Restaurantes en Adams Morgan
El Rincon Espanol
1826 Columbia Road NW, Washington,DC • 202-265-4943
Fri-Sat 11 am-2 am, Sun-Thu 11 am-midnight
Sangria is the drink of the house, and it's awash in chopped fruits, a touch of alcohol and another touch of club soda. At $5.50 for a half-carafe, this is a good buy and a relatively pleasing libation, if not as piquant as it really should be. Paella: a generous helping of saffron rice, with mussels, shrimp, fish, chicken, vegetables, all beautifully arranged and looking like a dream dish.
Waiter's Tip: Don't sit at the table next to the heater in the enclosed veranda during cold months. It blows directly on you, and when it's off, you're right next to the door -- and the breeze every time someone comes in or out.
Good Timing: Flamenco dancing livens things up considerably every Friday and Saturday night. Just don't trip over the wooden flamenco stage, which juts dangerously out into the walkway past the tables. Check out "La Cueva" ("The Cave") downstairs for dancing and after-hours whooping it up. Dinner is also served from the same menu as El Rincon.
Churreria Madrid
2505 Champlain St NW, Washington, DC 20009. 202 483 4441
Tue-Sun 11:00am-10:30pm
Since 1973, Churreria Madrid has been satisfying Spanish expatriates' cravings for churros, which are fried-dough spirals, usually coated with a mixture of cinnamon and powdered sugar, and then dunked in cups of hot chocolate. This churreria also provides a variety of other Spanish specialties at reasonable prices.
Located in a nondescript building next to a Ben and Jerry's on Columbia Road, the first thing you notice upon entering the restaurant is a giant bull's head on the wall and the blasting television (from Spain via satellite). Just like in Spain, the staff mingles around the TV and chats about soccer and politics. The downstairs has just a few tables; most of the patrons eat upstairs. The top-floor room is nothing fancy - it's decorated with prints of bullfighting scenes and an assortment of unmatched chairs.
The menu is large, but unless you like fried eggs and rice, this is a tough place to be a vegetarian: Beef rules. The callos a la madrilena contains tripe, pork feet, chorizo and chickpeas. The paella is huge and full of mussels, squid, shrimp, sausage and chicken. The crowd is a mix of Adams-Morgan locals and Spaniards (tourists and expats). The portions are uniformly large, the service is friendly and pitchers of sangria help wash it all down.
-- Neal Becton
Julia's Empanadas
2452 18th St. NW • Washington,DC • 202-328-6232
Thu 10:30 am-midnight; Fri-Sat 10:30 am-3:30am; Sun-Wed 10:30 am-10:30 pm
Empanar means "to bake in pastry" in Spanish; and at Julia's, it means good eating. A small, friendly spot located in the hub of Adams Morgan, Julia's only sells these baked pastry creations, stuffed with a variety of combinations, including beef, chorizo (Spanish sausage), spinach, chicken, turkey, hard-boiled eggs, black beans, onions, raisins, green peas and potatoes.
Julia of Julia's fame comes in every day and cooks. A native of Chile, she makes her empanadas based on recipes from several South American countries. Her empanadas are the perfect size for a small meal, so the very hungry can also order a sopapilla (fried dough with confectioner's sugar sprinkled on top) or even a dessert empanada, filled with combinations of fruit such as pears and blueberries. If you've got a hankering for a light-night snack after the clubs close on the weekends, Julia's stays open until 3:30 in the morning.
-- Harriet Winslow
El Tamarindo
1785 Florida Ave. NW, Washington, DC
Mon-Sat 11 am-2 am, Sun 11 am-5 am
The low-key, casual atmosphere attracts a diverse crew: Adams Morgan neighbors, Latino families and folks out on an inexpensive date.
The menu is huge: everything from yummy appetizers such as chile con queso and the crab and shrimp quesadilla to huge "El Tamarindo favorites" like steak al camaron (served with grilled shrimp, rice and beans) or chicken fajitas. The most expensive entree is "combo fajitas for two" for $18.95 (described as "our special fajitas with marinated steak, shrimp, chicken and pork served sizzling with grilled tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, guacamole and taquito sauce"). El Tamarindo also has an ample huevos (eggs) portion on the menu and a selection of los mariscos (seafood).
As soon as you sit down, a waitress appears with water and a basket of warm and good tortilla chips and homemade spicy salsa. The Mexican beer selection is ample, including Tecate, Corona, Carta Blanca, Dos Equis, Bohemia and Negra Modela. There's also sangria, available by the pitcher for $14.95, tequila shots and a variety of margaritas.
