Chicago to DC With LTHForum As My Travel Agent [Pics]

Chicago to DC With LTHForum As My Travel Agent, Part 1



Some time back I asked for recommendations for a family road trip to Washington DC, with stops in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Morgantown WV and wherever else seemed interesting along the way. Along with some other threads covering the same territory (which I'll link as they arise), I went off armed with good places to eat at almost every step of the way, and made use of some of the least-likely-ever-to-be-used suggestions ever posted here. It'll take several days to get a complete report posted, with all the appropriate pictures (I took a staggering 600 shots along the way-- some of my kids and historical sites, not all of my lunch) but this covers our first day and a third or so, as far as Cleveland. Watch for more installments as the week progresses.

Toledo: Byblos

You’ll recall that I was told that missing Beirut in Toledo would be “an international food crime.” Unfortunately, that crime was foreordained, as we passed through Toledo in the middle of the day and Beirut is only open for dinner. However, its sister restaurant, Byblos, is open for lunch and on the south side of town not far from the highway, so it seemed natural to swing by what I assumed would be the more casual strip-mall sibling of the fancier Beirut.

Well, here’s what kind of restaurant Byblos actually is:





Wow, you say, what a trip, a 1971 cocktail lounge with Naugahyde captain’s chairs and mock-Tiffany skylights, serving Lebanese food. Where could you find a wacked-out combination like that? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is my childhood, since many of the restaurateurs in Wichita back then were Lebanese and most upscale restaurants of the time went in for atmosphere a la Hef. So Byblos started out being like a bad trip back to tedious childhood nights of boozy parental schmoozing set to Engelbert Humperdinck. Worse yet, among the dishes I ordered quickly and without careful perusal of the fine print was what I thought would be fried kibbe but proved to be raw kibbe, a plate of obscenely pink puree which may excite some as a rare delicacy, but which the kids greeted as if it were fresh monkey brains.

To her credit, the waitress saw my I-drove-200-miles-for-this distress and quickly offered to have the kibbe fried, even though that wasn’t on the menu. Even so, I can’t say that I saw why this is a stop you have to make (unless you want to relive my childhood); nothing we had was as good as the photos in Rich4's post about Beirut look. Baba ghanoush was smoky, garlicky, but the contrast between highly refrigerated dip and unheated pitas was not entirely pleasing. Fava bean falafels were crumbled into a salad and quite tasty, this was easily the best dish of the bunch. Shwarma was okay, kibbe was... better than monkey brains, I guess.

Rust Belt Along Lake Erie

Most interesting thing observed in Lorain, one of the rusting steel mill towns on the way to Cleveland: drive-through beverage marts. Which, no kidding, are basically sheds filled with big Pepsi refrigerators into which you drive your van (presumably right after your shift; also possibly right before it, and during lunch) and stock up on beer without ever leaving your seat. It’s like something straight out of the Soviet Union, except for the part about owning a van.

Best signage in Lorain:



Saddest signage in Lorain:



Cleveland

By luck the B&B we chose more or less randomly for a stopover in Cleveland (mainly because they allowed kids) happened to be located about twenty feet from everything people had recommended, which was all pretty much in the West Side near downtown. We'll skip the Great Lakes Brewery, which lived up exactly to Rich4's description ("food is only OK – go for the beer and atmosphere") but was pleasant enough to sit outside and eat and drink at, and proceed directly to the West Side Market. This is it:



So is this:



There are actually three buildings-- a fruit and vegetable market:



--a flower market, and the main hall-- which together look like a renovated train station but were actually built for this purpose in 1912. The main hall is undoubtedly the coolest, offering everything from sausages and fresh fish to takeout Mexican:



--and more flavors of pierogi than you ever thought there could be:



The Hungarian presence, nearly invisible in Chicago, is strong:



But so is an oldtime working class feel, as in this hot dog stand located in one of the corner entrances, where we got dirt cheap, expertly boiled hot dogs with a nice natural casing snap and garlicky flavor, from a couple of women who couldn’t believe I wanted to take their picture.



Dog met with satisfaction in the little square across the street, which is filled at markettime with African (or maybe just dressed-up African-American) vendors selling crafts and playing music. The kids danced and had a great time.



The one thing I’d say against the West Side Market is that it’s a bit stuck in the 70s foodwise, which isn’t a bad thing when it comes to sausage and pierogi (very South Side Chicago in that way) but means that the fruit and vegetables, for instance, basically come out of the same big supplier boxes as the ones at the supermarket; you’ll look in vain for the kind of local producers you see at the Green City Market. The woman who owns our B&B speculated that as the area picks up and more competition (like a Wal-Mart) arrives, the WSM will be forced to move in that more interesting and local-focused direction to survive. Let’s hope it actually works out that way.

Last stop on our way out of Cleveland was Farkas Bakery, the Hungarian pastry shop recommended by several folks, again just a block or two south of where we stayed:



Here was an example of where a little LTHForum preparation pays enormous dividends; I started chatting up the owner, saying that people had told us to try his place, and soon he was playing with the kids, telling us about visiting his son in Chicago, we were having a great old time stuffing our faces.



The napoleons and chocolate rum cake were amazing, orgasmically light and creamy, you must have them, even if you’ve just had hot dogs at the West Side Market:



You lead them into a den of Naugahyde, they tolerate you while you run around a food market taking pictures and shouting "Isn't this cool?", but then you lead them into a Farkas Bakery and all your LTHForum obsessions pay off. Dad did good.

more to come...

