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Tag: American

Dining in DC: Brookside Restaurant

February 17, 2025 / / 0 Comments 
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital

This unpretentious restaurant in rural Virginia reminded us we were in the South

After several days of enjoying the sights of Washington DC, it was time to explore the surroundings. Most specifically, of visiting Shenandoah National Park. Alas, winter is definitely not the time to do so. The trees were bare, the birds were hiding and the scenery was monolithic and boring – though there was the occasional road side waterfall and family of deer to bring momentary joy.

After hours of driving and sight seeing, we were pretty hungry so when we came about signs for Brookside Restaurant on the road, we headed there for some fuel. The restaurant is located in a resort of sorts, where they rent cabins year round for those wanting to venture into the nearby Luray caverns or visit Shenandoah. It serves standard American cuisine at quite reasonable prices. The restaurant itself is pretty cute, and the lone waitress that day seemed to be an institution – we heard her say she’d been working there fore decades.

I had a cheeseburger with chips ($9.50). I was a bit apprehensive about it because of the price and because they didn’t ask me how I wanted it, though I did ask for it to be medium-rare. As expected, it was served well done and while it wasn’t particularly juicy, it tasted fine. Still, I didn’t really fancy it so I exchanged with Mike for his sandwich.

Mike had a bowl of “Bob’s best chili” ($9) and a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon ($5). The sandwich was just white bread, American cheese and bacon, but the bacon was pretty tasty and while the sandwich was a bit too bready, it was good enough. Mike likes the chili well enough.

My daughter had a basic grilled cheese sandwich ($5). It was a very basic sandwich, bread and American cheese, but she isn’t picky.

While the food was pretty basic, Mike mentioned that, being a country restaurant in the South, it was likely in the desserts that it would shine through – and he was right! They had a variety of pies, cobblers and cakes, but we all decided on the cobblers. I’ve been on a cobbler kick lately, and I much prefer them to pies.

Mike and I ordered the peach cobbler a la móde ($7.25) and it was delicious, though a tad too sweet (which I expected). It was served warm, the portion was generous and the fruit shined through.

Betty still was the berry cobbler a la mode ($7.25) which my daughter ordered. The biscuit was just as good and the berries were less sweet.

In all, we had a fine lunch and really enjoyed the desserts.

Brookside Restaurant
2978 US Highway 211 East
Luray, VA
540-743-5698

Dining in DC: Sweet Home Café

February 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments 
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital

Honest and delicious fare in the National American History Museum at the National Mall

The National Mall has a dearth of places to eat and what there are, food kiosks and cafés at the various museums, are grossly overpriced. Given what is, for all intents and purposes, a captive audience, I’m not entirely surprised. The museum restaurants, moreover, get pretty negative reviews, with the exception of those at the African American History Museum and at the Native American History Museum. We didn’t have a chance to try the latter, but after perusing the powerful exhibits at the former, we headed for lunch at Sweet Home Café. My cousin Adriana and her family, visiting from Argentina, joined us.

Despite its name, Sweet Home Café is neither a café nor homey. It’s basically a large cafeteria, busy with school groups and other tourists, without much charm to speak of. There are four food counters, each with different offerings. The “Agricultural South” counter offers fried and baked chicken and sides: mac & cheese, collard greens, sweet potato, potato salad, coleslaw and corn bread. The “Grill” station has fish, chicken tenders and a hot dog, as well as a fresh salad bar and French fries. A dessert counter offers a variety of desserts, including some which are definitely not African American and which are probably not made on the premises. I found the same dulce de leche cheesecake I had here at the Natural History Museum café. The final counter seems to offer a succession of “themed” dishes, which change weekly. When we were there, they were celebrating James Baldwin with a French-inspired menu.

After you order your food, and get drinks and perhaps a wrapped dessert from an open counter, you head to a checkout counter where you pay. I had read lots of reviews that the he checkers could be rude, and my cousin experienced this – they were curt and insulting. Apparently the checker she got was frustrated with their limited English. My husband and daughter didn’t have problems when they got food for themselves and me.

I didn’t take good pictures or notes of our meal there, so you will have to rely simply on my recollections.

I got the Daube de boeuf ($22.50) or beef stew, which came with one side – I chose mashed potatoes. It was a little on the cold side but otherwise delicious. The meat was tender and abundant, the sauce well balanced and the mashed potatoes perfectly made. It really exceeded my expectations flavor wise. The portion was large enough that I could share it with Mike, though neither of us were particularly hungry.

