Eating DC

I separated my June trip to Washington D.C. into three parts...  DAR, White House, and now FOOD!  I will admit, during the busy week, I ate a lot of toaster pastries, deli sandwiches, street hot dogs... but when I did get out and eat, it was ALWAYS with friends.

My very first night in DC, my mentor and her family treated me to a burger and hard cider at Oh George! in Fairfax, VA.  I went for their Red Eye burger, because it came with an egg on it, of course!  And bacon.  For the fries, I splurged on the truffled parmesan fries.  Definitely worth the upgrade, and the fries were nicely crispy!  I hate soggy fries.

Oh George!

Later, once I was in DC proper, my friend M and I walked from our rental to Burger Tap & Shake.  Since I'd had a burger recently, I decided to go completely creative on this one, and I ordered their special of the moment: the Count of Monte Cristo burger.  Holy cow.  Swiss cheese, shaved ham, turkey, a BURGER, Dijon aioli and raspberry jam between slices of French toast.  It was a heart attack burger, but the combinations of flavor just made it work perfectly.  Oh, and fries.  I didn't have the heart to get a shake (or the stomach) but those looks fab too.  It was a casual, order at the counter, have them call your name for a tray of deliciousness kind of place.  Perfect for the college student crowd in the area.

Burger Tap & Shake

Confession: I have loved Milk Bar from afar, mooching cookies and cakes off people who've actually been to one.  So when I was near one during a walk around DC, I picked up a slice of crack pie and some corn cookies.  Every bit as indulgent and good as I'd imagined.

The crack pie was my favorite, but that might be because I ate multiple sweet, corn cookies.  The crack pie reminds me a little bit of a Paula Deen recipe, because it's just butter and sugar magically coming together to make something really, really, tasty.

I was blessed to see a couple of old high school friends.  Yay!  Non-food pic because people > food.

K & E... and me!

One night, my friend K and I went to Elephant & Castle, a great pub!  I had a pasta dish and we people-watched folks viewing sports on TV.  I hear it's a great pub for watching football, the one Americans call soccer.  I have no idea why American football is called football, it only gets kicked a few times!

Another night, my friend E and I went to Ambar, a Balkan restaurant where we ordered ALL THE THINGS.  So much deliciousness.

We started with the strawberry kajmak bar (with prosciutto and basil) and hummus.  They gave us two types of bread for dipping, one that was fried.  So good!  I love hummus, and the strawberry dip was so perfect with the salty meat combo.  LOVE.  Beautiful.

For our food, we ordered the Ambar fries, Balkan kebab, meat pie, and cinnamon sweet sourdough with Nutella for dessert.  They even gave us a little more dessert on the house.  YUM!  I find that when I share small plates with others for a meal like this, I don't leave the meal feeling completely overstuffed.  The pacing was great, and the plates a good size.

On my last night in DC, my friends J&N indulged with me in a little dim sum in Chinatown at Ping Pong.  We ended up at a restaurant that was a little more fusion/trendy than traditional dim sum, but we enjoyed it!  I can't recall which drink I had, but I remember it had boba and a straw for the pearls! I think it was their Ping Pong signature drink looking at the menu now, but not sure.

We went the shared route with this meal too, and it was a smart move.  I'll be honest with you, looking at their menu now, over a month later, I can't remember what we ate.  I do know we had the five spice pork belly fried rice, because I think that was the spicy bowl pictured below.  And we had mochi.  But the exhaustion of the week just kind of blurred it all together for me, and the drinks to boot.  Let's just say we had a good time, ate good fusion dim sum, and called it a night.  :)

There are definitely more places I want to hit up the next time in DC.

Where should I go next year?