-- Dana Hull
Mixtec (Mexican)
1792 Columbia Rd., NW; 202-332-1011.
Daily 11 am-10 pm
Pork-stuffed tamales, soft tacos, and tortas are the specialties at this cheery storefront cantina. Mixtec's proprietor, Pepe Montesinos, not only gets credit for being the first in the area to serve the now-ubiquitous soft tacos; he also remains the sole local purveyor of tortas, Mexico's counterpart to the Italian-American sub. The version stuffed with crusty-edged grilled pork, a sprinkling of chilies, a dollop of guacamole, and a smear of "special sauce" is absolutely wonderful.
La Granja de Oro
1801 Adams Mill Rd. • Washington,DC • 202-232-8888
Daily 10 am-10 pm Cash Only
In Europe, it's no big deal to take home a juicy whole roasted bird in a neat paper package. In Washington, you have to look a little harder. Roast chicken is widely available -- Roy Rogers, for goodness sake, has started selling roast chicken by the piece -- and even the casually prepared ones are pretty good. But memorable is another thing. La Granja de Oro offers one such Peruvian-style broiled chicken at a storefront just a few doors north of 18th Street and Columbia Road NW.
The chicken here is grilled on spits that rotate so that the chicken juices baste the meat before falling into the giant charcoal fire. This ensures that the chicken – including the breast meat -- is juicy, a sign that the chicken hasn't been kept too long over the heat. The skin was crispy for the most part, too.
This bird's outstanding trait was the seasoning, which included a strong dose of cumin. The lovely flavor of the aromatic spice infused the meat as well as its skin.
A whole chicken is $8.50; a half, $5.75; and a quarter, $3.75. You can order salad, doughy french fries or deep-fried yucca fingers on the side.
If you are overcome by hunger, there's plenty of room to attack your bird on the premises. There's even an upper deck. The plain but friendly surroundings are obviously popular with a crowd that ranges from youths in pairs to large families with young children in tow. Just about everyone is speaking Spanish.
Steaks and sandwiches also are available at reasonable prices. The most expensive thing on the menu, at $12.95, is a combination platter of barbecued chicken, chorizo sausage, a pork chop and small steak with fried potatoes.
-- Irwin Arieff and Deborah Baldwin
Las Placitas II
1828 Columbia Rd. NW • Washington,DC • 202-745-3751
Daily 11:30 am-11 pm
Sandwiched between a number of other similarly anonymous Latin restaurants on Columbia Road, Las Placitas may not appear on the surface to be an obvious destination. Inside this modest structure, however, is a kitchen preparing such a broad variety of dishes that it could only be described as pan-Latin.
The menu -- which is vast -- includes the standard lineup of Mexican (and often Americanized) dishes, including tacos al carbon, fajitas, quesadillas and enchiladas; but satisfaction lies with the more unusual and traditional offerings: carnitas, tamales, pork pupusas and shrimp in a tomato, onion and garlic ragout, which are guaranteed to excite your taste buds. The portions are large and the accompaniments (rice, beans, etc.) aren't light, either. The bar offers a variety of beers from El Salvador and Mexico -- El Regia, for example, comes in a 40-ounce bottle built for two (that should be served with a brown paper bag!). Pitchers of margaritas are also available.
The staff is exclusively Latino and the clientele predominantly so. The servers are friendly and helpful, despite any language barrier, and gladly offer suggestions -- take them. The bar includes space for a band, and live music is often featured on the weekends, so bring your dancing shoes as well as your appetite and work off those tamales.
-- Kate Buckley
Casa Africana
2314 18th Street NW • Washington,DC • 202-986-8777
Fri-Sat 11:00am- 2:00am; Sun-Thu 11:00am-12:00am; No other info.
Fasika's Ethiopian Restaurant
2447 18th St. NW • Washington,DC • 202-797-7673
Mon-Fri 5:00pm-11:00pm; Sat-Sun 12:00pm-12:00am
Washington has many Ethiopian restaurants, all serving pretty much the same dishes: chicken, lamb or beef stews, either hot or mild, with an array of stewed vegetables. There are also a couple of lamb dishes either sauteed with onions and chiles or chopped with chiles and butter and served raw. They're all accompanied by injera, the large, spongy, thin, fermented pancakes that substitute for fork or spoon to scoop up bites of food.
Each Ethopian restaurant, though, has its subtle distinctions. Fasika is hardly beautiful, unless you can get one of the basket-weave tables upstairs. And the service can be impatient. But it does a good job with the fried appetizers that are like India's samosas; here they're large and greaseless. There's a chickpea dip clearly related to hummus. And the menu offers more seafood dishes than most Ethiopian restaurants serve; be warned though, that the fish tends to be dry and chewy.
Here's a restaurant where the spicier dishes are the ones to be sought. Lamb wilderness style, for example, is grilled strips of chewy marinated meat with a crusty surface and powerful flavor. The vegetable dishes include wonderfully spicy lentils. Otherwise, Fasika is just another Ethiopian restaurant - which is not a bad thing to be.
