Greater DC Weekend

We had two nights and one and a half days to spend in the DC area. Our top priority was to visit my aunt and cousin who live in Falls Church, Va. But why not do a little sightseeing and check out the local cuisine at the same time?

We selected one major sight to visit in Washington, DC. That was the new Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. As for transportation, we out-of-towners thought that taking the Metro in from Falls Church would be another highlight.

Six meals out provided more adventure. We ate in DC, McLean, Falls Church and Alexandria. The cuisine included American Indian, Italian, Greek, a pancake house and an historic tavern.

We know the amount of time we had to spend in the area couldn’t possibly do this historic and important place justice, but we enjoyed the small sampling. It’s like an appetizer for a later trip.

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Inns of Virginia
415 West Broad Street
Falls Church, Virginia

We chose the Inns of Virginia based on location and price. It was located within about 5 minutes of my relative’s home and it was a third the price of the other alternative in Tyson’s Corner. It still wasn’t cheap at $120.95 per night taxes included. The room was very small but had comfortable beds, a good TV, reliable plumbing, and a small desk/table and chair. What more do you need when you are going to be sight-seeing and visiting relatives most of the day? Well, maybe you could ask for a good continental breakfast. What they offered here was cellophane wrapped muffins and no place to sit and eat them. When given “lemons”, go across the street to The Original Pancake House and have a great breakfast. I wouldn’t want to stay here for an extended period but for two nights it was just what we needed.

This is my cousin’s favorite Italian restaurant. I can see why. Pulcinella’s serves real Southern Italian Cuisine using homegrown herbs, fresh meats and vegetables, farro flour, healthy grains and homemade cheeses. The wood-burning oven certainly added to the quality of the meal, too.

The room was decorated with traditional red checkered tablecloths, garlands of grapes and mellow warm colored walls. Bill had Ravioli con Carne and was pleased with the selection. My choice was a special of the day, Pizzette. It had sundried tomatoes, and lots of Fontina Cheese. This was my first experience with that kind of cheese and I have now declared it my all time favorite cheese. Oh, was that good!

The service was excellent. I wish I could recommend the dessert menu, but we didn’t have room to try it. I would definitely return here.

Do you like the idea of 60 different meals of pancakes, waffles, omelettes, crepes and specialties to choose from? Plus lots of side dishes and beverages to create your own meal? Then you need to go to The Original Pancake House. There are three of them in the Greater DC area. The one we went to is located at one end of a brick-faced strip mall. It has a large green and cream striped awning. It looks kinda “Plain Jane”, but go on in the food is great.

Inside we were seated with a view of some very nice art prints or through the wall of windows to the tree shaded parking lot. We visited here twice. The first time we caught the after-church crowd. The second time we had the suit and tie going to work crowd. In other words, as tourists we were the most casually dressed people in the restaurant. That didn’t seem to matter. The waitress brought me little extras (two poached eggs instead of one) and was concerned when I didn’t clear my plate.

The menu was a delight of choices. I tried the whole wheat waffle with cinnamon apple bits. It was very good. The next day I had poached egg, applesauce and hash brown potatoes with onions. They looked more like what I call American fried potatoes, but they were delicious. Bill had The Senior which is buttermilk pancakes, egg and bacon. The next day he had a normal size breakfast of English Muffin, egg and bacon. If we had extended our stay another day I was going to go with an item called Dutch Baby, touted as “A big surprise that’s fun and delicious to see and eat.” Breakfast for two with one coffee and tip was $12.50 - $17.00.

The Mitsitam Café is located on the first floor of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. There is no admission to the museum so anyone can walk into have lunch here. I definitely recommend that if you are visiting the museum you should have lunch here. It will heighten your experience of the diverse cultures displayed there.

This café is a multi-island cafeteria. Each island has indigenous food from a different American Indian cultures. I may have missed some of the offerings but I did see South American, Mezzo- American, Northwestern American, Plains Indians and Southwestern American. There is also an island that featured desserts that have some regional connections, but not exactly from Indian cultures. It was a bit confusing at first but the three of us each ended up with a tray full of interesting food choices. One tray from the South American island had a Squash-Banana Soup and multi-bean mixture wrapped up like a meat pie, and a vanilla cream dessert. The tray form the Plains Indians had a Buffalo Burger, Fry Bread with honey, and an apple dessert. My tray was from the Central American Indian culture and had Chicken Mole wrapped in soft taco shells with salsa and a Key Lime tart (did the Seminoles invent that?). We all shared small bites and the vote came in: Pumpkin-Banana Soup was the winner with Fry Bread a close second.

A word of caution, it is expensive for a cafeteria. Lunch for three with two beverages, and three desserts, but no tip was $52.09.

This family oriented Greek restaurant is a local favorite. Located in a strip-mall in McLean, it has a moderate priced menu. The cuisine could best be labeled Mediterranean as there are both Greek and Italian dishes along with standard American fare. I had a good gyros sandwich and Bill had an okay chef’s salad. Nothing was outstanding or noteworthy. However, it was a comfortable place to sit and talk with friends. That certainly has a value. I read that is a particular favorite place in the area for breakfast.

