On Hiatus Until October

On hiatus until early October. There will be lots of new neighborhoods and locales to discover and explore once the heat and humidity of a Washington summer begin to subside and the leaves take on their autumn colors.  Wishing everyone a restful and safe summer.

An Afternoon in MidCity

This is a self-portrait taken late last week at the Café Saint-Ex, a small Art Deco brasserie named after Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the famous French aviator and author of The Little Prince, and situated in the MidCity neighborhood at the corner of 14th Street and T Street NW (just a couple blocks from the U Street Metro station). This artistic moment came on the heels of a long-anticipated lunch with a friend at the Dukem Ethiopian Restaurant at the corner of U Street and 12th Street, NW.  This has been our favorite Ethiopian joint ever since the Red Sea, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, closed down several years ago.  That was really too bad since the good folks there would always prepare for us a serving of "zigene" (also known as "kay wat"), a traditional Eritrean dish consisting of spicy minced beef stewed in a red "bebere" pepper sauce.  You have to remember that this was at a time when Ethiopia was locked in a bitter civil war with its breakaway province which became an independent nation twenty years ago.  So Eritrean dishes rarely appear on Ethiopian menus.

There are several Ethiopian restaurants to choose from in Washington, DC, but we latched onto Dukem very early on and we have never been disappointed with our favorites dishes.  We always share a platter consisting of basic "tibs," small cubes of beef mixed with carmelized onions, jalapeños peppers, rosemary and a spicey "awazie" (red chili) sauce; lamb "wot," small cubes of lamb in a thick "bebere" sauce; and Dukem's own version of "kitfo" which is very well-ground lean, raw beef mixed with clarified herbal butter, cardamon, and "mitmita," another red chili sauce matched with cumin for a particular kick.  Add chopped tomatoes and powdered dried red chili as side condiments, and a generous stack of "injera," a spongy, yeast-risen flatbread used to grasp the offerings for eating, and you are ready for a unique culinary experience.  And who can forget cold bottles of Ethiopian beer to wash it all down?

 After lunch I walked a block to the Industrial Bank of Washington which for a century has been an institution of Washington’s African American community.  Situated at the corner of 11th Street and U Street, NW, it was founded in 1913 by John Whitelaw Lewis as the Industrial Savings Bank, but closed 19 years later during the bank crisis that led to the Great Depression.  It reopened under its current name in 1934 when it was purchased by Jesse Mitchell, an African American businessman from Texas with the law degree from nearby Howard University.  Operated exclusively by African American employees, it was the only bank in the city that allowed African American patrons to borrow money.

Next I wandered a couple of blocks down to the intersection of 13th Street and T Street, NW and the site of the former Whitelaw Hotel, an Italian Renaissance Revival structure open in 1919 in the heart of this neighborhood long associated with the city’s African-American community.  Early in the 20th century during Jim Crow segregation, John Whitelaw Lewis conceived this hotel as a luxury accommodation for African American visitors.  Cab Calloway stayed here when he was appearing at clubs situated just up the street along the U Street corridor, what Pearl Bailey once called the "Black Broadway."  Duke Ellington (1899-1974), who grew up in this neighborhood, was also a fixture at the hotel as was Joe Louis, when he was in town.  Known as “The Embassy” by the African American elite of the time, it eventually closed in the late 1970s when this entire neighborhood fell on hard time after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 and the subsequent riots and the influx of drugs and street violence.  It was reopened in 1992 after renovation into low and medium income rental housing, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1993.

Back in the mid 1990s my family and I came to this very intersection  where we helped serve Thanksgiving dinners to the homeless and indigent at the Llewellyn Scott Catholic Worker House of Hospitality, at 1305 T Street, NW, just kitty-corner from the Whitelaw.  One year my young son and I took a break and walked through this ramshackle area of vacant and boarded up row houses and peopled by the lost and lonely.  It truly was a forgotten corner of our nation’s capital.  Over the past two decades, however, this entire neighborhood has slowly gentrified.  The late Michael Kirwan, who founded the shelter held his ground for many years, but after his untimely death in 1999, the shelter began to lose ground and now the house is one of the many upscale rowhouses in the neighborhood.  It was just a short walk to the Café Saint-Ex where I sat at the dark wood bar for a couple of beers to cool off on a hot and sticky day and where I pondered my reflection in the mirror behind the bar.  What a difference a couple of decades will make!

My next stop was back on U Street at Ben's Chili Bowl, a notable culinary landmark adjacent to the Lincoln Theater since it first opened in 1958 by Ben and Virginia Ali.  The sign says it all – “the Finest Hot Dogs and Chili Served with a Touch of Class."   Built on the site of the Minnehaha, Washington’s first silent movie theater, Ben’s, just like the Whitelaw Hotel a half a century earlier, has been a meeting place for the cultural and political elite of Washington - black and white.  Bill Cosby and his wife Camille met at Ben's for dates and still eat here for free when they are in town.  President Obama and Vice President Biden met here for lunch early in their first term.  I had already had a filling lunch, but it is always fun to walk in and get a feel for the place.  I plan to do a future posting from a counter stool at this fine establishment.

Next door is the Lincoln Theater, opened in 1922 and a mainstay along this corridor until it, too, closed in the wake of the 1968 riots following the murder of Reverend King.  It reopened in 1994 at the height of  the renovation and gentrification of the neighborhood.  Most of the leading African American entertainers from the early decades of the 20th century -- Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Holliday, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald -- held court here. Later it served as a popular neighborhood cinema.  It joined the Whitelaw Hotel on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 following a full-scale renovation.