Byblos
1050 S Reynolds Rd
Toledo OH 43615
(419) 382-1600
http://www.byblostoledo.com

Great Lakes Brewing Company
(216) 771-4404
2516 Market Ave
Cleveland, OH 44113
http://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/

West Side Market
(216) 579-0634
1979 W 25th St
Cleveland, OH 44113
http://www.westsidemarket.com

Farkas Pastry Shop
(216) 281-6200
2700 Lorain Ave
Cleveland, OH 44113
http://www.farkaspastries.com/

P.S. Main things learned at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

1) Ringo was tiny.
2) The best thing that could have happened to rock and roll was an earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1965.

Mike G wrote:--and more flavors of pierogi than you ever thought there could be:

Mike,

Philly Cheese Steak Peirogi, Yikes!

Sounds like a very nice trip, great pictures. I'm especially looking forward to the installment that features Full Kee, non insipid clams and J Zurer, brother of noted actor and clam aficionado S Zurer.

Enjoy,
Gary.

Mike G wrote:The one thing I’d say against the West Side Market is that it’s a bit stuck in the 70s foodwise, which isn’t a bad thing when it comes to sausage and pierogi (very South Side Chicago in that way) but means that the fruit and vegetables, for instance, basically come out of the same big supplier boxes as the ones at the supermarket; you’ll look in vain for the kind of local producers you see at the Green City Market. The woman who owns our B&B speculated that as the area picks up and more competition (like a Wal-Mart) arrives, the WSM will be forced to move in that more interesting and local-focused direction to survive. Let’s hope it actually works out that way.

<snip>

P.S. Main things learned at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

1) Ringo was tiny.
2) The best thing that could have happened to rock and roll was an earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1965.

Great looking trip. We are probably gonna drive to Montreal later this summer. I can see working several of these places into the itinerary.

I see the WSM and it angers me that there is nothing like that in Chicago (but the thing is, was there EVER anything like that in Chicago?), but on the other hand I agree with the point about quality. In LA, at the Farmer's Market and Grand Central Market, neither has produce that matches what they should have given their setting in Southern Cali.

Rock and Roll...so you reject Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, the role of Montery Pop festival, etc. (said as someone with no great affinity towards the Greatful Dead).

Chicago to DC With LTHForum As My Travel Agent, Part 2

In answer to queries above:

Full Kee report with notes on sipidity of clams is coming, be patient.

As with The Strip in Pittsbugh (which I'll get to here eventually), what's cool about the West Side Market in Cleveland is only partly what you can get there, it's mainly that it's in such a compact space that, like Maxwell Street, it has an overall vibe cooler than the sum of its parts. Now, Cleveland's market definitely has some things you couldn't find here (I think that's somewhat less true of The Strip), but really it's the experience of a bustling market that's the fun part, and not really in evidence along a sprawling wholesale district like Randolph Street, whatever its many attractions.

Yes, after listening to this fantastic anthology on the road (I don't know who The Marigolds were but "Rolling Stone" is one of the rockingest songs ever recorded, and there's plenty more on there), then viewing all the Show Print posters for 50s R&B groups, the actual matching fire-red suits worn by bands like the Platters and the Temptations, etc., it is impossible not to feel like something wonderful and spiffy and keen-o-neat just got ruined by spoiled white kids when you suddenly reach The Charlatans and Jefferson Airplane and so on. Gram Parsons, fine, but hippies and acid-- feh. Get a haircut and a job and learn four-part harmony, you bums!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Morgantown, WV: Ruby & Ketchy's

We're entering the part of the trip where we tended to cook out at home with who we visited, but there are a few reports to be made, such as this spot I spotted on Cheat Lake near Morgantown, West Virginia, where my sister in law teaches art history:



Ruby and Ketchy themselves have apparently both gone to the diner in the sky, but the short, simple breakfast menu had two outstanding, classic items: biscuits and gravy, which contained big hearty chunks of this homemade sausage:



And mouthpuckeringly pungent buckwheat pancakes, with a sourdough taste that was too much for almost everyone at the table but me.



Hagerstown, MD: Rocky’s

Timing necessitated blowing through Pittsburgh and by lunchtime, following the signs in Hagerstown seemed only to be getting us to the likes of Roy Rogers. Then my wife saw a sign promising NY Pizza out of the corner of her eye as we passed through an intersection. Following the Mike G pizzeria rule (always eat at a pizza place that looks like it’s been there 30 years, there’s a chance they haven’t turned it into Domino’s yet) we made an immediate U-turn and found this little slice of poifect Noo Joisey pizzamaking:





The pie was that quintessential New York thin crust that people ask for constantly in Chicago and can never find. Great? Objectively, probably not. Just right at that moment? Exactly. With pizza in our bellies, like Stonewall Jackson we pressed on to the battlefields of Antietam, before heading for our main destination for the week: Alexandria, Virginia.