As mentioned, I also got a slice of the dulce de leche cheesecake ($8), which was quite tasty but not particularly remarkable (though good enough that my daughter got a slice of it the next day). Sodas were an incredible $4.70 each, though you could get a refill.

My cousin Adriana and her husband both got the pulled pork. This was a completely new dish for them and they both raved about it. I didn’t taste it myself, so I can’t vouch for whether it was a particularly good pulled pork, or whether my cousins were blown over by the novelty of the dish. But at least it was solid enough to delight newcomers to American cuisine.

No one should be surprised that there weren’t really good options for vegetarians – but you can order a plate with three sides (~12). My daughter went this route and got the baked macaroni and cheese, the roasted sweet potato and the corn bread, which came in a little loaf. She thought the mac & cheese was good, better than your Kraft staple. The sweet potato was surprisingly good, it was sweet and soft and she liked it quite a lot – even though she is not someone who usually gravitates to sweet potatoes. The cornbread, unfortunately, was very dry – but the flavor was there. The main problem with her side dishes is that they were all pretty cold.

In all, given the dearth of dining options in the area, Sweet Home Café is a good option for those visiting the museums and monuments in the area. It has relatively reduced hours of operation, 11 AM to 3 PM most days, so beware you get there in time.

Sweet Home Café
National Museum of African American History and Culture
1400 Constitution Ave. NW 
Washington, DC

Dining in DC: The Hamilton

February 14, 2025 / / 0 Comments 
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital

This gorgeous restaurant near the White House actually has good food

The main reason for our trip to Washington DC this year was to meet up with my cousin Adriana and her family who were coming to the States for some tourism of their own. My husband loves Washington DC, and I love hanging out with Adriana, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity for both of us to get what we wanted from a vacation. So on our second day in DC, we met Adriana and her family at the People’s House and then made our way to The Hamilton, taking in the outside of the White House (fully adorned with snipers on the roof), on the way.

I had originally wanted to go to the Old Ebbitt Grill, a Washington DC institution popular with both tourists and politicos, but I found out that they don’t have tables for six within the restaurant itself, and large parties are confined to an atrium adjacent to the restaurant. The nearby The Hamilton is owned by the same company and promised to provide a more welcoming atmosphere. I’m glad I chose it. Not only was the restaurant outright gorgeous – so I got to impress Adriana -, but the prices were reasonable for such an upscale place and the food was very good.


The Hamilton is quite large and it has at least a couple of dining rooms, as well as a large bar. It seems to be a favorite spot for lobbyists and we overheard some of them making their machinations while we waited to be seated. The large booths were comfortable enough, and the service was as good as what I learned to expect in Washington (California has much to learn in this regard).

The menu was pretty broad and included your basic American fare plus some sushi. My cousin and her family weren’t particularly adventurous and they all got the Hamilton burger, which came with a “‘sunny-side up egg, bacon, B&B pickles, shredded lettuce, cheddar, Gruyère, garlic aioli, house made sesame brioche” ($21). They all said they loved it. I didn’t try them myself and they might have been being polite, but even their son ate most of his and children don’t tend to eat out of politeness alone.

I had the ragu americana & rigatoni ($26), which consisted of rigatoni and “red wine braised short rib, Nonna’s meatballs, Grana Padano.” At first, it just tasted like your run of the mill pasta dish, but it grew on me with every bite. The short rib sauce was comforting and with all the umami you expect from a tomato based sauce. The meatballs were delicious. I kept thinking and craving the dish for days to come. If I go back to DC, I’ll definitely head back to The Hamilton for it. Seriously, if you like pasta, you should try it.

My daughter had the garden sushi roll ($15), “avocado, carrots, cucumber, lettuce, miso dressing.” She overall liked it, though she wasn’t blown away with it. To be fair, she’s had a lot of great sushi out there (particularly in Argentina), so that might be a tall order. She did say she’d order it again.

Mike had the jumbo lump crab cake ($28). He thought it was absolutely delicious. The crab cake had lots of crabs and came apart easily, but it was perfectly seasoned. His only regret was that he didn’t order the double portion ($48).

I don’t remember us having dessert.

We managed to get lunch done in a little over an hour, and we quickly headed out to the Ford Theater to see where President Lincoln was assassinated. 

