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Dining in DC: JD Bar & Restaurant

February 19, 2025 / / 0 Comments 
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital

You won’t get a more authentic Ethiopian dining experience outside of Addis Ababa.

JD Bar & Restaurant is my friend Lavinia’s favorite Ethiopian restaurant, and it’s there where we headed for a very late lunch/very early dinner on the Saturday we were visiting her at home. We had visited a museum during the morning, had been delayed after an incident with law enforcement – it turns out the NSA does not take kindly to people photographing the surveillance equipment on their police cars -, and Mike had headed off to another museum while the rest of us sought to satisfy our hunger. We figured that at that midafternoon hour, the restaurant would be empty. Boy, were we in for a surprise.

It turns out that, for whatever reason, 3 PM on a Saturday is the preferred time for Ethiopians in Virginia to go out for a meal. JD Bar & Restaurant’s parking lot was packed when we got there – and the restaurant had nary an empty seat. Or almost. There was one table that could accommodate us, and the host quickly took us to it even as we suggested that we might do take out instead. As the only obviously non-Ethiopians in the place, he could have easily turned as away, but he was extremely accommodating. Indeed, everyone in the restaurant was very nice, though we did get some stares (friendly ones), and we got check upon by the chef and the manager in addition to our waiter. We felt welcomed.

So crowded was the restaurant that it was difficult to appreciate any decore it might have, though I think I remember some paintings of daily life on the walls. They have a small stage set up with microphones, though fortunately (given that we were seated right next to it) there wasn’t a show while we were there.

We ordered quite a bit of food, which was surprisingly affordable for the price and quantity given. I had the meat combo (~$20), which included key sega wot, alecha sega wot, menchet alecha, menchet key, and lega tibse. They were all delicious, none too spicy and while I ate until I couldn’t fit another morsel in my stomach, it probably amounted to little more than a third of the foot in the plate.

Lavinia ordered the JD Special 3 (~$60), which consisted of a HUGE platter with layers of ferrari tibs (chicken), derek tibs (beef) and kitfo topped with aybe (cheese). It was really a monumental platter, that which legends are made of and I’m sad I didn’t take a photo (I hadn’t brought my phone with me). Obviously it’s for many people to share. All the meats were very good, but the derek tibs, in particular, where out of this world. It’s a dry dish, but the pieces of beef were very tender and really nicely seasoned.

Lavinia also ordered a veggie combo ($20), but I didn’t try any of the dishes. My vegetarian ate all the kik alecha from it plus ordered another side of it ($4). She loves this dish, but feels it tastes pretty much the same at every restaurant. This was true here as well.

We had, as you can imagine, enormous amounts of food to take home. The waitress transferred each combo into a take home container, but of course, everything got mixed up there.

In all, this was a great experience and if I visit Lavinia again, I’d definitely want to go back.

JD Bar & Restaurant 
6669 Little River Turnpike 
Annandale, VA
703-333-2819

Dining in DC: Curry Mantra

February 18, 2025 / / 0 Comments 
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital

Great Indian food at this Annandale restaurant

We spent the last part of our trip to Washington DC visiting my friend Lavinia in Annandale, a DC suburb in Virginia. Curry Mantra is her favorite Indian restaurant in the area and that’s where we headed that Friday evening in February.

It was a bit late, and the restaurant wasn’t very busy. It’s nicely and only a bit garishly decorated with red tones. Service was good, though our waitress had problems understanding and remembering our order and we had to suggest she write it down. I’m in awe of very experienced waiters who are able to remember everything, but it’s not something that most wait staff should attempt to do.

As there were six of us for dinner, we tried a variety of dishes. I didn’t take any photos as the evening was about seeing an old friend and didn’t want to be too intrusive.

The samosas ($7) had your regular vegan potato and pea filling, but were much larger than usual. Everyone liked them quite a bit but they were on the spicy side. The chicken tikka ($18) was moist and flavorful, and I enjoyed it very much.

