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Three Days in D.C.: Day 2
Also, Cold War-philes may want to pay a visit to the Yenching Palace. The Chinese food is 1950s traditional and can sometimes disappoint, but the restaurant was the site of negotiations between American and Soviet diplomats trying to end the Cuban Missile Crisis. Skip dinner and have a Mai Tai or tiki mug of Navy Grog instead.
After eating, head down to U Street, known as "Black Broadway" in the 1920s and '30s. (See the Culture Vulture section below for more information.)
  Jazz bands are featured at Cafe Nema, a cozy two-story bar on U Street. (Sarah L. Voisin - Twp) |
Culture Vultures: Start the day off right at Eastern Market, the historic farmer's market full of butchers, florists and vendors selling fruit and vegetables. The venerable Market Lunch makes the best blueberry pancakes around -- order the "buck blue," or buckwheat blueberry pancakes. On weekends, a bustling flea market and produce vendors fill the neighborhood.
Then it's off to Georgetown, Washington's best-known shopping district, where little boutiques line Wisconsin Avenue, alongside big names like Puma, Zara, Lacoste and Intermix. (Walk over to Union Station and grab the cross-town Circulator bus, which will drop you at the corner of Wisconsin and M, which is the heart of the neighborhood.) Spend some time wandering the side streets before making a pit stop. The waterfront bars lining Georgetown's Washington Harbour provide some of the best people-watching in the city, thanks to legions of well-dressed singles on the prowl -- some of whom tie up their boats at the dock before heading to Sequoia or Tony and Joe's for a beer on the patio. If you're looking for bold-faced names, the place to go is Cafe Milano, an expensive restaurant where you may find Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jessica Simpson, Jamie Foxx or Derek Jeter in the dining room. (Regular Placido Domingo is honored with a 15-foot mural of the opera singer.) Martini lovers can head for the Degrees bar in the tony Ritz-Carlton hotel, where celebrity guests -- including Anna Nicole Smith and Jon Bon Jovi -- have been known to pop down for a cocktail.
Just across Rock Creek Park is Dupont Circle, a vibrant neighborhood that is the center of Washington's large gay community; a popular nightlife destination with lounges and bars and clubs catering to all stripes; home to many embassies and the city's diplomatic community; and filled with small galleries and the newly expanded Phillips Collection, America's first modern art museum.
The Phillips is known for its huge French Impressionist collection, which includes Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party." Admission to the permanent collection is free on weekdays. Later, stop into the small Conner Contemporary gallery, where you can get a guide to other nearby galleries. On the first Friday of the month, many of Dupont's galleries extend their hours as part of an art-lovers' gallery crawl.
To get to Dupont from Georgetown, you can catch the Georgetown Shuttle, a blue bus that runs between Georgetown's M Street and the Dupont Circle Metro Station every 10 minutes.
Dinner is easy to come by, thanks to a long list of restaurants. Pizzeria Paradiso attracts long lines for its well-made pies, topped with an array of fresh ingredients. While the Palm is pricey, the steakhouse is always filled with famous-for-Washington politicians, reporters and talking heads, and the aged New York strip wins plaudits, too. And possibly no restaurant in the neighborhood feels quite as lively as Bistrot du Coin, a buzzing French restaurant with good steak frites, a long wine list and service that some readers describe as "typically French" -- i.e. hit-or-miss -- but it's worth it just for checking out the variety of French and Francophile patrons who stroll into the bar.
The food at the Brickskeller isn't much to shout about, but that's not why folks head to the Dupont Circle institution -- they're there to explore a list of more than 1,000 different bottled beers from Argentina to Vietnam. After a drink, grab a cab for a short trip to U Street, which was known as Black Broadway in the 1920s and '30s when hometown boy Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie played clubs and concert halls on the strip. It's still a jazz hotspot today; touring musicians and local unknowns play at Twins Jazz, U-topia, Duke's City and Cafe Nema on a regular basis, while well-known rock bands perform at the nearby 9:30 Club and Black Cat. Don't forget to stop in for a late-night chili-cheese half-smoke at Ben's Chili Bowl, which has welcomed Martin Luther King Jr., Bill Cosby, Redd Foxx, Miles Davis and Nat "King" Cole since opening in 1958.