The Hamilton
600 14th Street N.W.,
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 787-1000

Oakland Eats: Plank

May 9, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Plank is a Fun & Relaxing Place for a Weekend Lunch

For the third day of my Birthday Week Extravaganza (TM) I decided to go shopping at Cost Plus and then grab lunch somewhere in Jack London Sq. We came across Plank and it seemed like the perfect place for a relaxed and yet fun lunch. I’m happy to say it was. Indeed, I wish the place had been around (or I had known about it) when the kids were younger, as it seems like the perfect place for a family day. In addition to an outdoor bar with food and an indoor restaurant, Plank offers bowling, boche and an arcade. Alas, not my thing now that the kids are grown, so we didn’t check them out.

The outdoor patio/deck at Plank overlooks a little bit of the marina as well as Jack London Sq in general. There is a roofed area with a large bar, tables and chairs and then a larger patio with more tables/chairs/umbrellas and some sofa-height seats with coffee tables. They have music blasting – but not loud enough that you can’t talk to each other, at least from the further away tables -, there are birds visiting the nearby water fountain and it feels convivial but still relaxing. This is an informal space, as you’d expect.

You seat yourself in the patio and hope a server sees you – it happened pretty immediately for us. It doesn’t seem like they have paper menus – at least we didn’t see any – so you need to pull it out on your smart phone. You might as well do that as you wait for the server to come by. You then place your order with the server who brings you the food. Our server asked us for a credit card when we placed the order, but as my husband was taking it out he told her he would rather pay cash and she then brought the bill at the end of the meal without requiring pre-payment (it might have helped that the cash was visible in his wallet). I hope they haven’t had to implement this practice because they have too many eat-and-flee people, with an open space as that it certainly would be easy to do.

The menu is standard pub fare at pretty standard prices – what passes for low/affordable now that inflation has hit us so hard (I finally know what it means to be an old woman, shocked at the price of everything). They have burgers and sandwiches, pizzas and salads, some appetizers and a few others things. I decided on the baby back ribs ($21 half slab/$27 full slab), and given how little more a full slab is than half, I convinced Mike to share a full slab with me. They come with 3 sides, but they only have 4 to chose from (fries, sweet potato fries, tater tots and salad).

The ribs were perfectly fine, perfectly acceptable it not something to write home about. They were tender and meaty without being falling-off-the-bone (a good thing when you are eating in public), and they were pretty tasty. We enjoyed them both there and as left overs. The sides were also fine but unremarkable. I actually enjoyed the tater tots, I don’t think I’d had them in decades (I don’t remember them being something I served my kids) and as I’ve lost my taste for French fries, these were a good substitution. The sweet potato fries were on the thin side and therefore also on the dry side, but they were nicely spiced. The Caesar salad was also unremarkably good. All the sides were a really good size, plenty to share.

My daughter had the veggie burger ($17) which came with a beyond burger patty, pepperjack, baby arugula, tomatoes, grilled onions and pesto aioli in a whole wheat bun and French fries on the side.

Service was competent, but in such a loud environment it’s hard to ask for more.

In all, I’d return to Plank for lunch if I was in the area. 

Plank
98 Broadway
Oakland, CA
510-817-0980
M-Th 11:30 AM - 10 PM, F-Sa 11:30 AM - 11 PM, Su 10 AM - 9 PM
Capacity limited, 21+ after 8 PM

Elios

June 13, 2004 / / 4 Comments

We went to Elios the week before our cruise, too long ago for me to remember the details well
enough to write a proper review. However, it’s unlikely we’ll return so rather than leave it un-reviewed altogether, I will
write a few remarks on the restaurant here.

Elios is one of the last of a dying breed, the all-American restaurant. It looks like a spiffed-up coffee-shop, it has
bright red vinyl booths, large mirrors that make the place look bigger and waitresses who have been working there for years it
not decades. Its long menu offers a wide selection of burgers and sandwiches (don’t expect anything innovative here), as well
as steaks, veal, chicken, seafood and pasta dishes, all moderately priced. There is a long list of daily specials, some of
which also appear in the regular menu at the same prices.

That evening, I decided on the broiled coulotte steak ($11.55). I remember it being fine, though not remarkable. I don’t
remember what Mike had, I think also a steak which was marginally better than mine.

For dessert we shared a piece of chocolate cream pie which wasn’t very good, it didn’t have much flavor.

Perhaps one day I’ll go back to Elios to write a proper review. It’ll have to be without Mike, however, as he refuses to
go back with me.

Elios
260 Floresta Boulevard
San Leandro, CA
510-351-0463
http://eliosdining.com/

San Leandro Restaurant Reviews

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