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I am in Washington, DC.
Technically, Maryland, but there’s a subway station. What should I do in Washington, DC? Aside from go to the Freer and Sackler galleries and wish I were a master thief, probably from a manga with peculiar ideas about either Catholics or consent. Because I can only do that so much.
(Restaurants and used book stores count as things to do. Also, protests.)
(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)
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Have you been to the Eastern Market? It's at 7th & C St. SE. There's a great restaurant inside--you'll know it by the line, have the crab cakes!--and a decent used bookstore at the ...south? end, just before the market proper.
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Why are you going to be in DC?
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Downtown is a bit of a dead zone for food, but the Washingtonian restaurant section has several useful lists: 100 best restaurants, cheap eats, and dirt cheap eats. The Washington Post has a Visitor's Guide with a link to restaurant reviews. Which end of the red line (or if you're on the green) is going to determine what you're going to be most interested in doing, because public transit in DC is slow as sin. There are umpteen funky little museums in DC, as well as the Smithsonian, Spy Museum, Newseum, Holocaust Museum... the Smithsonians are free (duh) but many of the for-pay museums have free days/afternoons/evenings if you check their websites. Sorry to be so vague, I'm not sure what would really rock your socks. Other than used book stores.
For the love of good food, do not try to get Chinese in Chinatown.
(Friends-of surfing and found your book reviews. Hi!)
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(Re-hi!)
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Umm, have lunch with me! (Mainly kidding - we don't really know each other, even LJ-style.)
Which end of Maryland? I live in Takoma Park (Metro stop - Takoma) and work downtown (Metro stop - Union Station), so my recommendations are usually bounded by that.
That said, Teaism is a great place to eat - if you go downstairs with your tray, it's a quiet respite from running around museums. You can get a Euro-style or Asian-style afternoon tea, and quite a selection of lunches and teas to accompany them. It's a couple of blocks north of the Mall, not far from the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives.
My backyard, old town Takoma, is fun and funky. The town was a traditional hippie/counterculture hangout until housing prices soared in the 1990s and onward, and it still has a lot of that vibe. The House of Musical Traditions, with musical instruments from around the world and CDs by local artists, is a must-see, as is Mark's Kitchen, the neighborhood diner, where you can get vegan, Korean, and mainstream American food and watch the locals come and go. Other eating possibilities include Everyday Gourmet (bakery and sandwiches) and Roscoe's (a newish upscale pizza joint and cafe, named after a feral rooster that used to roam the area).
I see that Second Story Books is still alive in the Dupont Circle area (I used to work just north of there), and that's another great location - Dupont Circle used to be the epicenter of gay culture in this town. Politics and Prose bookstore is still around as well (just north of the Circle), but unfortunately, Lambda Rising has closed. Most of the restaurants in that area are either pricey or chains, but you can certainly get a meal.
Two clusters of decent restaurants along the Red Line in MD, depending on which end: Bethesda and Silver Spring. See Washingtonian magazine's Cheap Eats listings for details. In the center of downtown Silver Spring (which also includes the famous restored art deco AFI Silver Theater, the Majestic 12 movie theaters, and a Borders Books), we tend to do Pho Hiep Hoa (Vietnamese), Ceviche (upscale Peruvian), Thai at Silver Spring, and (a little farther off) Mandalay (Burmese); there are also chains ranging from Starbuck's to the local Moby Dick House of Kebab (not bad, actually). In Bethesda, which is home to some quite upscale places, we do Faryab (Afghan), Matuba (Japanese), Tia Queta (authentic Mexican), and sometimes Olazzo (Italian); further south is Jaleo, a famous tapas (Spanish) restaurant, where you can eat as reasonably or extravagantly as you want, depending on what you order.
Jaleo also has a downtown location, which is not far from the International Spy Museum. This is a pricey entertainment, very commercial, but fun (and probably more fun with a friend). Also in the neighborhood is Chinatown, which isn't much, and the Koshland Science Museum, part of the National Academy of Sciences. (And once there, you're only a few blocks from the aforementioned Teaism.)
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Thank you also for mentioning the bookstores; I'll definitely go check them out at some point.
I'm in Bethesda, which I feel is largely ridiculous (in the "price range" sense, and also some other senses), but I was bodily hauled to a Malaysian place called Penang, which is reasonably-priced and awesome. In case you've never heard of it!
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You may well be on your way home by now, but Teaism does indeed sell loose tea.
Bethesda can indeed be pricey. That area has one of the highest per capita incomes in the nation. Not that everybody is rich, but very very few people there are poor. Well-off people with busy busy lives translate into a great demand for restaurants.
Hmm, I wonder how Malaysian differs from Thai, Indonesian, or Burmese ... it's always fun to try a new place.
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I'm actually here staying with a family friend while I look for a job, so no, not on the way home. I'd gotten that sense about income levels from the guy I'm staying with - he was telling me about how the already-big houses in his neighborhood are starting to get torn down to be replaced with gigantic ones. And he took me a Whole Foods that was so packed its parking lot had guys directing traffic. A little alarming!