A Weekend in Washington DC - Birthday 2021 Edition
Day One - Thursday, July 29th, 2021
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a post about a trip. You’d have to all the way back to either February of 2020 when we did a weekend trip to Philadelphia or even further back to July of 2019 when we went to Egypt, UAE, Mumbai, and Singapore. It’s been a long road to travel again and even now after a three-night trip to Washington DC we are still battling a new “delta” outbreak of COVID-19 so the travel of 2019 still feels somewhat far away.
But Jenn and I have been dying to get back out and travel. So a month ago we decided to book a few nights in Washington DC. We originally visited DC in 2011 for a work conference for Jenn but only spent a day and a half touring and a lot of that was freezing atop a big red bus. We dropped off Frasier at NY Tails to board during our lunch and wrapped up work before leaving our apartment at 6 PM on Thursday evening (7/29). When we left our apartment and got in our car a massive thunderstorm pulled right over New York City and accompanied us all the way to Philadelphia. There was some pretty harrowing driving there for a bit but once we made it past Philadelphia the sky cleared and we had clear sailing to Washington DC.
We arrived at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington DC a little before 11 PM, dropped off the car at the valet, and made it to our room bleary-eyed and ready for some sleep. We couldn’t call it a night though before taking the requisite room tour. We were very fortunate to get an upgrade (thanks Amex) to a corner room with a beautiful view of the river and an incredibly spacious interior.
Day Two - Friday, July 30th, 2021
The next morning (Friday) we woke up a little after 7 AM (late for our standards these days) and went down for breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We aren’t big fans of the hotel breakfast in general. We tend to skip it but after a late night of driving, we woke up hungry and in need of some sustenance. Sadly as stunning as MO (Mandarin Oriental) is their breakfast buffet left a bit to be desired. We really had hoped that COVID would have done one positive and got rid of the buffet altogether but that hasn’t happened yet.
After breakfast, we left the hotel and made our way on foot to the White House. We passed the Washington Monument on the way, took some snaps, and after about thirty minutes of walking made it to the White House. Although not as boarded up as it was after the Capitol attacks in January you still can’t get right up to the White House as we could in 2011 but we were able to still see the beautiful small building. I will say it felt so good to be there when we had a President in there that we could be proud of again.
We left to go back to our hotel for a bit after that before going back out a little before noon. From our hotel, we grabbed some Lime electric scooters that were parked right outside our hotel and took them to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. After a quick line through security we were whisked away to the massive museum. We spent most of our time in the mammal’s and dinasour exhibits although Jenn seemed oddly captured by the caveman and global warming areas as well. We spent a little over an hour walking through the beautiful museum before heading back out.
From there we went towards the Capitol building and then stopped off at the National Gallery of Art only a few blocks from the Natural History Museum. The older we get the more we seem to enjoy art museums and our two-hour visit to the National Gallery of Art was no exception. One of the things that truly made this visit memorable was downloading the Museum’s app and learning more about certain pieces of art that captured our attention. Two, in particular, have stuck with me even after the trip, Venus With a Mirror and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. The app did such a great job in 3-5 minutes explaining the importance, style, and symbolism in both of these pieces that made them come to life in a way of just randomly looking at art can often wash past you. We had a great time but by the end of our visit our feet were hurting and we made our way out of the art museum and to our last stop for the afternoon.
We walked from the Art Museum to the Capitol Building. It was such a nice day that it made walking around the city in July surprisingly pleasant. It’s still hard to imagine that it was only 7 months ago that rioters breached the Capitol building the same place we were walking today where families and tourists like us were peacefully walking around and snapping photos. That moment was not lost on either of us.
When we arrived back to the Mandarin Oriental we were starting to get a little hungry but also knew we had a massive multi-course tasting menu that evening. That didn’t stop us from going to the lounge right off the lobby and sitting down for some afternoon snacks. When we arrived back we followed the sounds of a beautiful harp and sat down to enjoy an hour of beautiful music, drinks, and tuna tartare. It was the most normal, vacation moment I think we had of the entire trip. It was the first moment since leaving Philadelphia in February of 2020 that we actually felt like we were on a proper vacation. The Rose Brut didn’t hurt either.
We went back to our room and rested before heading back out to the day’s main event that evening, a dinner at Jont a two-Michelin star restaurant in the heart of DC. I had to book the reservations over two months in advance and even then they were sold out within seconds of being released. When we arrived at the restaurant we were taken behind a hidden door, up some stairs, and led into a 14-seat chef counter for our 16-course dinner. Even though we were ten minutes early we were one of the last couples to arrive. What’s nice about a dinner like this is that you just show up and everything sort of just happens. We made the decision to go with the wine pairings which was our only misstep of what turned out to be one of the best meals I can remember. Not. to mention Jenn was absolutely radiating in her new Tory Burch dress.