Saturday morning we checked out of our timeshare in Williamsburg, VA and drove to Alexandria, VA, where we were to meet my relatives for lunch. What was amazing was we arrived at the same off ramp intersection, from different directions, at the same time. Beep! Beep! Together, following different sets of directions we wandered the streets of this delightful Old Town and amazingly found two empty metered parking spots in front of Gadsby’s Tavern. We did have to stop people walking along the street to clarify the directions. They were most helpful. A word of caution, the parking meters only go up to two hours (insert six quarters). That was exactly how long we were in the restaurant. There are nearby parking ramps, one on Cameron Street and another between Cameron and King Streets. They cost more than street parking ($6/hour and $8/two hours) but it is easier to find an empty spot. A call ahead to the manager for directions to the handicapped entrance paid off. Not only did he give us good directions, he came out to the street and greeted us and led the way into the historic tavern. Such service is extraordinary.

Gadsby’s is really two buildings, the original tavern (circa 1770) and The City Hotel (Circa 1792). The older building now houses the museum and the newer one serves as the restaurant. I wanted to eat here because this is one of those special places where our founding fathers, G. Washington, T. Jefferson, J. Adams, J. Madison and J. Monroe visited. For nearly a century this tavern was a center of the political and cultural activity.

Our waiter was dressed in colonial garb and if you check out their website www.gadsbytavernrestaurant.com you can see he was very cute in his knee breeches. I regret that we missed out on a conversation with him about the history of the tavern. We were so excited to see our family after many years that we accidentally shut him out when he tried to greet us. The elegantly appointed colonial dining rooms were dark by today’s standards. That and the creaky floors gave it lots of atmosphere. We took a long time studying the menu as there were many good choices. At our table we sampled the Surrey County Peanut Soup, Tavern salad, Beef Sauerbraten, sauerkraut and rhotekraut, Meatloaf a la Daube (beef/pork/veal), Apple Gingerbread and Belgian Chocolate Cheesecake. Everything was presented beautifully and tasted great. I would definitely return here and next time make a visit to the museum next door. Lunch for four, with three beverages, three desserts, and tip was $89.52.

I volunteered my cousin to be our guide on today’s adventure. She lives in Falls Church and has used the Metro. Well she certainly got us to the station quickly. However, we all had trouble buying our Metro Passes. The machine didn’t like our cash and didn’t like another man’s debit card. We finally got a credit card to work. I’m glad it was a Sunday morning and there weren’t lines of people waiting for us to move on. We decided on purchasing all day passes so we could move about the city. Little did we realize that was overly optimistic! We spent all day at one of the Smithsonian Museums, and were too tired to go hop scotching through the metro tunnels to visit the memorials. Out trip into the L’ Enphant Plaza Station was uneventful. The trip back to Falls Church was standing room only with lots of people returning from a ball game at the same time. The Metro was clean, well lighted, economical and a stress free alternative to getting into the city.

This not your usual Smithsonian museum building. No red stone turrets, or Beaux Arts architectural frills. This building looks to me, like the cliff dwelling villages in the American Southwest. Designed by a team of Native American architects/designers the buildings details are filled with significance. The grand entrance is fronted by a plaza and pond. More that 25 native tree species and 150 indigenous plants make up the landscaping. That includes cropland plants such as corn, beans, squash and tobacco.

The Potomac atrium is the entry point. Look up to the dome and see the light enter the building through prisms that dance rainbow colors over the walls and floor. Look down and notice the floor tiles represent moving water. We follow the water to our first stop the Mitsitam Café. After our lunch and upon the advise of the brochure and a helpful fellow tourist we took the elevator to the fourth floor and worked our way back to the ground floor, gallery by gallery.

There are two major exhibits on the fourth floor. The first deals with Native Beliefs. The second one covers Native History. Each gallery is broken into several cultures from the Arctic Circle to furthest tip of South America. That was a big surprise to us. We thought the museum would only cover the tribes in the area we call the United States. Before entering each mini-gallery a map located the culture that was featured. Portraits of present day inhabitants and their quotes were feature in the introductory phase. Inside the mini-gallery several display cases showed us tableaus or displays of artifacts.
The third floor also had two main galleries: Our Lives (contemporary native life) and a changing exhibit. Currently a terrific exhibit on clothing, Identity by Design, was featured. What a variety of garments, we saw plain buckskins, jingle dresses, painted garments, and beaded. In fact the beaded items in the most contemporary pieces rivaled the showiness of Elvis in Las Vegas.

The second floor had the Roanoke Museum Store. It sold lots of books, prints, children’s souvenirs, a few postcards and the t-shirt/sweat shirt market.
Also on this floor was the only display we saw that featured the Indians of this area. Unfortunately it was very limited. One of the reasons we came here was in hopes of learning more about the culture of the “East Coast” Indians. We have several good museums throughout the country that emphasize the Southwestern and Northwestern and Plains Indians.

The ground floor had a small but classy Chesapeake Museum Store. It featured Native American artists work in jewelry, textiles and other media. These things aren’t cheap, but they are quality.

I wish I had taken careful notes of the things I saw. The important message I got was that each culture adapted to the climate and the times to create a stable civilization. And that, humans when given a utilitarian item to work with, evolve that into a beautiful design by use of materials, design or ornament.