Alexandria, VA

Just in case you ever visit Alexandria, let me give you two important pieces of advice that may just save your life:

1) Never, ever, ever park in a Smarttrip parking lot unless you can see ample parking available from the road. Once you are inside, you cannot get out if the lot is full, except by abandoning your car somewhere (you cannot, of course, park it) and walking over to the adjacent Metro stop and buying a useless $10 Smarttrip card in order to pay $3.50 of that amount as ransom for your release. When you call the Smarttrip number to scream at them, they act like it never occurred to them that their system was designed to produce a screwing exactly this bad. I of course know nothing about the incident in which all the raisable wooden gates at the exits were chopped off with an axe during the night. Damn teenagers!

2) That fancy 24-screen movie theater next to all the hotel complexes on Eisenhower Ave., just on the other side of the train tracks? Forget about it. There may be an access ramp leading to it off Telegraph Road, but it has been deliberately left unmarked by Pentagon order to prevent Al-Qaeda attacks. I mean, it couldn't be that they're so stupid as to not put up a sign that said "Eisenhower Ave." with an arrow on the only access point to a major commercial strip, right?

Okay, that out of the way, we proceed to food in Alexandria.



Peruvian chicken is big in the DC area, apparently, and quite good. This was, as my sister said, the closest one rather than the best one, but once you got past the very Am Mex-Am food on the menu and dug into the chickens, the pupusas (a new discovery for the kids and happily devoured), maduros etc., I'd call it just about as good as any we have and I'd happily try others.



The retro-tinged hamburger chain Five Guys can best be described as the In-N-Out of Washington, the local chain that tries harder and has a fanatical local following. I mean, who else announces the variety of Idaho potato being used today?



Five Guys definitely scores for freshness of ingredients and good attitude. My only complaint would be what many would consider a key benefit, the 1/4 or 1/3 lb. patty (and with the regular hamburger, you get two!) which is simply way more meat than the classic 30s style burger which blends harmoniously in the bag into a hamburger totality greater than the individual ingredients. This is more like a bar burger, dominated by beef, and proof that this is a chain that only imitates, not actually dates back to the 50s. But fresh, good quality beef and fresh-cut fries are certainly recommendations. Well worth a stop at any of the sprouted-all-over locations.




Ruby & Ketchy's
2232 Cheat Road
Morgantown, WV

Rocky's NY Pizza
(301) 790-2140
17605 Virginia Ave
Hagerstown, MD 21740

El Pollo Ranchero
(703) 721-2000
6324 Richmond Hwy
Alexandria, VA 22306

Five Guys
20 DC-area locations
http://fiveguys.com/

Sorry Byblos didn't work out for you, but I hope you'll get a chance to get to the Beirut someday. Very nice West Side Market pics and Farkas pastries too...yum!

Chicago to DC With LTHForum As My Travel Agent, Part 3: Our Nation's Capitol

Of course, one does not go to Washington merely, or even primarily, to eat. You go to see holy shrines of great Americans, like Julia Child's kitchen:



I must admit, my first-ever visit to the Smithsonian Museum of American History was a bit disappointing, just because it's such a random grab-bag (unless you're the sort of person who gets up wanting to see the Star-Spangled Banner, the magnetic device A.G. Bell used to look for bullets inside President Garfield, and the one true Howdy Doody all in the same day). I couldn't help but feel that there were much more interesting ways to present much more stuff than this space-wasting, occasionally way too politically correct museum.

On the other hand, I have nothing but praise for the original Air & Space museum (it has a new facility out at Dulles which we didn't visit), which besides containing the holiest of all American relics-- the Wright flyer-- has lots of other cool displays. Here is the diorama depicting the attempt of the first Soviet time-traveling satellite, the Khronovik-1, to shoot down Charles Lindbergh in 1927 and claim the first transatlantic flight for Stalin, an attempt foiled by Chuck Yeager's X-15:



One day we made the kids take the long march through the presidential memorials-- you see them all your life, but it takes visiting them up close to realize that some providential hand ensured that every major memorial in Washington is just totally perfect. Washington-- towering, stern, mysteriously oblique in the Egyptian fashion. Jefferson-- sophisticated, urbane, Greek. Lincoln-- a Roman republic temple crossed with a tin cigar box, inviting you in for a jug and some tall stories. (Liam conked out at this point. George would have frowned but Abe wouldn't have minded.)



And the new FDR one, shapeless and with no single focus, yet with lots of interesting touches, willing to give anything a try, give lots of artists a crack at summing up his presidency and, in the process, a job. Here the boys pose with "my little dog, Fala."



We also saw the new war memorials-- relatively new, anyway-- the Korean one, with its lifesize soldiers who look like Bill Mauldin drawings from WWII, walking ghostlike through a black marble landscape which can't help but make you think of the Vietnam memorial not far away-- bridging the two very different eras and wars with which it shares a bit of each. And the WWII one, which I had thought from drawings looked too much like fascist architecture with its rows of pillars, actually in real life is human-scaled, very much has the modern-but-not-Modernist feel of midcentury government architecture (like the Dept. of Agriculture, or Goodhue's masterful Nebraska statehouse), is low enough to the ground that it doesn't dominate one end of the reflecting pool (Washington still does that) and provides a peacefully triumphant space for a less ambiguous war.

And then (he said seguing quickly to food before someone gets all Leff on him) if you continue along, what was it, 14th or something past the Holocaust Museum and the Bureau of Printing & Engraving, you get to:



The waterfront fish market! We were actually tipped off to this by Jonathan Zurer (of whom more anon), and it was the perfect end to a morning of memorial trekking, both much-needed sustenance and welcome slice of urban vigor and reality after a morning of white marble contemplation. Ramshackle vendors along the waterfront, Italian and black and Vietnamese, raucously hawking things that were caught not far away (still-live crabs) and things that plainly weren't (salmon and sea bass).





