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Washington D.C. - Part 2
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
Our nation's capital is not only filled with the world-class museums we have all heard of but great restaurants and hotels too.
The next morning, as it was snowing, we decided to take a taxi to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. We started touring the museum at the First Lady Exhibit. I thought it was interesting for the first 10 minutes, after that it went downhill for me. My wife loved this exhibit. Besides enjoying viewing the clothes of some of these remarkable women as well as their photos she was very impressed with the high level of political involvement many of these women had- not just Eleanor Roosevelt. From there, we toured many of the popular exhibits, but I admit that I was getting a bit tired of it. You can see Archie Bunker's chair and Dorothy's ruby red slippers, but the history of pop culture isn't my cup of tea.
Before we knew it, it was time for lunch and we walked over to Café Atlantico. Visually, it's colorful and loud like a salsa party, but not in the tasteless sort of style, but more like "paintings inspired by caffeine" style. Our waiter explained the nature of their lunch menu. Menu items were served as samplings of their entire menu but in five courses made up of four dishes or so to share. The courses had highlights like plantain butter, Jamaican jerk chicken and a great salmon dish. I've never tasted plantain butter before, which reminded me of course of banana, but much better than the baby food imagery banana brings with it. We had another dip made out of Malanga Root. Every time I think I've seen it all, I encounter something like a Malanga root, which I insisted on the waiter spelling as I could have sworn that he said Mango Root, which led to even more confusion. Finally, he brought a root from the kitchen and showed it to us first hand... it simply looks like a big potato, and confuses you even more. Overall, the food was wonderful and the idea of getting a sampler to try what you like is something I certainly would love to see in other restaurants.
After lunch, we headed to the Museum of Natural History. This museum is truly a stereotypical man's museum. When you first walk in you see a large elephant just staring at you, and lots of stuffed dead animals. If you get tired of animals, they even have an exhibit of dead tribal warriors from North America and even Viking Warriors. Everything in the Natural History Museum is brain fodder for the average male. If you get tired of dead things, they even have a rock collection from around the world. Margherita on the other hand had to ruin this manly experience by mentioning the 'Hope Diamond'. She was going on and on about it's brilliance, but I was now in full man mode and kept saying how it would make a really big laser.
It was getting late and we decided to walk back to the Watergate to get ready for dinner. We had reservations at 1789. There are restaurants in this world that you eat at and you can wear your college sweatshirt. 1789 is not one of them. It is one of those restaurants where you get dressed up, one of those "Valentine's Day" type of places. The décor is very interesting in that the restaurant is divided into several rooms that are decorated differently. There are many antiques throughout the entire restaurant. We started the meal with an artichoke tart and crab cake appetizer. I always got the impression that you're not supposed to enjoy a meal too much in a fancy restaurant so while I really enjoyed the next course, a Caesar salad, I acted very disconcerted just to balance things. Well, then came the dinner and I had ordered the pine nut-crusted chicken. I'm not sure what pine nuts are but the concept of the chicken being crusted sounded interesting to me. Margherita went for the Monkfish. After that, we ordered the homemade ice cream for dessert, which really makes you wonder why people even go to Baskin Robbins. I've been to a number of "fancy" restaurants in my life and I think that any fancy restaurant that gives you crab cakes, crusted chicken and ice cream is much better than restaurants with menu items you can't pronounce. But then again that's just my taste; I was thrilled with the mix of it being a fine establishment with food and portions that I could appreciate.
From 1789, we went to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to see the play Shear Madness. Shear Madness has been running at the Kennedy Center, (as well as in Boston) for over 15 years now. The critics have praised this murder/mystery/comedy where the audience decides "who committed the crime" and the actors improvise their roles a bit around the basic framework of the play. There is something unique about plays like this that have elevated to cult status leaving some audience members completely wondering, "Why?" At times, it was campy, and at times, it was completely over the top, but then again the audience seemed to love it. Some people knew lines by heart and would scream them out with the actors. I was personally wondering what the fuss was about, but six million audience members can't be wrong.
Read part 1 | Read part 3
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