-- Phyllis C. Richman
Grill from Ipanema (Brazilian) (opens on Sundays at 4pm)
1858 Columbia Rd., NW, Washington, DC. 202-986-0757
"The peppery conch chowder and the clams broiled under a topping of bread crumbs and searing chilies are the best ways to start a meal here. Among the main courses, the two house specialties, moqueca and feijoada, are excellent choices on an initial visit to the Grill from Ipanema. The first is a generous yet surprisingly light fisherman's stew made with the diner's choices of seafood. Feijoada, Brazil's national dish, resembles a soupy cassoulet made with black beans, sausages, salted beef, and cuts of pork. Served every night and at brunch on Saturday, it is a wonderful feast."
Habana Village
1834 Columbia Rd., NW., Washington, DC 20009-2002 (202) 462-6310
Wed-Sat 6:30 pm-3 am (Not open Sundays)
In February 1996, Habana Village opened its doors on Columbia Road and celebrated a phoenix-like rebirth. The previous November, when a fire destroyed the club's 18th Street location, owner Eduardo Varada announced he would relocate and carry on. "Habana Village is very much alive," he said after that 1995 fire, and, six years later, he could say the same thing, louder than ever.
When Cuban emigre Varada opened his club in 1991, it became a gathering place for fellow Cubans interested in a game of dominoes and some conversation. You can see some of those same faces engaged still in expatriate fellowship in the club's first-floor bar-lounge area, but there's much more going on in the narrow three-story town house. As much as any place in town, Habana Village helped spark the area's salsa dance craze, and after the club's nightly lessons, things really heat up on the darkened dance floors of the second and third stories. "Cuban music is the engine that integrates people into the concept of Habana Village," Varada says. "This music includes the son, danzon, cha cha cha, bolero, rumba, mambo, salsa and songo." But he points out that musical borders are fluid, so that at his club you'll also hear merengue, cumbia, reggae, tango, flamenco and more.
But before you head upstairs to dance, spend some time on the first floor, where you'll find three distinct spaces: a front parlor with couches and coffee tables watched over by murals of old Cuba and languidly spinning ceiling fans, a central bar with stools lined along the lovely deco-style bar and a restaurant in the back room with palm trees and a fireplace.
Take a seat in one of the wicker and bent-metal chairs throughout and peruse the menu filled with Cuban specialties: roast pork, rice and beans, Cubano sandwiches, fried plantains and the like, all very reasonably priced. Bask in the Cuban music from the '20s through the '50s coming over the sound system.
Before ordering any food, get a mojito in your hand pronto. This refreshing cocktail created in turn-of-the-last-century Havana is a blend of sugar, crushed mint leaves, lime juice, rum, ice and soda water in a tall glass garnished with a sprig of mint. Habana Village (which makes the best mojito in town) customizes this signature cocktail by plunging a peeled stalk of sugar cane into the glass as a stir stick. Chomp on that and eavesdrop on whatever conversation you can understand -- there's lots of Spanish in accents from all over Latin America, but you'll also hear languages from around the globe here, one of Washington's most international clubs.
The second floor is all about dancing. It's a long, narrow room with a bar on one end and a DJ booth in the middle. There are just a couple of stools and small tables. For $5 on Fridays and Saturdays you can get in and join the sweating crowds, trying their best to spin and twirl without jabbing the next couple with flying elbows. The sound system is barely acceptable, but the music the DJs spin is so great no one seems to mind.
The walls are covered with shingles made of rough boards, and people are encouraged to pull out a pen and scribble whatever comes to mind. There are simple exclamations and multi-stanza poems. Salseras and salseros (dancers and instructors) that you might recognize from other dance clubs all end up here eventually. But even if you're not a great dancer yourself and you choose to just watch, you can appreciate the stunning dance moves on the floor.
The third floor is a calmer bar-lounge-dance floor area, one that often has a live salsa or Latin jazz band playing at the very back. There's more room to maneuver up there -- if you're working on your steps -- and the bar is usually much less crowded than the first- and second-floor ones, so you'll get your mojito a lot quicker.
-- Eric Brace
Salsa and merengue lessons are offered every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 7 to 9 p.m., tango classes are Saturdays from 7 to 9 p.m. The restaurant is open from 6:30 to midnight, with a limited bar menu (Cuban sandwiches and tapas) after midnight.
Hours: Wed-Sat. 6:30pm – 3 am.
Restaurantes en Adams Morgan:
1 Churrería Madrid
2 Mixtec
3 Granja del Oro
4 Rincón Español
5 Las Placitas
6 Habana Village
7. Grill from Ipanema
8 Julia's Empanadas
9 Fasika's Ethiopian Restaurant
10 Casa Africana
11 El Tamarindo