Most was for cooking later, but one stand did a brisk business in crab cake sandwiches and shrimp by the pound, served from big butter-filled bins (in which they were overcooked, but still tasty). We sat in the parking lot and devoured them happily, pouring a little butter and garlic on the pavement for my dead homies George, Abe, Tom and Franklin.



And now the moment you've all been waiting for: the clam report from Full Kee.

By now it is just accepted as normal in my family that when visiting a distant city, the natural thing to do is to have dinner with the brother you've never met of someone you mainly know from cyberspace. And so, remembering our own Seth Zurer's words about the superiority of the clams in black bean sauce at Full Kee, and his dad's open invitation to any out of towner to dine there, a few emails later, there we were with Seth's brother Jonathan.

Below: L. to r., Mom of Mike G., chicken and eggplant, clams in black bean sauce, leek flowers, Brother of Seth Z.



I wish I had enough basis with clams to be able to state definitively whether these made Little Three Happiness' appear insipid, but I've confessed my lack of mollusc knowledge or love before. So, all I can say is, I liked it, for a clam dish.



I really liked the soup with shrimp dumplings, a dish that showed shrimp off to their best advantage; and perhaps my other favorite was the leek flowers, better described as leeks which had been allowed to sprout slightly, cooked simply with a little soy sauce in a wok.



The eggplant "casserole" was oily but if you picked things out and let them drain a bit, had lots of good flavor. (Still, if we hadn't been so seafood-heavy at that point, I think the recommended oyster and ginger casserole sounded more promising.)



Here's a shot of us exiting:



It's great that thanks to something like LTHForum, you can arrange dinner with a total stranger who shares your obsessions so closely that conversation starts off at a fast clip and never lets up. Jonathan was, like all Zurers in my experience, an extremely nice, smart and funny guy, and I thank him for joining us, enabling us to order more food to try, and not least for tipping us off to the fish market.

* * *

I escaped one day while the kids were playing to go off on a food adventure of my own via Metro. My destination: the Sterns-approved soul food lunch counter Florida Avenue Grill, which is reputed to be in a rather dodgy neighborhood. Well, as I was looking at the map, and noticed how few blocks separated Florida Avenue Grill from Adams-Morgan/Dupont Circle, I began to suspect that the reports of scariness may no longer be valid. Sure enough, the neighborhood (pretty tidy to begin with, like 79th Street more than Englewood) resounded to the sound of chic new condos going up, and the only fear I had was that I was already too late to buy property.



Maybe the gentrification is the reason, then, for the fact that I was less than welcomed or wowed here. I hoped to find, nay, wallow in the most rustic of Southern soul food delights, but the menu seemed only a little more Southern or soulful than an Illinois truck stop. (I just heard the Sterns on an old Splendid Table claiming there were both grits and redeye gravy on the menu, but I saw no evidence of either.) I also hoped to be welcomed by waitresses with southern charm to spare, but in fact the warmth of my welcome was just barely nudged over the edge to tepid. Fried chicken, collard greens and candied sweet potatoes were okay, but I've had better in Chicago, and it's not even like I eat that kind of food very much.

I was about to chalk it up as a little more evidence for the idea that once the Sterns make a place famous, its glory days are over, when I was offered dessert. Cut my losses or go for one more roll of the dice? I decided I would only regret not doing so, and so I ordered peach cobbler.



Bliss. Warm, spicy, goopy, it enveloped me with downhome goodness and made up for everything else. For some reason, too, it made them suddenly friendlier. Had I passed some test? Did they resolve some behind-the-scenes disagreement while I wasn't looking? Who knows, but dessert justified the reputation that lunch did not.



Walking back to the Metro, I saw the likewise Sterns-approved and highly reputed Ben's Chili Bowl. Well, my philosophy is, if you didn't like your lunch, keep having lunch until you do, so I went in for a half smoke with chili. Here's half of a half smoke (I forgot to take a picture until I was at that point):



This is the kind of food that is probably at its best when you're drunk, but in its gut-bomb way, it was pretty wonderful if of little nutritionally redeeming value. As Eatchicago said, "Ben's has the amazing ability to use cheap, canned ingredients and turn them into something delightful." Although actually, I guess I wouldn't call them cheap when you look who their supplier seems to be:



(Incidentally, here's something no one seems to have commented on: I'd just bet that Ben's building was originally built as a nickelodeon. That arch window with the ring of bare electric lights around it is the classic nickelodeon style. P.S. Okay, digging around on the Ben's site I found this: "Built in 1909, the building first housed a silent movie house, the Minnehaha Theater." Cha-ching!)

* * *

One final visitor tip, at least for those with small kids: in Maryland northwest of DC there's the remnants of an art deco-era amusement park called Glen Echo Park, where they do puppet shows, have an old carousel, etc. Not that much is left of the old park but what's there is some of the best-preserved (or most atmospherically left-to-crumble) vintage art deco I've seen, very cool.



