Back at Harry's Again

Looking out onto E St NW

No, I don't add ketchup to my martini

It seems we end up at Harry's Bar & Restaurant about once every few months on our Friday evening dates so last Friday found us there again. Noisy with rock and roll tapes, decorated with 80's ceiling fans and fake Tiffany lampshades,  and a general air of slight disrepair, nevertheless the service is pretty good and the food comes fast. Usually, we are on our way to the movies and because it's on several bus routes Harry's is easy to get to and near what we want to do. I had a veggie burger which I'd never ordered before with a martini which you know I've ordered before and hubster had chicken salad and a lager beer. All around us were tourist families who stay at the Hotel Harrington which is surely the nastiest cheapiest hotel downtown DC and is the building with Harry's on its ground floor.  There's also a few other couples of varying ages and lots of groups of noisy 20 or 30 somethings. Because it was so unexpectedly cold they didn't have the tables set up outside even though they have outdoor heat lamps for when it's not that cold. .Maybe it's the odd collection of pictures on the walls, or the half a dozen TV screens blasting sports and news, or maybe it's the talkative bartenders, but we find ourselves here several times a year.

Dinner at the Monocle During Lent

Inside the Monocle

Saturday night I just didn't feel like cooking so Hubster said let's go out for dinner. So, off we trekked to Capitol Hill and found ourselves at the rather dark and clubby looking The Monocle, a restaurant tucked away alongside a parking lot for the U.S. Senate.  Looking at the building you know it's all that's left of what probably used to be hundreds of similar 19th century brick buildings that used to  be on Capitol Hill. I'd been there once before but Hubster hadn't so we had a great time selecting from a menu we hadn't seen much of before. Since I'm not cooking meat over Lent I did allow myself a very juicy and delicious filet mignon steak with a wine sauce that we shared since Hubster only ordered an avocado salad (he too is on some Lenten dietary limitations).  Don't you just hate "avocado salads" where there are only two or three squishy little bits of avocado? This one was nothing like that. His salad included a full sized fresh avocado sliced with lettuce and tomato and a plain oil and vinaigrette and just what he wanted. They also provided us great bread and icy water and good service, not to mention a substantive vodka martin for me and a dark Amstel beer for Hubster. We ordered fresh fruit for dessert but it turned out not to be fresh so when they asked how we liked it we said "it's not fresh!" and they took it off the bill.  I like good food and good service at pricy restaurants, don't you?

Fine Dining in The Dining Car

The Dining Car diner just outside Philadelphia, PA is where we stop for martinis and pies when we drive home.  Well, to be more accurate we stop so I can have a BLT with ONE martini and hubster has a salad and settles for a Pepsi as they don't sell Coke. We stop off here on our way home to avoid the heavy rush hour traffic for about 45 minutes before driving on.  Then afterwards, we usually buy some really terrific butter cookies or a super blueberry pie to take to our Bible study group. It's a nice place to eat and it's always filled up with local customers, mostly old greying couples. And the waitresses are very perky and helpful and the food is priced right. So it's fine dining.

Ronald Reagan Airport Cathedral Ceiling

hubster blackberries

I never noticed this before! I met a friend for dinner at TGIF's at our nearest airport, the Ronald Reagan airport or DCA, and lo and behold, I glanced up at the ceiling and it looked like a gothic cathedral. And the reason I had my camera with me was to take a photo of our friend at the airport, but of course, it was another one of those times when I brought the camera along for a specific purpose and drab nabbit, I forgot to snap the shot. By the time I remembered I had the camera, she had run off to her flight!  The three of us -- hubster, friend and I -- had managed to have some dinner together -- a not too dreadful pecan-crumbed salmon salad thing -- and of course, a martini for  me. Once she'd scurried off for a TSA handling experience, I glanced around and noted the wide open space, the mosaics on the floor, and the careful lighting of what is a very controlled environment. So, is an airport some kind of new cathedral?

Martini and Tomato Cheddar Soup and Dirty Menu & Place Mats at Finn & Porter downtown restaurant

Well, the food and service were pretty good and friendly but the dirty menu (splats of lettuce and some dried up sauce) and the place mats were stained with dried up old food somewhat detracted from what could have been a super lunch experience downtown. Well, it was Sunday and maybe they hadn't got to these chores?  Plus I had a very well mixed martini so I didn't complain too much other than to point out the menu problem to the nice and friendly waitress who took it away immediately saying "sorry." The tomato cheddar soup was hot and not too spicy, and the crispy pita bread and hummus was fresh enough so it's not the food that's the problem at the place, but the cleanliness. Oh, did I forget to say too that some of the knives in the place settings looked a bit grimy?. Fortunately, I didn't have to cut up anything but it certainly made me check the spoon before dipping it. I'm glad to give thanks for the means to eat out but really I do expect more hygienic practices.

