Ben's Next Door

There are many restaurants on the U Street Corridor that I decided not to visit because they surpassed my college budget. Most of the appetizers at these places were under $10, but the entrees ranged from about $15-$25 or the equivalent of three lunches at Au Bon Pain, a splurge just not worth it to me. That is the problem with U Street, the sudden expansion of numerous expensive restaurants catering to a wealthier clientele, decidedly people not from area nor hungry college students looking for a cheap bite. So it’s with a bit of trepidation that I wandered into Ben’s Next Door.

But wander in I did, visibly younger than the crowd of diverse twenties plus packed around the bar. My friend and I were seated towards the back of this pretty huge restaurant, it kept going back and back farther than I could see. We placed our appetizer orders, a nice big bowl of creamy Mac and Cheese and a Rack of Ribs before the bombardment of drink specials came our way. First it was our waitress describing the Scotch special of the evening, four shots of different aged alcohol for the low price of $25. A few minutes later the promoter came over in her swanky black knit dress to repeat the special. My friend was quick to put it on his underage radar but I couldn’t get over the price, three lunches for a bit of booze!! No way, the food was expensive enough, and I’m not yet at the age where I can depend on my income (read lack of income) to pay for my party bills.

But before I could fret about it, we got a nice little basket of cornbread, followed by our appetizers, both big enough to be a meal. The Mac and Cheese was some of the best I’ve ever had, creamy throughout and crunchy with breadcrumbs on top. The ribs were a bit tough but very flavorful and coated in a sweet orange BBQ sauce. I was stuffed before my main course of fried chicken with mashed sweet potatoes and collard greens arrived. But I was still able to eat a few morsels of what seemed to be double dipped fried chicken, sweet potatoes mashed with bananas and tasty greasey greens. This is the standard fare for all these bistros that line U Street, overpriced soul food. But I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to be so good.

In the future I’d like to investigate more of the expensive restaurants of U Streets, to see if the focus is on the food or the atmosphere. I think Ben’s Next Door captured both aspects quite well, though I’m not sure all others deliver at quite the same caliber. And I wonder if I want to support businesses that threaten to drive places like The Greek Spot, and Chix to extinction. One night at those places equals about four meals at The Spot or Chix. And so you see U Street is at a turning point, will it continue to serve it’s old community along with the students or strive create more businesses that cater to a richer niche? The Greek Spot and Chix are only 3 years old, so it’s refreshing to see that young second generation immigrants can afford to set up shop in this area. However, the question is: Will real estate prices continue to rise thus attracting more people who can afford more expensive entertainment? Or will prices level out leaving the neighborhood to become an equal mix between cheap and expensive? My hope is that the area will continue to serve not only students from the surrounding areas but also the older community, which I hope will not fade away like the glory of what U Street used to be.

Photo Courtesy of Ben's Next Door

Ben's Chili Bowl

And now for the Ben’s Chili Bowl review. I find it so tough to review a place already written about thousands of times before, and I usually am quite good with finding the flaws. However the only flaw I could find was with service, as I continually asked for the coconut cake slice that I had already paid for. But then again the place was packed, I couldn’t even find my way to the door, and this guy had definitely been on his shift for at least 8 hours. It ain’t fancy but it’s good, and I wasn’t expecting great service I came there for the half-smoke and the thick shake not incredible service.

Speaking of the thick shakes, I really haven’t heard a lot of comments on them, and they’re definitely something that you must try. I got a banana one served in a Coca-Cola paper cup. At first sip, the flavor was quite artificial banana, but then it transformed into artifical banana and creamy goodness and I didn’t stop drinking until the cup was empty. I can’t wait to try the chocolate and vanilla and maybe even the pina colada. It may not seem like it, but the shake was the perfect accompaniment to my half-smoke. Smothered in chili, mustard and onions nestled within a warm fresh bun this is one DC food experience that a student cannot miss.
Each time I have visited Ben’s, the crowd has been a little different, once all locals that seemed like they had been eating there for the past fifty years another time a gaggle of Georgetown students flanked with mothers. Ben’s has survived throughout the turbulent times of U Street’s past, and has continued to cater to diverse crowds. According to Ben’s website during the riots themselves the Chili Bowl served both the cops and the rioters. While in the worst of U Street’s years, police set up surveillance on the 2nd floor of Ben’s to monitor local drug activity while simultaneously serving some of those addicts. In fact, at one point Ben’s stopped serving the cake slices that I waited for, so addicts wouldn’t be attracted to the place. When the metro stop was being constructed before gentrification Ben’s would have shut down if it were not for the construction workers who kept it alive.

