her a five to ten point lead. But, I acquiesced to joining him, only to find him in a frenzy to locate a bar or a restaurant where CNN was showing.

Now, finding CNN turned out to be an unusually difficult task. You see, we agreed to meet in Chinatown. And Chinatown happens to be next to the Verizon Center. And the Verizon Center happens to be where the Washington Capitals do professional hockey games. And the Washington Capitals happened to have been in the last match of a series to determine some really, really important hockey title last night. And every single bar and every single restaurant in the Chinatown area had their televisions tuned to the hockey performance as packed bars and dining rooms watched and cheered.

But as we circumnavigated the area, we happened to look in a window, and, lo and behold! we espied CNN on a television. We had to walk all the way around the block to get into the establishment, but Ian was determined, and so off we went to a place called Regional Food and Drink. It turned out to be a private watch party in a small back room far away from the rabid hockey crowd in the main restaurant.

Yes, indeed, it was a private watch party for a group called "Art for Obama." We paid our $5 cover charge to get into the party (fortunately the door guy spelled my name wrong on the sign-in sheet), and found a rather small and sedate group of people looking at the work of four or five local artists and sitting around eating cheap cheese cubes, broccoli florets, and slices of a still-frozen strawberry cream cake. My martini was rather unceremoniously served to me in a plastic beer cup—whatever happened to Democrats standing around sipping white wine and martinis in proper stemware as they nibble on baked brie en croute? Soon, they had an auction for three donated art works, but I think only three or four people were even bidding, and the highest sale price was only $35 (the minimum for that painting).

After the auction, though, they didn't turn the volume back up on the televisions for quite some time until several people complained to the bartender. Meanwhile, CNN promptly projected the race for Clinton, and Ian the Political Scientist was distressed that he couldn't hear their alleged rationale for their early projection. Then, about nine o'clock, they started wrapping up their watch party! Ian had been looking at the menu, thinking to order dinner, but he didn't want to stay after that.

Then we ended up walking all over Chinatown once again, braving the swarms of ticketless hockey fans out and around the Verizon Center, looking for a dining establishment that struck Ian's fancy and was consistent with his gustatorial eccentricities. Finally, just before the end of the hockey performance and the release of hundreds of hungry and disappointed hockey supporters, we landed at a Five Guys, getting our food and sitting down just seconds before the restaurant was swamped.

And thus was my evening. What did you do last night?

Franklin's Brewery, College Park, Md.

Sunday evening, Robert and I Metroed up to College Park to meet Kevin for dinner. Kevin ended up picking Franklin's Brewery for our meal.

Franklin's is a small microbrewery and restaurant with a casual, rustic feel. They were not terribly crowded when we arrived and I noticed they closed at 9 p.m. (we're out in the suburbs!). Wait staff looked to be high school and college students. The menu was quite interesting, and there were probably half a dozen entrees I would have liked to have tried, from a "PA. Mennonite style" duck to a bratwurst platter, so I'll have to make another trip.

Robert got the pulled pork platter with cole slaw and baked beans. I expected the pork to be in larger pieces with less sauce; what he got looked like what would be placed on a sandwich, rather than a free-standing entrée.


Kevin ordered the cowboy burger, a bacon cheddar cheese burger served with barbeque sauce and some thick-cut French fries. Neither of the guys offered any opinion as to their food, though they both cleaned their plates.


I had the sliced meatloaf on a bed of tasty garlic mashed potatoes and accompanied by a little side dish of a sweet corn pudding. The meatloaf slice had been grilled, giving it a smokey flavor and little crispy bits. Topping the meatloaf was a mound of heavily seasoned buttermilk-soaked fried onions reminiscent of thin onion rings. On one of his passes back by the table, the waiter noticed that my meatloaf was not covered in gravy (apparently it was supposed to have been), so he came back with a little bowl of mushroom gravy.


For dessert, we all split a single slice of the Vesuvius cake. I think the other guys were expecting something more along the line of a chocolate lava cake (warm, molten chocolate on the inside), but this was more of a stylized cheesecake combination. There was a thin cake layer on the bottom, topped by a light white chocolate mousse on the inner two-thirds, and a chocolate ganache on the outer third; caramel and chocolate sauce drizzles and chopped peanuts garnished the slice, with a couple of squirts of whipped cream on the plate. Oddly, the three of us didn't finish the entire slice.

Etete Ethiopean Cuisine, Washington, D.C.

Saturday, Robert wanted to get together for a late dinner, so we wandered over to U Street, originally thinking we'd go to Ben's Chili Bowl, but there was a huge crowd there, so we walked on down the street and selected a new-to-us place, Etete Ethiopean Cuisine. Etete has been listed on several top restaurant lists, so we thought it would be a safe choice.

They have an attractive restaurant that seats only about three dozen in a long, very narrow dining room painted in warm gold tones. It looks like pretty much any contemporary restaurant in D.C., down to the big bar in the back end. On one wall, there was a little bit of small, framed, Ethiopean art, but the rest of that wall and all of the other wall was lined with all kinds of reviews and awards. There is a club room upstairs (we didn't go up) that featured live music; we saw a lot of very well-dressed Ethiopean-Americans coming and going up there.

As is typical for Ethiopean restaurants, both of our food was served on the same injera bread-lined platter. Injera is like a very large, round, spongey, sourdough tortilla made from teff flour (an African grain). I ordered the Special Etete kitfo, a dish of minced beef with hot pepper spices and herbed Ethiopean butter. It's often eaten raw, but I asked for it to be cooked; it was, but it was definitely very rare. The "special" meant that the dish was accompanied by three different types of fresh-made cheese. Robert, not being terribly adventurous that night, ordered just the regular kitfo, so that's why we have two piles of the same thing on the platter. The kitfo had a nice, fresh flavor, though I would have preferred less oiliness from all the butter poured over the meat. The meal also came with a little green salad, some nicely flavored chopped, stewed collard greens, and some yellow lentils (all served on the platter), plus a basketful of rolled up injera that is used in place of flatware to grasp and eat the food.

We inquired about dessert (many Ethiopean places serve Italian-style desserts, since Italy once occupied neighboring Eritrea), but they don't have desserts at Etete.

Etete offered us a pleasant dining experience with lots of attending staff and decent food at reasonable prices. Our evening was marred only by a table of four drunk women—business colleagues—who were having some kind of party and being very, very loud. Unfortunately, the waitresses continued to serve the women cocktails, and they were still there when Robert and I left.

The Diner, Washington, D.C.

Ian called at midnight Friday, wanting to "do something." We agreed to meet in Adams-Morgan, since that was about halfway between where we both were at the time, at The Diner, one of the very few places in D.C. open 24 hours a day.

Ian had an egg sandwich made on an English muffin with flat scrambled egg and gruyère cheese, and home fries, all washed down with a strawberry-banana colada. Then for dessert, he had what looked like really tasty cherry pie à la mode.




I opted to drink dinner, having a couple of gin martinis, up, olives.