Side Trip to Philly, Dinner in the Dining Car

View from the diner window

Lamp over each booth

On our way back from visiting our son in Pennsylvania, we occasionally stop at a diner, The Dining Car, for a quiet meal and to avoid the local traffic that clogs up Route 95 during the dinner hour. One of the reasons we like to eat here is that the food is edible and cheap, it seems clean, and the service is quick and they serve just about anything you might want in a diner. It's also barely a stone's throw from the main road so we don't feel like we are getting too far off our way and of course, it has lots of parking and you can tell from the car number plates that it's a local favorite. I can get a nice martini with my Cobb salad or french fries and it seems like the portions are not too large and not too small. My husband can get his onion soup too and he will settle for a Pepsi there, although he'll give the waitress a hard time about it being a non-Coke establishment. The customers don't look like customers in DC restaurants:  there's lots of groups of older people eating together, families with teen kids, twosomes of 60 year old guys, or trios of women in their 70s eating together so the ambiance doesn't feel like the capital city.  It makes me realize how the DC Demographic is quite different comparatively.  What's nice is the decor has some very nice deco elements too, such as in the lamps and the overall appearance of the building. We've also gotten our favorite BLTs and bought cookies in the bakery shop on our way out. So you can see, this is a very useful place for us to go on our travels.100 miles away from the capital city and you are in another part of God's country.  As it turns out, this diner is featured in Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip, a book listed on Amazon.com!  Who knew! I never read it but I hope the author gave them a good grade!

Best Little Chicken Salad Sandwich in DC

If you want a really good chicken salad sandwich if you're in downtown D.C. I think the best place is Harry's bar on the ground floor of the Hotel Harrington, a famous DC landmark on E street NW.  Apparently over 10 million people have slept there since it opened in 1914!  I hope they've changed the mattresses!!  But back to the main subject. We've often gone to Harry's after work on a Friday for a good chicken salad sandwich and then over to the E Street Movie Cinema afterwards. It's also easy to get to for me, as I just take the D street bus which stops right in front of my office and but one block from Harry's. Of course, we don't just have sandwiches but also there are great drinks at Harry's too, such as big and cheap martinis with the vodka of your choice, or a very good beer. Another good thing about Harry's is the music tape which plays remakes of 80s and 90s music over and over. If there's chicken salad in heaven, I'm sure it's made by Harry.

Dead Chickens Hanging in the Window

Yes, there's at least half a dozen dead chickens hanging not so neatly in the window of the noodle restaurant on 6th street in Chinatown, DC. They hang there cooked, ready to be eaten by the customers who dare enter down the little steps into this den of delights. So far, I've only been able to watch the cook make noodles by watching him through the window they've set up for passersby to see what's going on. For some reason, it's enough for me to be entertained by this, and it hasn't drawn me in to eat there. We usually go to the slightly more upscale restaurant a few doors down where I can be sure they make really good martinis with the vodka I like. But one day, I'll be there with some risk-taker who will go in with me and, by God, we'll order Kung Pao chicken made with one of them dead birds hanging in the winder.

Sounds & Sights of the City at Solstice

You'd think things would have quieted down about 8:30 pm on this summer solstice eve but I just sat down on the porch and listened to a loud assortment of sounds. This is the front porch on this glorious evening in the city. Firstly, there's the dull roar of the NORAD planes up there in the sky over Washington DC doing some drills. Now a helicopter makes its blade-noisy way over to the nearest hospital. A motorcycle just roared by, slowed down by the Fedex truck groaning along looking for the right house. A bunch of birds are tweeting somewhere and a bunch of others are making coo coo noises while a few seem to be cawing and squeaking conversations about the street's residents. They're probably sated from the large assortment of bugs flitting about annoying us humans. Then there's two batches of cicadas grinding and clattering away in chorus at either end of the street. It's always hard to tell which tree they are in or where they are located but they usually all stop at the same time. Quite mysterious. Somewhere in the distance a siren goes off, perhaps it's police or an ambulance and one wonders momentarily what the disaster is, and then, martini in hand, I just forget about it as I'm distracted by some fireflies lighting up the myrtle. And with every breeze -- and there's more than a few -- wind chimes on people's porches are jingling and dingling in the erratic breezes sending soft tinkles out. Closer to where I'm sitting on the porch is the roar of my electric fan -- set up to blow away any flies or mosquitoes that dare trespass in my personal space. Some neighbors have someone banging on their door and the dogs are barking, not recognizing it's the owner's sister visiting. Every once in a while a car does it double toot as the driver locks it up automatically and double clicks the key. A porch door slams tinnily as someone goes out to work the night shift. I can even hear the noise of the TV as someone else watches the World Cup game tonight. Earlier, there were some little girls giggling on their way from the car to their house with their dad telling me how pleased he was that they made it through the first day of summer camp. Thank God for giggling little girls.