DC Trip Report - part III

Friday and Saturday were both crap in terms of weather, so our outings were not all we had planned, unfortunately. The weather, did not, however, stop us from eating more fabulous food.

Lunch on Friday was at Good Stuff Eatery, which is owned by Spike Mendelsohn of Top Chef fame.  You remember him -- he was the one with all the fedoras.  And he did not disappoint when we were there, as it was a brown hat day.

We got there right before the lunch rush, but the tables were already full up -- I had to stalk for one while Jon waited for the food. 

The stalking was worth it. 

I had the Coletti's Smokehouse: "Applewood Bacon, Sharp Vermont Cheddar, Fried Vidalia Onion Rings with Chipotle BBQ Sauce".  (Oddly, the burger Jon had, which was called something to do with Obama, is no longer listed on their online menu, so I can't tell you exactly what was on that.)  We split an order of Sunny's Handcut Fries, and we each had a toasted marshmallow milkshake.

Oh, boy.

In part II of this little trip report, you might remember me singing the praises of Central's burger.

After I tried today's burger, the thought in my head was, "Central who?"

It was really hard to compare the burgers at Central and Good Stuff, actually.  They both were really amazing in their own right.  However, in terms of an overall meal experience, Good Stuff got the blue ribbon hands down.  And it was all because of that toasted marshmallow milkshake.  Seriously, it was like a religious experience in a glass -- it was that good.  If you go to DC and don't treat yourself to one of these shakes, you're doing yourself a serious disservice.

No pictures of the food... I was too busy enjoying it. 

After lunch, we headed over to the Library of Congress, which neither of us had ever been to. 

We wandered around there for awhile -- pretty interesting stuff, and a gorgeous building on the inside.

After that, we took the underground tunnel across the street and looked around in the new Visitor's Center for a bit.  We didn't plan to have a tour or anything, so there wasn't a whole lot there we could do.

The rain had gotten pretty heavy by then, and it was cold, so we made our way back to the hotel, beating rush hour again.  We'd left our dinner plans open, and since our trip to Hank's the previous day got screwed up, we decided to go there.  We figured this was also a good option, as they don't take reservations, but you can call 20 minutes ahead, and they'll put your name down.  So that's what we did. 

I took this when we thought we were having lunch there.

We slogged back out into the nasty weather, and still had a bit of a wait once we made the walk, but it was well worth it. 

To start, we were brought a small bowl of Goldfish crackers to munch on, which I thought was a cute touch.  Jon ordered some of the day's oysters (I don't touch those things when they're raw -- BLECH), and for our entrees, we decided to get the lobster roll and fried oyster dinner, and share.  This was my first lobster roll ever, and it was delicious.  Oh, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  The fried oysters were great too, but they can't hold a candle to the lobster roll.  Num, num.  Once our meal was done, our waiter brought out another little bowl, this time with chopped semi-sweet chocolate.  He said that's what they do, since they don't serve dessert. 

One thing I will say is that the tables at Hank's were PACKED in.  I don't think I've ever been in such a tight space in a restaurant before.  That was really my only complaint about the whole meal, and even that wasn't a huge deal...even though the old guy behind me did have his elbow jammed into my back for several minutes after we sat down.  Hmph.