Ben’s Chili Bowl has somehow prevailed throughout all these years, maybe because of the damn good half-smokes and chili-cheese fries it serves up. But after visiting the place I yearned to see and eat during a time before the riots, a time when U Street was littered with places like Ben’s. But I cannot live in the past, and so I will probably live at Ben’s for the next three and half years.

The original owner Ben died a few months ago, but last Friday night when I paid a visit around 7PM his spirit still seemed to be alive, the place was packed with Gospel music pounding from the speakers and grills spitting grease from the half-smokes piled atop it. Wishing to make a snowy Friday night better for everyone, I purchased a chili dog for the homeless guy wrapped in blankets outside. Better than money for booze and I’m sure he was quite happy indeed. Maybe the start of a new tradition?

Chix

Chix is located right next to The Greek Spot, and if I wasn’t planning on eating at both places that night, I’m sure the decision between the two would have been mighty difficult! Chix is a bit tidier than The Greek Spot, I’m not calling its neighbor dirty, but Chix’s walls are painted a pale green, and its upstairs area of white tables and flat screens invite all to come and stay a while.

The kitchen on the ground floor is small and features the coolest rotisserie-above-a-fire-pit you have ever seen. I chatted with Lukas, one of the owners, about how Chix came to be. Lukas, who is from Columbia, went to American for business and Chix was his major project, for he noticed an absence of “cheap, healthy and delicious food” in DC. Soon after graduating, Lukas stumbled upon an old Peruvian restaurant that was in need of repair but with a rotisserie already installed in the kitchen. Lukas purchased the restaurant along with his partner Victoria whose father is from Cuba and was a famous chef in Miami. I ventured into Chix at around 6PM on a Friday night, and already it was bustling, in fact Lukas told me that on a busy night Chix does 60 orders per hour.

No wonder, because again, this place is good! I’m worried that all my reviews have been quite positive but somehow this block just makes good food and good food for cheap! I got ¼ of the Columbian chicken, that is chicken that has been soaked in coconut milk and Columbian coffee for 24 hours before being roasted on the rotisserie with a side of sweet potato cubes and noodles and cheese. I have to say that this chicken was a bit dry, but when pared with custard-like noodles it was quite the bite! My friend got ¼ of the Chix Chicken that was rubbed in a blend of secret spices and herbs that somehow we couldn’t quite guess but resulted in a sweet and extremely moist bird with extra crispy skin. He got the vegetable of the days, flavorfully simple zucchini and rice with cilantro. All this food for under $20, so comforting and healthy that I wish it was in the center of campus where it would definitely prosper!

The Greek Spot

The first time I went to The Greek Spot I was visiting a friend-of-a-friend who lived in the house next door. I was completely envious of the fact that both a Peruvian chicken place, Chix and The Greek Spot were a mere ten steps away. But maybe there not all that good, I wondered, trying to make the jealousy go away. That night I got a piece of Baklava to enjoy when I got back to the dorm, but it didn’t even make it through the cab ride home. I ripped open the plastic box when I was comfortably seated in the cab and proceeded to crunch through the flaky phyllo and pistachio pastry becoming covered in the honey that slowly dripped out of the box. Next time I was going to be in control.

I found myself back at The Greek Spot last Friday evening, the horribly cold and snow filled night. As I entered the Spot I glanced around the little room filled with old photographs of a Greek island, and I was immediately transported back to a vacation on the island of Ithaki better know as Ithaca, making the brisk evening outside seem like a distant memory. I was probably dreaming a bit more than the average visitor to The Greek Spot who might have not had the opportunity to visit Greece. In reality, the shop is little more than a takeout window over a case filled with feta cheese, olives, cheesecake and baklava. The small waiting room has a case of fountain drinks, a small metal table and a laminated menu taped to a blue door.