I ordered the lamb shashi korma ($20), and was quite pleased with the mild, sweet and fruity curry. That is, until I tried the butter chicken ($18), which was absolutely delicious. One of the best butter chickens I’ve had. Lavinia also ordered the Chicken 65 ($18), one of her favorites, but I don’t remember if I tried it or what I thought of it. I am not sure if we ordered another meat dish – but in any case, we had more than enough food to feed the five meat eaters in our party.

The vegetarian among us ordered the

I ordered a sweet lassi ($5), not on printed the menu, and while the server had some problems understanding what I wanted, I eventually got it and it was pretty good. We ordered both garlic nan ($4) and shahi nan ($4) and enjoyed both of them.

In all, if I’m ever in Annandale visiting Lavinia again, I’ll definitely make sure we go there.

Curry Mantra
9984 Main St 
Fairfax, VA
(703) 218-8128

Dining in DC: Live! at the Library of Congress

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

Drinks and Nibbles at this American Institution

We visited the Library of Congress on a Thursday afternoon, after a visit to the Capitol, the beautiful botanical gardens and the National Museum of the American Indian. While the Library of Congress is open to visitors weekly, on Thursday afternoons they have extended hours and also offer food and drinks for sale. It’s an opportunity to check out the atrium, a couple of galleries and look at the Main Reading Room, while feeling you are in the midst of a soiree.

We had dinner reservations for later in the evening, but it had been a while since lunch, so Mike got a snack tray that came with very tasty homemade bread with apple, brie and sweet onion jam or prosciutto, fig and mascarpone.  It was actually quite decision, and a reasonable price (he thinks $12 or $14). Drink prices were also reasonable.

The one thing I wish I’d done is check in my coat before I started walking around.

Live! at the Library
Library of Congress
Thomas Jefferson Building
10 First Street SE
Washington, DC 20540

Dining in DC: Ethiopic

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

Accessible and tasty Ethiopian food in stylish surroundings

Washington DC is not known for any particular dish or cuisine. As a city that attracts people from all over the US and the world, its strengths are in the variety of food found here, rather than on any particular manifestation of it. However, it has gained a reputation for its Ethiopian food offerings, as it homes the largest population of Ethiopians outside Ethiopia itself.

Now, I happen to live next to Oakland, California, which is another mecca for Ethiopian and Eritrean food. Ethiopian food was one of the first I tried my hands on – back at a time where I had to make my own berbere and injera -, and thus it’s not a cuisine I’d have sought out but for the fact that I was pretty sure my Argentinian cousin Adriana and her family would not have tried it. As common as Ethiopian food may be in DC and in the Bay Area, it’s still pretty niche in most of the US (you literally have to go to Little Ethiopia to find an Ethiopian restaurant in Los Angeles county) and I was sure it was totally inexistent in Argentina. Adriana was game for trying it, so I made a reservation at Ethiopic for our last night together in Washington DC.

Ethiopic is an upscale, stylish and popular restaurant in the H Street Corridor, The soft yellow walls are decorated with modern Ethiopian art, which was cool to see after our visit to the African Art Museum. Its clear that the restaurant caters to an international audience, as they were very friendly and patient with our not-fully English speaking party.

The menu offers traditional Ethiopian dishes and what is the largest variety of honey wines I have ever seen. Usually, Ethiopian restaurants in the Bay Area offer just a couple of options, if that – Ethiopic has about seven! Mike and my daughter both ordered the Mama’s Honey Tej ($12 per glass), a pretty sweet version that feels almost like a dessert wine. They both really liked it. I had the smooth bethel tej ($12), which was less sweet but bubbly and a lot of fun. I’ll try to find it locally.

As appetizers, we got both the beef and lentil sambusas ($8 per order of 3). These cousins to Indian samosas are popular throughout Eastern Africa and consist of fried, flaky dough with seasoned fillings. Neither were spicy but they were both very tasty.