Oh, and true story. The next day, my wife went on her own adventure and tried to just walk right into the Capitol Building as she had done in pre-9/11 days. As she was stopped, the guard asked her if she was staff. No, a tourist, why did you think I was staff? The reason was, the Ben's Chili Bowl T-shirt I had bought her the day before....

Waterfront Fish Market
Maine SE, east of 14th St. bridge

Full Kee
509 H St., NW
Washington, DC
202-371-2233

Florida Avenue Grill
1100 Florida Avenue NW
Washington, DC
202-265-1586

Ben's Chili Bowl
1213 U Street NW
Washington DC
(202)667-0909

Hi,

As much as I love Chicago, I could easily transfer to the Washington, D.C. area and be quite content.

The warmest reception I ever received at the Florida Avenue Grill was when I brought my toddler nieces. The staff just ate them up. I've come solo and gotten the cold prickly experience.

I went to Glen Echo as a kid. In that earlier phase, they still allowed people to attempt to get the brass ring. For those who may not know what I refer to, while the carousel rotated there was a device which if you were big enough you could grab a ring from. If you grabbed a brass ring, as opposed to a plain metal one, then you got a free ride on the carousel.

I went to school in Washington, D.C. because of my fond memories living nearby as a child. Once when my Dad was visiting, I had free reign with the rental car. I immediately went driving around 'feeling my way' to find the park I adored when I was young. I found the carousel, which now has very limited hours, and rode around. I was quite disappointed they no longer allowed anyone to collect the brass ring due to insurance purposes.

I've met Mr. and Mrs. Zurer on one of their periodic visits to Chicago. On one of my last visits to Washington, I contacted Mr. Zurer about recommendations in Chinatown. Of course, he recommended Full Kee, then commented it was closed for renovation. Fine, so what else do you recommend in Chinatown? Nothing else because the Zurer family only goes to Full Kee. I will finally get there someday since it does come so highly recommended.

Did you happen to see the storefront operation which makes dumplings in the window like some pizzerias make pizza?

I am truly enjoying your trip vicariously.

Regards,

Mike,

Thanks for taking us along on your vacation. It truly was a trip down memory lane for me (at least the parts close to DC). Ben's was definitely a place for late-night inebriated dining. Two chili dogs (mustard & onions) and one of their thick, machine-made chocolate shakes usually did the trick for me. Your exterior picture of Ben's with the D&D truck is very similar to the view I had from my window (except I had the U st. station in the foreground).

Either Five Guys went through a major expansion in the past decade or I was blissfully unaware of their far reach. There were only two that I knew of back then, Alexandria being the closest. A hangover burger and fries was a common sunday trip if I could find a friend with a car (after Ben's had fully digested). A darn good meal that I can still recall the taste and smell of.

Mike G wrote:Maybe the gentrification is the reason, then, for the fact that I was less than welcomed or wowed here. I hoped to find, nay, wallow in the most rustic of Southern soul food delights, but the menu seemed only a little more Southern or soulful than an Illinois truck stop. I also hoped to be welcomed by waitresses with southern charm to spare, but in fact the warmth of my welcome was just barely nudged over the edge to tepid.

I bring this up, at the risk of skirting political issues, only to corroborate your impressions.

In my handful of visits to Florida Ave. Grill (about 8 years ago now), I would say that the warmth level I experienced was somwhere approaching "liquid nitrogen". At one point, I was sternly asked by a grill man if I didn't want to "head back west". I didn't like the food that much anyway.

I often received the same cold shoulder during late evenings at Ben's, and I usually took my food to go. The general distrust I felt in DC was a large part of the reason that I decided to move back to Chicago.

Thanks again for sharing. Great pics.

Best,
Michael / EC

I think when my sister took me to Five Guys the first time, in '98, it was just a neighborhood hamburger stand, the one in Old Town Alexandria. It now has 20 locations, apparently. That's what winning best-of competitions will do, I guess.

So I did get the warm Florida Avenue Grill welcome after all!

Shows you what I know about DC dining these days, as I never even heard of 5 Guys until LTH (and I still mourn the demise of Bob's Ice Cream!).

I would offer/point out that back in the day, say when I was at school or worked in DC, Florida Ave Grill and Ben's Chili Bowl WERE in extremely dicey neigborhoods. When the Green Line opened up in this area, late 80's, it really gentrified the place. But I also remember taking little field trips to gawk, at the area around 14th and K, and if you visit that area today you will NEVER have an idea about how decrepit this part of town once was. So, appearances may be decieving.

I always had great food at Florida Avenue Grill. Sadly, I never ate at Ben's (although passed it all the time in my work, if you catch my drift). My memories are of a place similiar to Edna's or Daley's, and because memories are memories, I actually remember it being better than Edna's, but who knows how objective that memory is, let alone how the place is today. I should also point out that Florida Avenue Grill has a few regional specialties like scrapple on the menu (or once did!!).

Mike, I'm glad you made it to the Maine Avenue waterfront district. I think it is an area kinda overlooked and even sneered upon by many. The last time I was in DC, about 5 years ago, I had a very nice meal at Hogates, and yea, I just like the whole area. It is NOT what you expect in DC.

Thanks for the pics!

Rob

Yes, they have scrapple but I watched the grill man remove it from plastic wrapped packages. Maybe I shouldn't have looked down my nose at that but at the time it seemed like there was little point in ordering something straight out of a supermarket-style package.

Great post Mike. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your expereinces and the pictures.