Greg, the young owner, was manning the window that night alone in the kitchen save for one employee that was spooning out heaping bowls of tzatziki. I asked him what island the pictures were taken on, “Keflalonia, the city of Fiskardo in the 1950’s” he replied quite delighted that someone had asked. In chatting with him a bit more I learned that his father had grown up in Fiskardo and had emigrated to DC following the Earthquakes in the 1950’s. His father owned a Greek restaurant on Capitol Hill and Greg spent time working and living around the kitchen there. Greg’s restaurant is perfect for my needs, cheap, good and ethnic and when I asked him why there weren’t many places like his around, he responded, “My father told me there were scores of good cheap places before the riots. Then the riots came and decimated this area and only Ben’s Chili Bowl remained.” The riots basically destroyed the cultural landscape of U Street, not only taking down the jazz scene but also devastating thriving cheap restaurants as well. Greg made me believe that without the riots, U Street would have been a college students eating dream. But that’s what Greg has decided to do with The Greek Spot, make good food affordable to those who crave it while keeping his place open till 2 AM Friday and Saturday nights.

The Greek Spot not only offers up standard Greek fare, like custardy pasticho, fresh moussaka, and garlicky tzatziki, but also damn good cheeseburgers and fries. This is the place to go after seeing a show at the 9:30 Club or just cruising around the area. Besides the platters, everything is under $10, and I think the next time I go I’m stocking my mini-fridge with feta, hummus and tzatziki, and then I shall be happy until my next trip.

The LOVECafe

While walking around U &13th street I came across quite the block. What is this: Cakelove and the Love Café? How can two opposing bakeries survive on the same block, with roughly the same name? Turns out I was dead wrong; Cakelove and the Love Café are the same bakery with the same owner, Warren Brown that guy whose in the American Express ads for small businesses.


I was lured into the Love Café by the sight of dozens of plump cupcakes sitting pretty in their case. Immediately I went in and had a Red Velvet and German Chocolate cupcake boxed up, to be consumed after dinner. But after a filling meal at Dukem I resolved to have them for breakfast leaving them in a seemingly safe spot in the hotel room I was sharing with my mother. Well, in the morning all that remained were a few crumbs, to which my mother replied that the squirrel who snuck into the room the evening prior wanted to leave me a message saying they were moist and delicious. Thanks Mom.

So, on my next visit to U Street I was determined to have some cupcakes for myself. I went back into the Love Café and took the time to look around while waiting in line. The walls were rough brick and the dining area was filled with cozy little nooks with dim lighting. “Too bad I’m in a long distance relationship,” my guy friend who accompanied me remarked, “this is like the perfect place for a cupcake date. I would score major points for bringing her to a place like this.” If we could all have a boyfriend as smart as him, the world would be a better place, and there would have to be a Love Café on every corner.

I finally got to sink my teeth into a Strawberry on Chocolate cupcake and was quite surprised by the chunks of real fruit in the frosting and the deep chocolate taste and relatively fine crumb of the cake. Perfect cupcake, but then again for $3.25 it better be. This is not your everyday cupcake place, but rather that treat at the end of the week, or the end of the semester depending on your disposable cupcake income.

Since that first cupcake, I have tried the Elvis Cake, a banana cupcake lathered in peanut butter buttercream dipped in chocolate ganache; Cookies & Cream, a vanilla cupcake topped with Oreo buttercream, Vanilla & Caramel and Raspberry on Vanilla. I cannot decide on which I like better the fruitier flavors or the full on fatty peanut butter and chocolate. It’s tough but I would recommend that after a night spent on U Street you should never go home empty-handed, get a box of these instead!

Dukem

My first visit to the U street area was to go see the Wallflowers at the 9:30 club. I was completely unaware of the area and instead of wandering upon the U Street corridor for a quick bite I found myself in Little Ethiopia. Drawing upon some NYC knowledge I figured that the best and cheapest food would be served at the shop that had all cabs parked outside on the street. I was correct. As my friend and I wandered into the little white walled restaurant all heads turned, for we were the only white non-Ethiopians in there. But instead of facing hostility, the man behind the counter was quick to give us about ten pounds of food for under ten dollars, a pretty good value considering the amount of lamb and beef in the dish. On the way out I looked for the restaurant’s name but was met with a sign simply stating "Ethiopian Food".

Fast forward a few months later I had a craving for Ethiopian and decided to drag a fellow hall-mate up to U Street to kick off this project. Unable to retrace my steps to my original discovery I relied on word of mouth to find Dukem. Dukem is an Ethiopian restaurant of a kind I have not seen before. I was used to quaint little eateries decorated in traditional tables, chairs and wall art; Dukem is the opposite. The restaurant features a full modern bar in the center of the room, with a dance floor to the right and tables scattered all over. The room is well lit with carved arches filled with neon blue lights illuminating the dark wood tables and wooden bar. The staff is what gives this place character, most of the wait staff are waitresses that speak little English and serve to chide you for not eating enough of your dinner.