We ordered several dishes, but they weren’t actually served family style as we expected. That was probably better, as it would have been a bit hard to reach given our rectangular table for six.

The Beef & Chicken Wot Sampler ($40), which is meant to serve two people, was a delight. It includes minchet abish key wot and minchet abish aletcha wot as well as doro key wot and doro aletcha wot. The doro dishes are chicken, while the minchet abish are ground beef based. The aletcha offerings are basically the mild versions of the wots, cooked without berbere. They were all delicious, and the wots weren’t very spicy, no one in Adriana’s family had a problem with them. My favorite, by far, was the minchet abish aletcha wot – it was sooooo good, I’m still dreaming about it.

We also got an order of beef tibs ($22). These was a dry dish, but the beef cubes were nicely spiced and not terribly spicy. Everyone liked them.

The Yebeg Aletcha Be Dinich ($18) was good but I didn’t like as much as the other dishes. the lamb was tender, however, and not terribly fatty.

My nephew, Lito, who has not yet reached his teenage years, surprised us all by saying he wanted to get the asa tib ($16) – a marinated and fried fish. The fish came with the skin on, which was a novelty for him, and it wasn’t the easiest thing to eat without silverware, but he was a champ and dug right in. So did the rest of us, and we all found the fish to be absolutely delicious. It was crispy, flavorful and perfectly cooked.

My daughter, a vegetarian, had the kik alicha ($17), a favorite of hers. This is a mild dish of split peas. She felt that it tasted just like it was supposed to and liked it.

She also had the honey nut baklava ($7). She didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as it was very syrupy and she prefers drier versions.

We must have been pretty hungry, as while the portions seemed generous we ended up eating everything and had no leftovers to take with us.

In all, we had a very nice meal and I was very happy that Adriana and her family liked the food so much. I think it’s a little bit Americanized, and it definitely does not have the level of spice that I expected – but I feel that Ethiopian food has been getting milder over the years (or, more likely, I’ve adjusted to spicier flavors). 

Ethiopic
401 H St NE,
Washington, DC 20002
202-675-2066

Dining in DC: The Members Dining Room Restaurant @ the Capitol

February 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments 
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital

We got to dine at the Congressmember-Only Dining Room!

Our trip to Washington DC was amazing, and one of the main highlights was having lunch at the Members Dining Room at the Capitol. This is a dining room reserved exclusively for members of the US House of Representatives, their staffers, (the US Senate has its own dining room) and their guests. It only operates when Congress is in session, though before the pandemic it had been open for reservations to anyone on the days Congress wasn’t in session. This no longer seems to be the case.

The Members Dining Room has actually two main dining rooms. One appears to be for Congressmembers only and the other for members and their guests. The latter one, named after Ernest Petinaud, who served at the dining room for fifty years, is relatively small, though on the day we were visiting it was also rather empty – only two other parties were dining there (no congressmembers that we could identify, mind you). It has a simple, old fashioned elegance – with a rich crimson carpet, yellow walls, crystal light fixtures and a huge painting of the British surrender to Washington at Yorktown. The tables had white tablecloths and blue napkins, and looks exactly like the photos of it you can find online. The dining room has been operating at its current location since 1858, and I daresay it hasn’t changed much.

The Dining Room was offering a buffet lunch that day with table service for drinks. The offerings were limited but broad enough that most people should be able to find something they liked.

“Bean soup” has been a staple of both the Senate and the House dining rooms for many decades, and while I don’t like beans, I urged Mike to have it. As it happened, they had both a black bean soup and a white bean soup. He thought the white bean soup was very good, with the black bean one less so. I had the DIY salad, and found it pretty average.

Mike had the salmon and the Brussel sprouts. He found the salmon to be good, though not particularly remarkable. The Brussel sprouts were very good, but he is a fan of them in general.

