Mid-Trip

A good food weekend so far.

Waiting for my pal John to get done with work I arrived in town with an hour or so to kill on Friday afternoon. I killed it at The Dubliner by having a few pints of the black stuff. That's Guiness. And you should like it too. The Dubliner is right next to Kelly's Irish Times. And you'd be happy at either. I think the Dubliner is a better spot to go on your own if you're killing time, and Kelly's is more open space and a better spot to take a group of people. But the pints at each are smooth and the staff at each are friendly folk.

Met some young staffers from Dodd's office out after work. Good peeps enjoying a great job and knowing it.

Friday night was celebratory Yeungling's at the Billy Goat Tavern on New Jersey Avenue. Senate side of the Hill. Celebrating John's promotion. Good man. Well-deserved.

Snacked on some fries and had a late night Italian Beef sandwich that was H-O-T-T. When you order peppers on it, they load it up. Delicious fast-esque food.

The Woodside Deli in Silver Spring, Maryland was the breakfast spot Saturday morning early. Those folks make good corned beef hash. Crispy on the edges. They also know what a customer wants when he orders a soft-poached egg. And they deliver. Excellent diner coffee. None of that metallic tasting pap some places will put out when they think the coffee need merely be hot and free on the refills.

Met Bode and Ms. Kate at The Diner in Adam's Morgan for lunch. A favorite of the young, the hip, and the people who love 24-hour joints with funk-ti-fied diner menus. I, of course, am all of those things.

My choice was the Popeye, a grilled cheese with feta, spinach, tomatoes, and garlic (veg sauted in Olive Oyl, ya' know). Bode went egg, bacon, and cheese on the muffin of the Englsh with cheese grits and Ms. Kate went ginormo-grilled chicken sammy. I have eaten many things at many hours of the day and night at the diner. It's a great spot. Everything, I think, a retro, post-modern, urban-hipster diner should be.

(Note, to y'all from previous stops in: the bartenders here make pretty tasty Manhattans here.)

We discussed impending weddings (Bode in May, Ms. Kate in June) and caught up on the worlds we live in these days. Crispy fries and good OJ helped.

Relaxed for the afternoon and met up with the grad school gang for dinner last night. Logan Tavern was the dinner choice. A good neighborhood place. In this neighborhood that means a crush of young and not-as-young-anymore professionals mixing and jostling at the bar while waiting for a table.

Two in our party went for their Southern Boneless Fried Chicken. Two went Wasabi Crusted Meatloaf. I went Roast Pork Loin in Sweet Asian Mustard. Damn tasty job of roasting the pork (tender)loin. The carmelized onion gravy on the fried chicken was friggin' awesome.

And the bartender KNOWS how to pour a Manhattan up the right way.