Foodventures: Washington, DC

My last visit to DC was 20 years ago when I first moved to the US at the age of four, an age far too young to appreciate what a fun city it is.

Of course, now that I actually care about money, the first thing that struck me about DC is the plethora of free activities; I especially enjoyed the Smithsonian, a museum so expansive and fascinating that I would have gladly paid for it. I highly recommend DC to anyone looking for a quick get away; flying into Baltimore (an hour away, where I lived for a year and a half in my childhood and is a city definitely NOT worth visiting) from Chicago was just $87 round trip!

But onto the food! By far the most important part of any trip across the country (other than friends, of course).

First stop: Busboys and Poets. I think it's safe to say that it's my first time eating brunch in a bookstore; in fact, I'm confident that the restaurant was actually 80% bookstore. To my greatest shame and dismay, I am still suffering from PTSD from a very strenuous college education and find myself unable to read books anymore, so I could not to enjoy that part of the establishment. However, I definitely enjoyed the crab cake benedict I ordered! Crab might be my favorite shellfish and the dish was perfectly decadent and flavorful.

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After wandering the zoo we stumbled into Baked & Wired, the primary rival of the notorious Georgetown Cupcakes. My friend and I stood in line for an hour ordered four cupcakes (I'm pretty sure that we were the only ones in the shop to do this).

The line in front of Baked and Wired

We ordered a peanut butter and banana cupcake, a chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache, a lemon cupcake with raspberry buttercream, and a vanilla cupcake with a hazelnut core and chocolate ganache. The ranking is as follows:

1. Lemon & raspberry: The raspberry buttercream was delightfully tart and the actual cake was chock-full of natural lemon flavor.
2. Double chocolate: How could you possibly screw this up? It was amazing as usual, but I could probably make this at home.
3. Hazelnut: It was okay.
4. PB & banana: This one was legitimately disappointing. I love the combination of peanut butter and banana but for some reason this cupcake tasted horribly bland; the banana cupcake wasn't even that banana-y and the peanut butter frosting tasted like the inside of a Reese's cup. Would not recommend.

Ordering 4 cupcakes was overkill. Wasn't my idea!

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We called it a day pretty early and went for brunch at Founding Farmers the next day. I ordered the Founding Farmers breakfast, which was an American breakfast served your way - mine was two scrambled eggs, applewood smoked bacon, grilled buttered ciabatta, and leek hash browns. Everything was really well prepared - I especially enjoyed the bacon, which was thick cut and perfectly smoked.

I also ordered some banana foster pancakes, which were also delicious and fluffy.

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After a day at the Smithsonian (which is a marvelous museum that makes one wonder why anyone would choose not to believe in evolution) and exploring the city, we wandered into Old Ebbitt Grill for dinner. The ambiance was very old-timey and the place was completely packed, to the point where we even had to wait 15 minutes for them to provide a table for our reservation. Being on the coast I went for a classic lobster with fries.

I don't have a lot of experience eating whole lobster so I can't say where Old Ebbitt Grill's stands overall, but in conjunction with the crab cake benedict I had the day before, I was able to confirm a sneaking suspicion that I've always had: I prefer crab to lobster.

Is that criminal? I can't explain why I prefer one over the other but that's just how I feel. Don't judge me.

I was still happy though

I had a really great experience in DC. If time permits, i would love to visit again.

Restaurants mentioned:

Busboys and Poets
2021 14th St NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 387-7638
busboysandpoets.com

Baked & Wired
1052 Thomas Jefferson St NW
Washington, DC 20007
(703) 663-8727
bakedandwired.com

Founding Farmers
1924 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 822-8783
wearefoundingfarmers.com

Old Ebbitt Grill
675 15th St NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 347-4800
ebbitt.com

Places I wanted to go but could not due to time constraints/the finite nature of the human stomach:

Rose's Luxury
717 8th St SE
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 580-8889
rosesluxury.com

Bistrot Du Coin
1738 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 234-6969
bistrotducoin.com

Go there for me!