All Right Hamilton! More Good Eats in DC

 The Hamilton

600 14th Street NW

Washington, DC 20005

What I'm going to type out next might shock some of you. I have never seen the play Hamilton. I know, I'm sure it's good, but I'm not really a musical fan. I'm more prone to see musicals when they are made into movies, but plays have never really been my thing. And yes, I know there's a filmed version of Hamilton that came out in 2020, but I've been busy watching other things on my list and trying to catch up with my reviews for this blog. Which brings me to another review of a restaurant we visited on our trip to DC, The Hamilton. 

It was our second day in Washington, and we had visited two of the Smithsonian museums, the National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space Museum. Lots of great exhibits and, of course, lots of walking. It was because of the walking that Katie wanted to stay close to our hotel, which was just a block away from the White House. I had Old Ebbitt Grill on my restaurant list, but they were slammed when we arrived, and they told us it would be a 1.5-hour wait. We couldn't wait that long, so we walked around the block to try a restaurant that we had passed on our way to the metro every day, the Hamilton. 

I didn't know it at the time, but Old Ebbitt and the Hamilton are sister restaurants, as they are both part of the Clyde Restaurant Group, which operates 13 restaurants in the Washington Metro area. The Hamilton opened late in 2011, and since it's located just a block away from the White House, it receives a significant amount of foot traffic. They are closing in on 4,000 reviews on Yelp, boasting a nearly four-star rating. The restaurant is cavernous, featuring a huge bar and dining room on the first floor, as well as a music venue space in the basement. They also get a lot of love for their late-night sushi special, which people rave about. 

No late-night sushi for us, as we arrived here at half past five on a Saturday evening. The restaurant was full, but we were quoted a wait time of only half an hour for the two of us. After only fifteen minutes, we were seated in the wood-paneled dining room, a space where I can imagine politicians, White House interns, or congressional aides meeting up after a hard day's work. I may have just watched too much of The West Wing and House of Cards, though. 

The menu at The Hamilton is impressive for the variety of food it serves. The menu features fifteen starters, including cheese boards and charcuterie, as well as salads, fish, steak, chops, and other entrees, along with house-made pastas, burgers, sandwiches, and sides. They also have an extensive sushi menu, but I'm unsure if it's only available at the aforementioned sushi bar or throughout the entire restaurant. We made our selections with our very personable server, Amanda, and this is what we received. 

We spied this Bread and Butter ($4.99) starter on the table next to us, so we had to order one for ourselves. All of these breads were made on the premises and came with whipped butter that comes with olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper. I really enjoyed the variety of the bread included, but my favorite was the ones that resembled Parker House rolls. They had a little salt baked into their glossy tops, and the bottom portion was pillowy soft, made even better with plenty of the provided butter. 

I made a mental note before leaving on this vacation that I would try as many crab cakes as possible on this trip. I started off my crab cake journey with this Crab Cake Sandwich ($27.99). The brioche bun came open-faced with tomato, lettuce, tartar sauce, and half a lemon so I could dress my sandwich how I wanted. I discarded the lettuce and tomato right away, then squeezed a small amount of lemon juice over the tennis ball-sized crab cake, and used a generous amount of the delicious tartar sauce. The crab cake itself was devoid of any binding that I could detect, although I know there had to be something holding it all together. Easily one of the best I have had, with lots of big pieces of lump crab in each bite. I ate half of it as a sandwich and then ditched the brioche bun, savoring each bite of the remaining crab cake one forkful at a time. The fries were crispy, and the mayo-based coleslaw was a nice accompaniment. This will be a tough crab cake to beat going forward. 

Katie was still full from our late breakfast, so she opted for the Short Rib Rigatoni ($10.99), which is one of their nine sides. As a side item, this was a relatively generous serving size. The rigatoni and shredded short rib were topped with crushed tomatoes, a cheese sauce, and a generous amount of pecorino Romano on top. Katie loved this dish, and if she were hungrier, she would have loved to have gotten a full-sized pasta dish. The pasta was freshly made and cooked well, and the red wine short rib provided great bursts of flavor. 

I wasn't planning on having dessert, but they had a Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake ($11.99) that I couldn't resist. The cake portion was banana with a peanut butter mousse on the inside, then it was topped with whipped cream and caramelized bananas, and a streak of strawberry jelly across the plate. I liked this but thought it was going to be better. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich felt disconnected, and the predominant flavor was banana, but it was too muted for my taste. Not awful, but not what I was hoping for. 

It's good to be flexible when you're on vacation. Most of the time, it works out, like when we really wanted to try Old Ebbitt, but we ended up at the Hamilton instead. We were excited about this visit, and their menu is so diverse that we saw many other things we would have liked to have tried, but vacations are all about trying as many different restaurants as possible. I loved the atmosphere here; it made me feel like we were dining with the heavyweights of the federal government. The service we experienced from our server, Amanda, and the rest of the staff was fantastic, and the food was delicious, especially that crab cake. It was so good that I'm also thinking of checking out Hamilton, the musical. I'll let you know how I like it.  

Here's a quick shot of the National Air and Space Museum that we visited before having dinner at The Hamilton. I thought we were only going to spend a little time here, but we ended up staying for two hours. Time really flies. Sorry for that. I'll go hang my head in shame. 

Out of five classified ads (because Alexander Hamilton was not only the first Secretary of the Treasury, but he also founded the New York Post in 1801, and since it's still being published today, I'm sure they have had tons of classifed ads over those 225 year), five being best to zero being worst, The Hamilton gets 3.5 classified ads. 

For more information about The Hamilton, head to their website by clicking here: https://www.thehamiltondc.com/