What Jenn and I both love about a meal like this is that you have very little idea what is coming next. Even better is you get to watch firsthand some of the best chef’s out there cook right in front of you. It’s like going to a concert or seeing a play, you get to see the artists hone their craft. What you often miss at a restaurant of this caliber is how much painstaking work goes into making sure each dish is perfect. One of the first dishes of the night was a Bluefin Tuna Chutoro that we saw the sous chef work on for nearly 45-minutes. It was only a couple of bites but he was meticulously arranging each centimeter of the plate so it had perfect symmetry and balance. You can say that’s overkill and it’s just food, but I’d argue that there is something to be admired about someone who takes their work seriously and wants it to be perfect.
For the next three hours, we went through 13-courses of food ranging from small bites to a beautiful duck and wagyu. Those were accompanied by 8 wines and 1 sake that was meant to complement certain dishes. This was a masterful meal. This wasn’t a meal where they tried to wow you with fancy techniques or over-the-top decadence, this was a meal where they let the food do the talking. We had such an incredible time and the food as you can probably guess was out of this world. It was a tour de force of pacing and flavor balance that left both Jenn and me grinning from ear to ear.
At the end of the first 13-courses, we were whisked away outside of the chef’s counter to a lounge/bar where we’d finish the last three courses of the evening, dessert. It was sort of brilliant how seamless the experience was from moving from the chef’s counter to a nice and relaxing lounge environment. We finished off the meal with one of Jenn’s favorite things in the world a chocolate souffle and just sat talking letting the evening pass us by. When it all ended and the 16-courses were done and dusted we slowly made our way out of the restaurant and walked for a mile or so before grabbing an Uber to take us back to our hotel where we called it an evening.
Day Three - Saturday, July 31st, 2021
And just like that, we reached the last day of our quick road trip to Washington DC. We let ourselves sleep in a bit and had room service brought up that morning. I had forgotten how bad hotel coffee could be, but this morning’s coffee quickly reminded me. After a longer than normal wake up we got ready and headed out a little after 10 AM. We walked from our hotel past the Washington Monument and off to the Lincoln Memorial stopping at the WWII memorial along the way. From there we walked to the Jefferson Memorial before grabbing an Uber to take us to lunch. It was the perfect morning for both of us. We love to walk and taking in these beautiful sights along the way rich with history was the perfect way to start the day.
For lunch, we returned to a French restaurant that we actually visited in 2011. It was one of those meals that we somehow stumbled upon then and were sort of shocked it was still around a decade later. Unfortunately for lunch, they didn’t have the beautiful draped dining room that reminds you of nineteenth-century France, but we had another lovely albeit less exciting meal back at Bistro Cacao. Jenn had the corned beef hash and I had the Croque Monsieur. It was sort of surreal to be back in this place again after a decade but also fitting for our second trip to DC.
After lunch, we walked back to the Capitol area stopping off at a Starbucks to see if they had a DC mug (they did not), and then back towards our hotel. I had us stop at the Freer Gallery of Art on the way which was a nice quick stop. They had a beautiful collection of Asian art something you don’t see often in the big museums. It was a nice quick pit stop before going back to our hotel to rest for the afternoon.
And like the night before the main event that evening was the one-Michelin star restaurant Rooster & Owl. We grabbed an Uber from our hotel and arrived there a little before 6 PM for a 4-course meal. This dinner was a lot more casual and leaned towards more of a sharing-tasting menu. We each picked four dishes (added one extra) and everything was served family-style so we got to try a total of nine dishes while we were there. The good news is there wasn’t a bad choice among anything we ate, the bad news though was that we should have ordered more because everything was so good. Jenn started with a glass of white wine and I had an Old Fashion and they brought out this bread that I am not lying was some of the best bread I’ve ever tasted.
From there we had nine different dishes that ranched from barbecue carrots to gnocchi with poached lobster to branzino. Each dish was perfect, it was simply the type of food that you are just left wanting more of. The entire evening went by so fast and we had one of the friendliest servers out there. He actually was from New York at one of our favorite restaurants Gramercy Tavern and moved to DC at the start of the pandemic. I’ll never forget when they took our dessert plates away wishing that we could just start the evening over again. But alas all good things had to come to an end and we left Rooster & Owl and I whisked Jenn away in her stunning red dress and we walked along the streets of DC arm in arm enjoying a stunning summer evening.
We made it back to our hotel that evening, packed up our suitcases, watched a few episodes of the show “Alone” on my laptop and called it an evening.
Day Four - Sunday, August 1st, 2021
And just like that the trip had come to an end. We left DC a little after 7 AM on Sunday and drove the four hours from DC to New York City. We did stop in Delaware at the Joe Biden Welcome Center where we once again looked for a DC mug at Starbucks, filled up on gas, and made our way back out to Manhattan. We picked up Frasier at NY Tails and gave him a bath when we got home. We haven’t done a trip like this in a long time and if anything this reminded me of two things. First how much I love and miss traveling. And two how lucky I am to have the best travel partner in the world, one who I can’t wait to hit the road or the skies again with really soon.