I had the chicken thigh, and it was well seasoned and moist – better than what you’d expect from buffet food. The roasted potatoes were a bit dry, as they usually are.

My daughter, a vegetarian, tried both the rigatoni and the rice pilaf. She found both of them to be fine but, again, unremarkable.

My cousin Adriana, who was with us, raved about the food – but I think she might be less picky than we are.

But, of course, regardless of the food, eating at the Members Dining Room was an extremely cool experience. We felt the history of the room, the uniqueness of the experience, and are extremely grateful to have been invited to enjoy it.


Dining in DC: Capitol Cafe

February 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments 
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital

Convenient Eats while Touring the Capitol

Thursday started as a miserable day. The rain which was supposed to stop mid morning had other plans, the streets around the Capitol were cut off, the line to get in – even with tour tickets – was very long and under the pouring rain. And, of course, the Felon-in-Chief was doing his worst to destroy America – but that’s another matter.

Once we actually got into the Capitol, however, things started to improve. Staff was very friendly and solicitous, they have a free coat check and there was much to admire while we waited for my cousin Adriana and her family to join us. As we’d arrived early, we also had time for some breakfast at the Capitol Café, located just to side of the Visitors Center.

The Café is really a cafeteria, where you order at the counter and then stand in line to pay at a checkout counter. They serve standard American fare for breakfast, everything from bagels and pastries to waffles, eggs, hashbrowns and oatmeal. Most of the breakfast food is sold by weight – they weigh your whole tray at the checkout. The attendants were very friendly, but I can imagine service could be slow if there were more than a few guests.

All I got was a mocha ($4) and a pastry ($2.25), as I’m not a big breakfast drinker. The mocha was fine, but my choice of pastry – a Danish with custard – was unfortunate. The custard just tasted off.

Mike had a breakfast sandwich with bacon, eggs and cheese and a side of scrambled eggs. He thought the was was unremarkable but fine – pretty much what you’d expect.

My daughter also had scrambled eggs, as well as a waffle, biscuit and potatoes. She also found the food to be unremarkable. The biscuit was dried, and she couldn’t find any butter to go with it.

I was more intrigued by the inaugural lunch menu, which featured seafood stew, quail stuffed with wild rice and duck confit and apple cinnamon cake ($25 for all), but we weren’t there for lunch.

In all, a perfectly fine place to eat with reasonable prices while visiting the Capitol.

I should note that the Capitol tour was great, and we learned a lot. Including that California still has a statue of Junípero Serra representing it – California has gotten rid of most of his public statues at home, as we came to understand the evil that the Missions brought upon the native Californian people – so it surprised me this one is still there.

Capitol Café
US Capitol Visitors Center, Lower Level
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 226-8000

Dining in DC: Ocean Terrace Café

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

Expensive eats at the National Museum of Natural History

We had spent quite a bit of time at the National Museum of Natural History the previous day, but we hadn’t been able to see everything, so my husband wanted to return. Before leaving, we stopped by the Ocean Terrace Café in the first floor for a bite.

The café didn’t have much food when we got there, just some sweets and pre-packaged sandwiches. Mike got the a sandwich, perhaps a chicken salad one though he can’t quite remember. And, indeed, the sandwich was only memorable because i was expensive, somewhere in the high teens for a rather small sandwich. My daughter had a slice of chocolate cake, which she enjoyed.

Given the dearth of places to eat in the area, this place is not too bad, but it is expensive for what you get.

Dining in DC: Refreshment Kiosk @ The National Mall

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

Where we felt like St. Francis of Assis

After a morning exploring the magnificent National Museum of African Art and the National Mall, we were hungry, but he options for food in the area are extremely poor. We thus decided to stop at the refreshment kiosk in front of the National Museum of Natural History, our next destination. This is one of several refreshment kiosks at the Mall – all, I’m assuming, offering the same menu.

