Things OOT has taught me/DC area info/good info to know.

[CappyAA]

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Best steak in town, IMO, is the Kansas City Strip (or maybe the Kona) at Capital Grille.


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Ah, I forgot about the Capital Grille - awesome awesome place. Food is delicious.

[The DaveR]

Is Mark's Duck House in Falls Church VA still open? That's the best Dim Sum I've had on the East Coast.

[Cubswin]

I also question the Alexandria to Vienna commute. It's not one i would want to do.

Best seafood: There are loads of good seafood places in DC but for something different try heading down to the DC fish market on a nice day for some fresh steamed crabs and shrimp.

Best place to catch you hometown football team: Bailey's in the Ballston Mall.

Best pollo a la brasa: The Chicken Place near Bailey's crossroads.

Best soul food: If your around the U-Street corridor try the Florida Avenue Grill for some great soul food. You might want to avoid this place at night though.

Best BBQ: Red Hot and Blue. It's a chain but the ribs and brisket are great.

Best Fast Food Burger: Five Guys. They also have great fries.

Best Happy Hour: Rock Bottom Brewary for $1 micro brew pints

[By-Tor]

they dont have the internets in dc?

[Dids]

<3 Shajeezy

[Shajen]

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they dont have the internets in dc?

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they do, but I only hit 2+2 during working hours. I'll be too busy during work to do so now, and after hours I stay the hell away from computers.

[Aces McGee]

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Aces,

I am a fan of chill bars with good music and good food. I don't necessarily mind going to club-type bars, especially when the wife gets the itch to dance.

All in all, it varies, but for the most part, just nice bars with good atmosphere I can hang out in with friends.

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Rock on. That's kind of how I feel, minus any clubs, wives, and dancing.

A few notes on the places others have mentioned:

Brickskeller: I don't think it's as awesome as a few people here have said, but they have a beer list of over 1,000 and the atmosphere is fine (it's particularly amusing to see young professionals there drinking Budweiser). You'd probably like it, although I think the food kind of sucks. If you can deal with a smaller (but still excellent) beer list, try RFD in Gallery Place, which has the same owner. They call it the largest taphouse in DC, and the food is significantly better in my opinion. These places may or may not be like the Rathskeller in Atlanta (you are in Atlanta, right?) I've never been to that place, but I think I remember my friend who went to Emory telling me about a bar called that that has a ton of beer.

EDIT: Stop the presses! I was wrong about the Atlanta bar. Forget the Rathskeller. I don't know anything about the place. Brickskeller may or may not be similar to BRICK STORE PUB in Decatur, according to my friend. I haven't been there, but it sounds similar.



Front Page: Can't stand this place. Crowded, loud. I suppose it's the kind of place 26-year-old guys like me are supposed to like, but I hate it. My friends and I are much more likely to be at Buffalo Billiards, which is nearby (below the building next door, actually). Obviously a chain place, but it's large and comfortable. And the food is actually surprisingly decent.

Lucky Bar: Good bar for what you like. It's also a good place to watch soccer games if you're into that, although since you're out in VA, Summer's would probably be more convenient for you.

Adams Morgan: I don't hang out there much anymore, but we used to go to Chief Ike's Mambo Room all the time back in college. Upstairs, there's a much chiller bar that's the very definition of a dive. I think it's actually two bars -- one side is called Pandemonium and the other is called Chaos -- and they always used to have a junk beer in cans for $2 (PBR, Schlitz, Black Label). There's also a pool table up there. Not a bad place to sit and get hammered.

A lot of people also like The Reef, which is like a three-story bar/restaurant that has tables and stuff on the roof. I'm not a huge fan, but it might be worth checking out. It's probably the kind of place you'd want to show up early, though, as it gets crowded in the summer.

The Raven, which is in Mt. Pleasant (adjacent to Adams Morgan), is a somewhat legendary DC dive bar. It's really smoky in there (although the smoking ban will be here soon), but it's a decent place.

Georgetown: I tend to stay away from Georgetown, particularly the waterfront, because it's crowded and overrated and overpriced. And inconvenient to travel to. However, I know you didn't ask for an Italian restaurant recommendation, but I'm going to suggest Filomena to you, anyway.

I don't know of too many places with music, let alone good music. Iota Club and Cafe, in Arlington, has live music every night. Their food is pretty good, too.

I know there are a few jazz clubs, Twins Jazz being one about which I've heard good things, but I've never been. There's a piano bar in Georgetown that I absolutely can't stand.

I'd check out the 9:30 Club schedule and see if there's anyone you want to see coming soon. It's a great place to see a show.

Hope some of this helps. I'm not a huge barfly -- I tend to do most of my drinking in the safe confines of my house -- but I did want to comment on some of the places people mentioned.

-McGee

[chopstick]

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Best seafood: There are loads of good seafood places in DC but for something different try heading down to the DC fish market on a nice day for some fresh steamed crabs and shrimp.


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We have a fish market? More details please.

http://www.pps.org/great_public_spac...c_place_id=220

How much of that is true?

http://www.dcist.com/archives/2006/0...market_for.php

Not a lot of love for it here.


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Best pollo a la brasa: The Chicken Place near Bailey's crossroads.


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El Pollo Rico in Rosslyn is my choice.


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Best soul food: If your around the U-Street corridor try the Florida Avenue Grill for some great soul food. You might want to avoid this place at night though.


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Creme Cafe on U at 13th has some fantastic "upscaled" soul food. The pork and beans, oh my goodness the pork and beans. Go there immediately, trust old chopstick on this one. Actually, tell me when you are going and I'll join you, I still haven't tried the coconut cake yet...


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Best BBQ: Red Hot and Blue. It's a chain but the ribs and brisket are great.


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Reluctantly, I agree that RH&B is the best we have.

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Best Fast Food Burger: Five Guys. They also have great fries.


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Everyone loves this place. I'm definitely in the minority thinking that it is severely overrated. Too much salt use, in my opinion.

[Shajen]

Aces, chopstick,

thanks for the info. You guys rock.

I'm definitely bookmarking this thread...

[gumpzilla]

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Best Fast Food Burger: Five Guys. They also have great fries.


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Everyone loves this place. I'm definitely in the minority thinking that it is severely overrated. Too much salt use, in my opinion.

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The one time I went there the wait was absolutely brutal for a run-of-the-mill burger. I can't really recommend it.

Brickskeller and Eighteenth St. Lounge are both good bars, but they're quite different. Brickskeller has a vast, vast beer list, which is pretty much its identity as a bar, and is a good place to go shoot the [censored]; no brain-crushingly loud music here. Eighteenth St. Lounge has live music reasonably often, is quite a bit darker, and probably has on average a "cooler" clientele. It's a tougher place to go talk to people, in my opinion, and since I'm usually going out to hang out with people I already know I don't dig on that as much. Adams-Morgan is a neighborhood that has a bunch of bars and attracts pretty ridiculous (by my standards) crowds on weekends. I don't dig on the vast seas of humanity, but it tends to skew pretty young, and there's a lot of stuff to try there.

I don't have great heaps of experience with DC dining, but I will say that Corduroy is a solid restaurant, even though I wouldn't think of it as a seafood restaurant as somebody else suggested.