Did I mention that the portions are huge? This is straight up traditional Ethiopian food, and you should bring at least three people to try a combo platter. Each platter comes with a giant round of injera, a spongy pancake that serves as a plate for a variety of different vegetable and meat African curries. Just because Dukem strays from its traditional décor does not mean that it skimps on flavor. My favorite part of the platter is called minchet abash a mild paste-like stew of ground beef in a ginger and garlic sauce. Other toppings include lamb wot, a spicy lamb stew; doro wot, a spicy chicken and red pepper stew; tibs, lamb fried with onion, rosemary and jalapeno, and gored gored tibs, beef sautéed with onion and jalapeno in a butter sauce. It’s all delicious and a thirty dollar platter easily stuffs at least three people.

Dukem is an ethnic restaurant designed to meet the standards of both an Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian crowd. The décor is fancy enough for a fun date night and the food traditional enough for a real Ethiopian crowd. Dukem is what happens when its immigrant owners move out of Little Ethiopia and create a restaurant meant to fit in with the diverse population of U Street. It works.

This is the place to bring a crowd of friends for a few hours of fun, filling and cheap Ethiopian cuisine!

A Few Words (Alright a Lengthy Little Bit) on U Street's Past

The first time I came out of the metro at the U Street/Cardozo stop I was completely disoriented. I had gotten on the metro at Foggy Bottom, in the middle of the downtown area of concrete and character-less buildings swamped with commuters and had emerged to see green grass, colorful little row houses and not a soul in sight. Lacking an iPhone or any means of a GPS device I went to the nearest street corner and saw quite the sight. Approaching from the next block was a gaggle of women in traditional African clothing complete with headdresses and bright colors walking behind a young white guy dressed in skinny black jeans, a neon shirt, and oversized glasses walking a miniature little dog on a jeweled leash. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights, for without any prompt he looked up at me and said, “If you walk two blocks that way, you’ll see the 9:30 club, it’s the one with radio towers.” and then he continued walking on his way. What neighborhood is this? And how did these African-American women and hipsters come to be coexisting on the same block? Just like most neighborhoods, the hipsters were definitely not there first. A little time spent checking out Wikipedia, and various New York Times and Washington Post articles thrown in with a few walking tour maps of the area revealed U Street’s storied past.

The U street corridor, located within the Shaw neighborhood has seen a great many radical changes over the last few centuries. The neighborhood was mainly white and middle class prior to 1900, but as DC became more segregated U Street turned into a fashionable area for African Americans. Black business owners transformed the area into an entertainment hotspot, full of theaters, coffee shops and jazz clubs creating hangout spots for Duke Ellington and attracting performers such as Louis Armstrong, Billy Holiday and Miles Davis. In fact, prior to 1920, U Street was home to the largest African American community, before Harlem took its place in the rankings.

This prosperity lasted well into the 1960’s until MLK Jr. was assassinated, the catalyst for the 1968 DC Riots. For four days rioters essentially burned down the U Street corridor along with sections of Columbia Heights and H street NE devastating this part of the city’s economy. Following the riots affluent residents moved out, property values dropped and businesses failed. The area became a hub for drug dealers filling the streets with addicts thus creating an unsafe and crime-ridden area for all.

It wasn’t until the mid-1990’s that gentrification began with the construction of the metro stop that created a connection between U Street, downtown and the suburbs. When the metro stop opened, thousands of luxury condos were constructed which led to a proliferation of boutiques, art galleries, restaurants and nightclubs. Since most of affluent families had already fled to the suburbs and established communities outside the District, a younger set, attracted by low rents moved into the U street area.

The U Street corridor today is not so much bohemian as it is an intersection between young creative professionals and the historic African-American community. Richard Lloyd discusses, in the early chapters of his book Neo-Bohemia, how Greenwich Village became a hotbed for bohemian culture within a larger immigrant community, “nestled among recently arrived huddled masses whose yearning to be free were frustrated by a reality of gross inequality, the Village was a hotbed of both artistic experimentation and radical politics, strains of which co-existed temperamentally with each other” (55). New York was a collection of immigrants from different nations as well as young politically active students and artists. However, DC is a radically different city from New York. The inhabitants of U Street in the early half of the 20^th century were African Americans who had lived within the District since the mid 19^th century. Immigrants in the area came from Ethiopia, and assimilated into the African-American populations already established there. The politically active citizens were not a subset that found their way into the community, rather U Street was already a vibrant community that became the center of the Civil Rights Movement in DC established by those who were already a part of the community. There was no need for external young bohemians for the social and political minds existed within the U Street Community.