Mike G wrote:Yes, they have scrapple but I watched the grill man remove it from plastic wrapped packages. Maybe I shouldn't have looked down my nose at that but at the time it seemed like there was little point in ordering something straight out of a supermarket-style package.

Is that any different from ordering sausage? bacon? steak?

I guess it would be cool if a place made their own scrapple, but our expectation of low end restaurants is not really of that level of artisinalship is it? Or put it this way, in France, many a bistro buys their pate from the guy down the block. Would you not order it?

Depends if the guy down the block is Safeway.

Ruby & Ketchy's, for instance, had homemade sausage. Now, I don't know if it's made by the owners, more likely some local farmer or butcher shop makes it for them, but the point is, it isn't made by Jimmy Dean or Hormel, so that makes me a lot more likely to want to try it. As I say, I might have judged the scrapple too harshly for that reason, but at the very least, it wasn't a positive reason to make an effort to have it over something else.

Great reports Mike! I'm so glad that you got to hook up with my brother and that Full Kee met with your approval, if not adoration. Did you not have the soft shell crabs as well? Those, the shrimp dumplings and the crabs in black bean sauce are the holy trinity of the full kee menu - if I'm home during soft shell season then I never miss em.

Seth

We did have the soft shell crabs, I forgot because none of my pics turned out especially well, but they were terrific and got me over the disappointment of not going to a crab shack on Chesapeake Bay or anything like that on the trip. They were definitely a highlight as well.

Seth,

a few months ago I traveled to DC solo, took your advice and posted the results here on the forum (very positive review). Were the shrimp dumplings the ones served in the Hong Kong style soup? I remember ordering and enjoying that dish along with the clams.

Sadly, I had an overnight business trip planned this week that was cancelled. I was excited to try the soft shells, since last time I visited it was winter and not in-season.

Simon

The very same dumplings - to produce consistent results, we usually ask for "hong kong style shrimp wontons no noodles". You get about a dozen perfect dumplings whose compact cohesion apparently defies the laws of physics given that the filling is two small shrimp and almost nothing else in a delicate wonton wrapper.

Softshells are ridiculously good - we favor the salt&pepper preparation in which they're deepfried in a very light batter and presented with green onion, onion, chilis and little else.

Thanks. Your response was at the same time satisfying and disheartening to me.

Now I need a new excuse to travel to DC.

Chicago to DC With LTHForum As My Travel Agent, Part 4



Come with me now, through the red salami door, for the final chapter in my summer vacation:

Frederick, MD

Frederick, MD, is one of those pretty little vacation getaway small towns; it has a density of upscale restaurants that couldn't possibly be supported by ordinary local traffic, as well as a magazine, Frederick, whose main function seems to be giving awards so that the vacationers will know where to eat. All sounds good so far, better than having no clue, but let me tell you how we went astray. Having the opinion that, as Rocky's Pizza had already proven, there were actual Italian-Americans in Maryland, and having that opinion confirmed by a couple of really authentic looking shops (neither of them open on a Saturday night), I said no to Tapas, Mexican, French, or chi-chi American bistro, and said, let's find a real Italian joint.

Before long we found ourselves outside the winner of Frederick's Best Italian poll, Venuti's. Which proved to be... exactly the sort of place east coast WASP retirees would think was a nice Italian restaurant. If it had been me alone, I think I would have faked a heart attack to get out as soon as I saw that the signature item on the menu was a garlic breadstick, fresh out of the Pillsbury package and bedecked with enough matchstick-like pieces of grated Parmesan to clog a dozen arteries. I can't blame them for offering such a monstrosity, though, when their clientele's expectations have clearly been set by the fill-em-up-on-bread approach of Olive Garden. The meal was okay, actually, nothing was terrible, nothing was memorable, nothing suggested that an actual Italian had ever passed through the place. Well, it got us fed and back on the road, on to:

Pittsburgh



That, my friends, is a pastrami and egg sandwich, with bisected French fries in its middle. And this is Primanti Brothers, looking considerably nicer in this picture than the grimy, start-your-day-with-a-Bud reality:



As JeffB hinted in this post (which would be our main guide for the next day, foodwise), the Sterns-recommended Primanti Bros. is easier to appreciate as a real slice of working class life than as the makers of quality sandwiches for the sober diner. The fact is, I thought the steak and cheese (our #2 seller, the board proudly proclaims) was pretty gross, mainly because of the Steakumm inside it, though the pastrami with egg (a double egg just seemed too much) was considerably better. Even so, I'm not sure this is something I ever need to have again; I had to take half the vinegary cole slaw off it to make it edible, and the fries were like a starchy flavor dead zone in the middle of an otherwise pretty good sandwich.

That said, the Strip in which it is located is indeed, as JeffB said, way cool and richly repays a visit. Imagine if you took the Italian stuff on Harlem in Chicago (the red door, by the way, is from here), mixed it with part of Chinatown, and tossed in a couple of Army-Navy surplus stores or the like, and then set them all down on the side of a mountain in Leadville, Colorado, leaving them there long enough to become funky enough to warrant the opening of a couple of nightclubs (but still far, far from being gentrified or yuppified). That's kind of what you have here, a slice of ethnic fusion and urban grittiness carved out of the living rock and lively in all its unprettified unloveliness. I mean, here's Prima, JeffB's beloved espresso place; Sunday morning, Italian-Americans all over the sidewalk sipping espresso and playing cards-- as the coal trains rumble behind them against the side of the mountain. That's Pittsburgh in a nutshell to me.