I knew the food was going to be expensive, but even I was shocked. A hot dog – a miserly hot dog – was $18! The other food had equally outrageous prices. I did notice, however, that the funnel cake was reasonable. I don’t remember exactly how much it was, but I think around $6.50. Now, we are just talking about fried dough here, dusted with powdered sugar, but at that moment it hit the spot. The funnel cake was actually quite tasty and large enough for all of us to share.

It turned out that we weren’t the only ones that liked funnel cake. As soon as we sat down, we started getting visitors at our table, and more and more came once we brought the cake to our table. It’s clear that these birds are used to being fed by humans. I totally get the appeal for them in winter, when I imagine food is hard to find.

One squirrel was particularly aggressive. Though I didn’t get any action pictures of the little rascal, he tried to grab the whole funnel cake off the plate, and even climb on Mike as he was eating a piece.

Dining in DC: Matera

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

This Foggy Bottom hotel restaurant offers solid food in a relaxing setting

During our trip to DC, we stayed at the River Inn in Foggy Bottom. The hotel has its own restaurant, Matera, which serves breakfast and dinner daily. It wasn’t particularly busy during our stay, but I imagine that is different during more touristy times and when there are events at the Kennedy Center, given that it’s one of the closest restaurants to the venue. Of course, it’s unclear that the Kennedy Center will continue existing as anything but a center for Neo-nazi rallies now that Trump has taken it over.

We dined at Matera twice. We had breakfast one morning with our friend Maximilian, who was in DC for work. And we had dinner another night when I was craving Italian (after an amazing pasta dish at The Hamilton) and we were too tired to go out.

The restaurant has a smallish dining room, and a pretty casual vibe. There are some interesting posters on the walls, and the candle and rose on the table give it a somewhat romantic atmosphere, but the tables are bare and the place is more utilitarian than special occasion. Service was attentive and friendly, but it’s what we experienced almost universally in DC.

I’m not usually much of a breakfast eater, so I only had a coffee that morning (perfectly acceptable), but Maximillian and Mike ordered food. I didn’t pay attention to what Max had, and we were too busy talking about politics (it’s Washington, after all) to discuss the food, but Mike had the western omelet ($22). It came with ham, onions, green and red bell peppers and American cheese and Mike pronounced it to be “just fine”. It wasn’t remarkable or something he’d order again.

Dinner the following night was tasty and relaxing. We skipped appetizers, but had plenty of bread before our main dishes arrived.

I had the gnocchi with Italian sausage ($28) and was very happy with it. The gnocchi were soft, airy and pillowy, the sausage was tasty, the grilled peppers soft enough and the whole thing came together with a nice tomato basil sauce. I wished there were more gnocchi, the other elements sort of overwhelmed them and I absolutely loved the texture the gnocchi provided, but overall I loved the dish. People (ahem, my daughter) who prefer hardier pasta might not be as enthusiastic, however.

My daughter’s dish, unfortunately, wasn’t as successful. She had the mushroom ravioli ($28) which came in a creamy pesto sauce and she was disappointed both with the flavor and the quantity. There were only four or five ravioli in the dish, and the sauce just wasn’t that tasty. She wouldn’t have it again.

Mike had the calamari ($22), as he felt he wasn’t hungry enough for a main dish and nobody would want to share this. It cam with both a cocktail sauce and an herb aioli. The calamari was perfectly acceptable, with good flavor and texture. The herb aioli, however, was out of this world delicious. I was sad we’d eaten all our bread and couldn’t dip it in it.

I had read in reviews that Matera had a great tiramisu ($12), and we just had to try it. I’m happy to say that the reviewers were right. It featured a very light and airy cake, and thick layers of light and flavorful creams. Even the chocolate was tasty – no Hershey syrup here. We’d definitely get this again.

In all, it was a nice dinner made better by the convenience of it being at our hotel. We’d eat there again.

Matera
the River Inn
924 25th ST NW
Washington, D.C. 
(202) 301 5401

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
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