However, as the neighborhood slid into disrepair in the late 1960’s these minds became lost in the fabric of U Street. As the cultural centers of New York and California began to flourish as a place for bohemian minds; U Street was lost to drugs during a time of great social and political upheaval. In a sense, U Street missed out on becoming a center of radical change from and for the African-American community during this time.

By the early 1990’s, the area had bottomed out, the crack epidemic was brought under control contributing to a decrease in drug trafficking and the area became a breeding ground for developers with real estate prices lower than low. As more condos were built more businesses were started. Real estate prices crept up but were still low enough for first-time business owners and college students. The neighborhood became a center for new ideas, but not those typically associated with bohemians. Instead U Street became a hot spot for young entrepreneurs eager to draw young people into their shops and restaurants, creating an entirely new neighborhood catering to a young hip upwardly mobile population.

As usual gentrification has a down side. With residential rents on the rise and restaurants and night clubs opening to cater to this new wealthier cliental there is a risk that U-street could begin to look like every other metrosexual stomping ground. However, prices have yet to go through the roof and smaller fast food restaurants, such as The Greek Spot and Chix have sprung up, each with the goal of feeding people quickly and cheaply, albeit one a bit healthier than the other. The future of U Street is quite unclear; will the area continue to increase in value? Thus attracting only established college grads in the 25-35 year old category plus able to afford it. Or will the recession manage to slow it’s metamorphosis down . No one I spoke to while visiting the area had a handle on the areas absolute direction, I certainly can’t say definitively, but these are questions I explored while visiting some restaurants on the U Street Corridor. I hope that throughout this post I was able to shed some light upon how the hipster and the African women came to be walking down the same block on a warm evening in September ’09.

About Me

All my life I’ve been obsessed with food. As a toddler I only liked bed-time stories that centered around desserts, thanks to “The Biggest Cookie in the World” . At age four I would only eat in restaurants that had olives on the table thus subjecting my parents to a year of expensive dining before they resolved to introduce me to a steaming bowl of good ol’ Kraft Mac & Cheese. And in kindegarten my teacher found it quite important to comment in my report card, “Tess doesn’t eat; she dines” referring to my habit of assembling my lunch on a placemat and refusing to go to recess before each morsel was slowly and carefully enjoyed.

In middle school, I spear-headed a fun project of creating a brownie business-the uncopyrighted “Sweet Tess”- which not only taught me the basics of purchasing whole-sale ingredients and making a profit, but also how to win over boarding school admission counselors. And then there’s that Food Network appearance that I refuse to brag about but do love the occasional Facebook friend request by an avid fan of Ina.

But enough about my childhood. My real love of restaurants evolved during what I call my “NYC Semester”, that is Fall ’08: a few months spent interning by day and exploring various New York City neighborhoods through restaurants by night. At the time I had not discovered Yelp, and so I started off at Pinche Taqueria, by far the best fish-taco-and-cold-watermelon-juice-joint in Soho. The dude to my right that night was thoroughly in bliss with his three fat tacos and ice-cold Heineken, when I rudely interrupted him to ask some of his other favorite places. But he was delighted to be asked and sent me off to an NYU Vietnamese sandwich shop where I asked the same questions to other patrons. This pattern continued until I decided to strike out on my own, browsing through menus during coffee breaks deciding on my next restaurant adventure.

My standards were simple: cheap, that is meal for me had to be under $15; fun, the place had to have a bit of character and good, as in I better leave happy and begging to come back. Within a few weeks I had compiled a fairly good list, which I started distributing to friends, who soon began relying on my NYC-food wisdom. That is to say if you’re a student either visiting or studying in NYC you should trust me on finding you the best place to either bring your five-year-old niece (ok a bit expensive) or your favorite hipster.

But now for the bad news: I’ve relocated and some of my favorite NYC dives are closed (or I guess relocated) and I’m out of the loop! Currently I’m a freshman at GWU in Washington, and I’ve found myself completely clueless to the DC culinary scene. This is a blog that I wish I’d started back in NYC: the blog that traces my culinary adventures as I attempt to find the best and relatively cheap restaurants in DC. This is starting as a project for my UW class La Vie Boheme (shameless plug: take the class, you get to do awesome projects like this!), and hopefully will transform into a nice collection of reliable DC eateries.

Welcome to my journey, I hope you enjoy!