Here's something else I saw, too. A claw game where you can pick up a lobster with the claw. I was speechless at the whole concept. I mean, enough people try it that it pays out to have someone come feed the lobsters and keep them alive? Bizarre.



Pittsburgh was a great town to visit even though we lost over an hour just trying to get around its endless bridges and tunnels and actually find things. I mean, here you have the incline railways, elevators up the sides of mountains, a Frisco-cable-car level tourist attraction; and the entrance to same is located in a waterfront mall area of historic buildings and chain restaurants not unlike Navy Pier. So being Pittsburgh, you adopt the attitude toward your major installations of the Soviet Rocket Ministry, and put up absolutely no signage telling people where to turn off in the two seconds between your bridges and your tunnels to access the one and only tiny access road. What is this, Alexandria, Virginia?



The maddening deficiencies (and I cannot tell you how many maps and guidance systems we had to help us; the normal visitor, not driving a James Bond car, would have no hope at all) of this tourist-repelling system notwithstanding, Pittsburgh is a fascinating, 19th century industrial place, still buttressed with mighty structures of black cast iron at every turn even as they build sleek glass corporate towers and convention centers and ballparks. There's an old story that they asked Frank Lloyd Wright what to do with the city once to make it more livable and appealing, and his response was, "Abandon it." Fortunately, they didn't and instead it's a fever dream of all American cities put together, hemmed in by looming mountains and rivers and erupting in Expressionist iron girders and sprouting shimmering glass towers which seem not quite real in the sunlight.

Or... maybe it was just the French fries in my sandwich, and too much Prima espresso.

New Castle, PA

I mentioned earlier that I used some of the least likely to be used suggestions ever posted here. Those would be JeffB's suggestions for New Castle, Pennsylvania, which would prove to be our last noteworthy meals of the trip. Sure enough, we drove around this somewhat depressed town until we found Forbush's, a custard stand offering pretty good, not better than Scooter's or Kopp's custard. They did, however, have the coolest custard making machines known to man:



And another feature you tend not to find here, a big field of grass out back in which to eat your custard.



For food on the way back, we pulled into another JeffB recommendation, perhaps the most improbable of all: Mister B's. Basically it was a beer store, and that was certainly what they did the most business in while I stood there, but on the menu was what Jeff called lamb on the rod, they just called it lamb, rather cryptically offering it in three sizes-- single, double, or-- I kid you not-- Power 21. (No, not a Lotto game, I guess it means 21 pieces.) I went for double:



You would never guess that a place mainly selling Bud 12-packs would produce perfectly tender roasted lamb, with garlic sauce (hidden under Syrian bread in the photo) and, incidentally, excellent skin-on fresh cut fries. But it did, and thanks to JeffB, I had (and fed it to my wife as she drove). It beat the hell out of Roy Rogers or Burger King, I can say that. Thanks to everybody for the great tips, and if you're ever in New Castle, PA, take a tip from me and go for the Power 21. It's a long way back to Chicago wishing you had.

Venuti’s
16 E. Patrick St.
Frederick, MD
301-668-2700

Primanti Bros.
46 W. 18th Street, The Strip
Pittsburgh PA
(412) 263-2142

La Prima Espresso Bar
The Strip District
205 Twenty-first Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Forbush Drive-In
3462 Ellwood Road
New Castle, PA 16101
724-658-2663

Mister B's
2034 E Washington St
New Castle, PA 16101

Dude. Forbush's, Mr. B's?

You are my hero. I am humbled that you would take such esoteric advice and foist it onto your family during a vacation.

Several comments:

1) I worked in the Elyria-Lorain area for five years before moving to the Chicago area and found the food to be at best disappointing. Even the ethnix food was not all that great (except the Greek Orthodox festival in Lorain which was home-cookied and trult outstanding.

One recommendation in the area would be the Oberlin College Inn which serves a creative menu.

2) As for the West Side Market, the presence of Wal-Mart in that marlet should have little impact as WalMart groceries - especially the produce come at a much HIGHER price point.

Do realize that the WSM produce is ***NOT** a farmers market like Eastern Market in Detroit. Rather, the vendors buy the surplus from the produce houses in the area and hawk the produce for quick sale. Therefore, the prices are really cheap. In that market (from my weekly experience), you had better know WHO you are dealing with. Some of the vendors are good honest guys selling a good produce. Other in the market sell CRAP and will cheat on the weights. (On a few occasions, I saw two certain vendors cheating a couple of folks. Fortunately, the situation was rectified when a Cleveland police officer told the guy to put the stuff back on the scale for an honest weight.)

The inside meat guys are generally pretty good and serve a good product.

>>"hong kong style shrimp wontons no noodles"<<

As loathe as I am to correct my esteemed youngest son, the correct terminology for the wontons in question is "hong kong style wontons, no noodles". You get ten of the little critters in each order. These are not be confused with shrimp dumpling soup...which brings you eight slightly larger dumplings filled with the same excellent shrimp but a little extra mushroom in the package. For whatever reason, Zurers prefer the wontons.

MikeG,.

Sorry to have missed you on your trip to DC but I am glad that you got to meet and eat with Jonathan.

