Clyde's of Chevy Chase, Chevy Chase, Md.

Thursday night my friend Caleb and I went to the Friendship Heights/Chevy Chase area for the grand opening of the new Bloomingdale's store. After our inspection shopping tour, we walked across the street to Clyde's of Chevy Chase for dinner. Clyde's, of course, is a small local D.C. area chain that includes several Clyde's plus 1789, Old Ebbitt Grill, and some others. Ordinarily, the restaurants are all pretty independent, but having been to Old Ebbitt just the night before, I was somewhat chagrined to noticed nearly identical menus at Clyde's of Chevy Chase and Old Ebbitt. Now, that's not necessarily a problem, since I love the food at Ebbitt, but I was expecting just a little bit more variety or I'd have chosen another restaurant.

Caleb started off the evening with a cocktail, and after perusing the drink menu at length could only find one thing he liked: a Pink Cadillac. So, here's a picture of Caleb doing a Kody Pose with a Pink Cadillac.

He also wanted an appetizer, so he ordered the calimari, with the special request that they bring him the deep fried version instead of the standard pan-fried calimari they usually do at Clyde's. It came with a chipotle pepper-scented aioli dipping sauce.

Our entrees were fairly simple. He ordered a steak sandwich. They brought him a great big open-faced sandwich that looked really good, though he was wanting a top slice of bread so he could eat it sandwich-style instead of with a fork. I thought the presentation was fun, though, and it included a cup of steak drippings for an au jus French dip-type option. It also came with French fries.


Since my waist line has sneaked up above 32", I decided to eat healthily and stick to a salad. I got the Santa Fe steak salad, a big bowl of romaine, black beans, and corn with some slices of steak on top in a simple chipotle dressing (the Clyde's group must get chipotles by the truck load, since not only was it the predominant seasoning Thursday night, we'd also seen it in the sweet potato gratin at Ebbitt the night before). Nevertheless, I found the salad to be quite adequate and to have a nice balance of flavors.