A nice, hot and sticky late spring (read early Washington summer) afternoon in the U Street neighborhood.  I always enjoy myself when I come here.  I should do it more often.

The Florida Avenue Grill

Yesterday I joined good friends and fellow bloggers Michael G. Stewart and his son Spencer Stewart - http://neondreamscapes.wordpress.com and http://dinerhunter.com - for a late breakfast of good, home-cooked soul food at the Florida Avenue Grill, at the corner of 11th Street, NW.  I have been residing on the fringes of DC for over 36 years and I am not sure how it is possible that I have not crossed the threshold of the Florida Avenue Grill before now.  Alas.  Nor did I know before we arrived that the joint had been featured in a review by Tim Carman in The Washington Post the same day.

I did a little boning up on the history of the place beforehand.  It has been a mainstay along this section of Florida Avenue near Howard University in the Pleasant Plains neighborhood since it was opened by Lacey C. Wilson, Sr., its original owner, in 1944.  Originally a counter and two stools, the place is now a long counter facing the grill and a row of small booths lined up under the windows.  The walls are covered with framed head shots of the known and unknown who have come here over the years, including my old boss, former Attorney General Janet Reno, who frequently ate here.  It was lucky to survive the riots and fires that gutted this neighborhood after the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968, due in large part to Wilson sitting near the entrance armed with shotgun.  His son, Lacey Jr., who had been a successful nightclub owner in the city, took over the ownership and operation of the diner in 1970.   Described in an earlier Washington Post review as a diner “as greasy as it is venerable,” it is far from being your iconic greasy spoon diner.  The food menu is basic, but the food and ingredients are fresh and served piping hot.    

Known mainly for its all-day breakfast fare, it also serves lunch and dinner entrees, including pigs feet, chitterlings, fried catfish and croaker, fried pork chops, fried chicken, and half-smokes (a DC staple any time of the day).  Michael and Spencer opted for breakfast, but it was close enough to lunchtime that I selected the steamed pigs feet served with generous sides of collard greens and potato salad.  Our waitress gave me a big-eyed stare when I placed my order, but I assured her I knew what I was getting myself into. There are lots of bones and fat, but once you navigate through these obstacles, there is some succulent meat to be had.  I recall a particular order of pigs feet BBQ I had several years ago outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The generous portion served up at the Florida Avenue Grill was, I will be honest, not exactly what I was hoping for.  This is not to say it was not good; it was just not what I was expecting and it was a great deal of work with very little reward.  But thems the chances you take when you are adventurous with food.  I’m sure there are many who think this is the bee’s knees, and they are probably right.

I heard and read that the scrapple is good – Andrew Zimmern lauded it back in February on the seventh season premiere of “Bizarre Food America,” calling it a soul food “out of necessity.”  I have never thought of scrapple as soul food (see   http://www.lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2012/03/everything-but-oink.html), but I did order a side just to see if it lived up to the hype.  It does and then some!  Crispy on the outside, soft yet not mushy on the inside.  I could have made a meal out of it alone!

So, did Carman’s latest review in the Post agree with my own assessment?  I read it when I got home and found it lukewarm, at best.  He and some friends were there just a week ago before closing, the sole (not soul) customers ordering “a late-ish dinner” while the cooks and wait staff were trying to clean up, close up, and get to wherever they needed to be.   But he claims he was on a nostalgic mission . . . to see what all the fuss was about before the diner itself upscales to match the evolving neighborhood around it.  The new owner, who is also one of the local developers, is, according to Carman, thinking of adding salads and sandwiches to the long-standing soul food repertoire . . . like this is the only way to insure the place’s survival.  It has been here for almost 70 years and is doing just fine. Unlike Carman, I did not come to see what the fuss was about, or to feed a nostalgia bug before what has been is no more.  I did note with some interest that Carman had also ordered the pigs feet . . . “this glaringly  unglamorous pile of steamed trotters whose tangle of softened skin, fat and gelatin almost melts on my tongue while its heat provides a welcome bit of irritation.”  To each is own, I guess.  Unlike Carman, I was not out to prove anything or satisfy anything more than the urge for a good meal where a good meal is by and large guaranteed.  And unlike Carman, I did not leave disappointed.  The Florida Avenue Grill is just what it claims to be . . . nothing more and nothing less.

Finally, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  It is an adage with which I happen to agree.  If you want sandwiches and salads, or a beer or a glass of wine instead of juice and coffee, then the U Street corridor and all of its restaurants and bars  is just three blocks to the south.  Besides, Ben’s Chili Bowl, on U Street, has stuck to its original fare and look since 1958 and it is still going strong (even President Obama and former French president Sarkozy have made a special effort to dine here).  So I see no reason why there is a need to change the Florida Avenue Grill.  It is fine just the way it is!

Spring Has Finally Arrived and I'm Still Here!

Photo courtesy of Sally Ann Rogers

It has been a long, cold and wet winter and spring is late in arriving this year.  So it has been several months since I was out exploring the neighborhoods and streets of DC.  The cherry blossoms were late, reaching peak just over a week ago, and even the forsythia, that early harbinger of spring, took its time.  The Boys of Summer have returned, still those early season home games at Nationals Park were a bit on the chilly side.

Now the trees are finally leafing out, the grass is turning green, and the tulips and other flowers are in bloom.  We had a couple days recently when the temperatures soared into the upper 80s, even into the low 90s, but it has turned cooler again, as if spring is not quite sure of itself.  I think I can safely say, however, that winter now seems to be over.

Time to hit the streets again!  I still have a couple months before I head off on my annual summer hiatus in Maine.  But until then, I have places to go and things to see, and I will be reporting on them right here.  So stay tuned!