For me, the oyster and scallion casserole at Full Kee is the only contender that challenges the "non-insipid" clams with black bean sauce for the essential Full Kee dish. As much as I love the soft-shells, there is much variation in the frying and I am always disappointed (not enough to stop eating them) when they don't have the tempura-like lightness that they had when we first encountered them. On your next trip, you can try the oysters, the head-on crispy fried shrimp, the pork and bean curd in black bean sauce and any of the other delicious vegetables.

A couple of other things....Florida Avenue Grill is definitely past its prime; their cornbread used to be near perfection and Five Guys has exploded in the last year, quadrupling the number of branches.

Perhaps you can try Moby Dick for kebabs on your next trip.

Jim Zurer

Mike G--

I've loved your travelogue! Your explorations of Our Nation's Capital have helped me and my eating companion to plan our trip there next Fall.

And, btw, I thought your comments about Pittsburgh were absolutely on point. Well done!

I've spent a lot of time in Da 'Burgh and, in fact, a few yrs ago wrote the eating/dining guide for a national convention meeting there. If you'd be interested to see what I wrote, go to

http://www.umkc.edu/scistud/gale/pbgh-eat.doc

Tnx for all your good work on this trip, keeping us posted.

Geo

Your post was a whirlwind of tasty memories for me. My wife and I recenlty moved from D.C. to Chicago. And we just got married in Pittsburgh. AND my wife was from New Castle. I've been to Four Bush's for custard plenty of times when visiting her. New Castle residents swear by it. Now, after discovering this thread and finding out there are not one, but two places, that sell exceptional custard here in Chicago, I'm looking forward to going out and tasting them. Great entry.

--JON

jkschuler wrote:Now, after discovering this thread and finding out there are not one, but two places, that sell exceptional custard here in Chicago, I'm looking forward to going out and tasting them. Great entry.

--JON

Just so you don't get your hopes too high, Kopp's is in Milwaukee. Not a terrible drive, but not quite in the city. Scooter's, on the other hand, is local. Check out Vital Information's ice cream list for a nearly exhaustive set of chicago-area ice cream/custard places.

Thanks for the heads up! I'll pass on the Milwaukee trip, but will def hit up Scooters one of these days.

--Jon

Bookended a rural Virginia BBQ trip with stops in Washington DC, Thursday I had the pleasure of dining at Full Kee with Jonathan Zurer, Stephanie, a colleague of Jonathan's, and Bruce and Mary Cook. More to come on Full Kee and pics of Dan Gill's Oinkster Fest in Urbanna, Virginia. But first.......

Ben's Chili Bowl

1st Try:
Drove back to DC Sunday night, tired, mosquito bitten ('squitos were the size of blue crabs), after a short nap I was leaving the hotel in search of sustenance when I did the Milwaukee Magic Trick (turned into a bar) and barely caught last call for belly clams at Zurer family favorite seafood house Kinkead's. Drinks at Old Ebbitt Grill, recommended by Chris the bartender at Kinkead's, served to waylay me further so it wasn't until around 1am the taxi dropped me off in front of Ben's.

So there I am Mr. Tourist, sandals w/black knee-high socks, Bermuda shorts, loud Hawaiian shirt, camera hanging from my neck and a cap that say Kiss Me I'm from Chicago, trying to open a locked door.

Ben's Chili Bowl Closes at 9pm on Sundays.

I couldn't help but think maybe this wasn't a real good idea, not that the area is all that rough, but it's late, I'm in a strange city and, at least at 1am on a Sunday, the area has a mildly desolate feel. No harm, no foul, walked a half block, found a taxi and hit Full Kee just before the 2am close. A short aside on Full Kee, of the many Chinese restaurants I've been to in various cities Full Kee comes the closest to evoking 'Little' Three Happiness.

Undaunted in my quest for a Ben's half-smoke I went for a Monday pre flight lunch and am very glad I did, Ben's Chili Bowl is terrific, a bustling friendly place bursting with personality.



Half smoke hit all the hot dog high notes, great Snap, rich juicy mouthfeel, nicely charred, mustard tang and counterpoint onion crunch. Chili dog reminded me of Tommy's, which is a compliment of the highest order. House made chili reminded me of Ramova Grill's, which is to say Hormell all meat chili, but in a good way.

Fries, Half-Smoke w/mustard and onion, Chili Dog


One of two grills in action.


Ben's even has one of my favorite hot sauces, Texas Pete.


Ben's, compared to it's street footprint, is more spacious than it seems with the rear two rooms easily accommodating groups. Though I, of course, opted for the counter.



As I was taking an after lunch look around, snapping a few pictures and just generally soaking in the history a very nice woman approached and, in the sweetest of fashions, said she noticed my interest and wondered if I'd be interested in some of the history of Ben's. Turns out I was speaking to none other than Mrs. Ben, her descriptor not mine,

Virginia Ali, also know as Mrs. Ben


In all I heartily echo Mike G's original subject line, thanks LTHForum for cluing me in to Ben's Chili Bowl.

Enjoy,
Gary

Ben's Chili Bowl
1213 U Street N. W.
Washington D.C. 20009
http://www.benschilibowl.com/

My wife and I will be taking a fairly leisurely roadtrip to Washington D.C. and back in early October. Certainly willing to take some not too intense side trips. Any suggestions for culinary treats along the way?