Spaghetti Garden, Washington, D.C.

It was another "First Tuesday" of the month in Adams-Morgan this week, so Ian and I journeyed up to find a new restaurant experience with their useful "food and drink for two for $25" program. We went by about a dozen restaurants before finding one Ian didn't reject, finally entering Spaghetti Garden for some simple Italian-American food. Oh, there was one place we went into planning to eat, but, even though we both were just clad casually in blazers, khaki trousers, and striped ties, we were clearly very overdressed for the place, judging from those seated at the bar; after waiting over five minutes by the door to be seated, greeted, or whatever, all to no avail, we left.

The Spaghetti Garden is a rather older, run-down sort of place (though I hear they recently spruced up the place) that really is more bar than restaurant. Only a few low dinner tables are in the front of the restaurant. A large bar dominates most of the dining room, with tall bar tables near the bar and in the back of the room. I discovered later on a trip to the men's room that the entire basement is a full room with a big bar, so this place is probably jam-packed with people on the weekends. Ian chose a bar table opposite the center of the bar because there was a large flat panel TV over the back of the bar playing CNN and the primary election returns.

The bartender, a t-shirt clad, straight jock type, was clueless when it came to the First Tuesday promotion. I would have moved on to a more cooperative establishment, but Ian was already glued to the television, so I acquiesced in staying, since the menu was on the very inexpensive side.

Ian started with an order of bruschetta and gleefully continued to mispronounce it all night long just to annoy me (it's "bruce-KAY-tah," not "brew-SHEHT-uh"). It was a hearty dish featuring two full-sized slices of garlic bread instead of the usual thin toasts and topped with a mound of coarsely chopped tomato, basil, and mozzarella cheese tossed in olive oil.



I had calimari fritti, another dish that was served in pieces larger than the norm. The squid actually wasn't bad, and was surprisingly tender for such large rings (squid is very easy to overcook, rendering it tough and chewy). The large serving of marinara was ordinary, but I don't use much sauce, so that didn't bother me. We also split a carafe of the house red wine, a wine with the virtues of being both drinkable and cheap.



The bartender/waiter recommended three things on the menu, and we got two of them (the third was the assortment of parmeggiana sandwiches). Ian ordered the saffron linguine with grilled chicken. Red and green bell peppers had been cut into strips, cooked, and mixed in with the diced chicken, and enrobed in a cream sauce around the linguine. I expected the dish to be bright saffron yellow, but it looked to me like plain cream sauce; Ian didn't really know what saffron was, so he couldn't tell me if it tasted of saffron or not, and I never got around to sampling it myself.



I got the pasta primavera with cream sauce instead of red sauce. I had chicken added to mine, as well, and I really enjoyed the little moments of bitterness and intense flavor that you get when you grill meats and get little spots of char. The "primavera" was broccoli and bell peppers. I thought the dish tasty and filling, though clearly this restaurant focuses on quantity and satiety values, not gourmet subtlety or presentation.



We wanted dessert, but the bartender said they didn't have any. Apparently, that was an unusually busy Tuesday night—there were four tables plus one man eating alone at the bar—and they ordinarily don't do desserts except on weekends.