Day 4: Chinatown, RFD, Busboys & Poets, Saint-ex and Brickskeller

By Greg B. For lunch today, we ate at the Szechuan House (748 6th st NW Washington DC).  Minimal food to order from at first, though if you want there is a menu you can order from.  We opted to eat the lunch species, which were rather cheap (plate o’ food and a drink, $6).  Not bad Chinese, not amazing either, but a good quick meal.  Later on though, after yet another long day of science lectures, posters, meetings and chatting about grant money, post-doctoral research and various elements of methodology of research, I needed a beer.  So, I took a stroll with Gabi down to R.F.D., a bar I had seen while in China town that had a ton of beer taps in the window on display.

R.F.D. has a very large selection of beer, mostly common beers though still a good selection (From Chimay to Stone brewery, if you wanted an idea of the swath of beer styles).  Our waitress was always quick and attentive (though I’m sorry waitress… I forgot to write down your name!  Kanisha maybe?), and we did order the potato skins.  Man these were good!  After days of eating some fancier foods, it felt good to indulge in some basic fatty bar food.  They were cooked basically perfect, and with the sour cream provided, were an excellent pre-dinner snack.  We did have quite a few beers, so I’ll try to cover them quickly here.

• Mad River Brewing Co. Jamaica Sunset IPA - smells sweet and tastes even more sweet than the aroma let on.  Lacks a bit of the bitters I wanted from an IPA, though it still isnt in that ’syrupy’ sweet category, so it’s ok.  Dark amber in color, thin/no head.  7% abv.
• Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA - Good head retention of a medium/low level head.  Smells sweet and bitter at the same time, floral with darker malts on the nose.  Definitely full bodied, more malty and the bitters don’t come through on the taste, though the floral aroma is accentuated.  Web page does that absurd “click here to verify age” thing… I never understood what the point of that level of nothing provided except to annoy me.
• Kostritker Schwartzbier - Great beer!  Oddly, it has almost no smell, or maybe, if you really try to imagine it, a bit of malts on the nose.  No black malt smell like I expected.  Thin head, very dark color, no real black malts on the taste but a very creamy, milk-stouty kind of texture to it.  Quite nice.
• Allagash Tripel - The infamous brewery from Maine.  Great beer, really captures the essence of Belgian styled tripels.  Smells of yeast and fruit, but oddly, had a pumpkin flavor to it (Gabi first caught this and I didn’t believe it, but upon further inspection it is totally true!). 9% abv, so drink with some respect.  A good Belgian tripel, though not Gabi’s style.
• Ommegang Abbey Ale - I think I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth mentioning.  I would never know this wasn’t made in Belgium, these beers are so good and true to the real Belgian style beer.  Big head, smells of chocolate malts, maybe even Munich malts.  Alcoholy-sweet, but not excessive.
• Ommegang Three Philosophers - A really nice, powerful Belgian Ale mixed with a bit of a cherry lambic.  Tastes a lot like cherries from the lambic, big head, has a sweeter taste to it and also a sweeter finish which masks some of the extra alcohol in this.  Neither the Abbey Ale nor the three philosophers were Gabi’s favorite style, though bear in mind, she is an IPA kinda girl.

From here, we went to Busboys & Poets for dinner.  What an interesting place! It’s an interesting combo of random ‘art’, books and tables for dining.  Waitstaff are friendly and quick.  We ordered a plate of nachos while we were waiting for everyone to arrive.  It was pretty good, very cheesy with a liquid cheese like from a can of cheesewhiz, though is is in no way a bad thing.  I ordered a latte to stay awake from the long day, which was very milky/creaming, but nice still.

Our waiter (Noverto?) was very adamant about ID-ing everyone at the table at the mention of alcohol, which I guess is a strict DC thing. I got a La quinta IPA as a drink while eating the nachos as well, thin head, light gold in color, smells bitter and floral but it had almost no malt character when tasting it, it was a bit thin.  More of a refreshing summer style IPA than something I would want to drink now when the temperature has turned colder.  The turkey sandwich I got from Busboys & poets was very delicious.  Roasted turkey meat sliced thin and very moist, served on some delicious bread with a cranberry sauce on it… Mm mmm!  The fries with the sandwich were smaller potato wedge style, could have used a bit more salt but were otherwise great: crispy on the outside, mushy on the inside.  For my money, that’s the perfect fry.

After Dinner, we headed to grab a pint at Cafe Saint-Ex, which looked a bit smaller but deifintely a nice cozy place where I would want to grab a pint on a colder night. We went to the downstairs bar, which had a more limited bar but allowed us to chat in relative peace.  A good beer selection was there, so we tried some different things.

• Viking - an Icelandic beer.  Not amazing, but your basic national lager.  Interesting to try to a beer from Iceland though.
• Magic Hat #9 - I don’t think I’ve written about this before, but it’s a good beer.  Light in color, sweet on the palate.  Once again, not a favorite of Gabi, if you’re looking for a pint of bitters, but not a bad beer overall.
• Unibroue brewery Maudite - Has a nice spice to this beer, which I think the girls correctly identified as coriander.  It’s a bit sweet and syrupy though, so you need to be in the mood for this kind of beer.

Ok, and this brings us to the conclusion of Day 4 in Washington DC!  I’m sorry for the delay, but it has been very busy down here lately, so I’ve been trying to keep up with the posts.  I will do a better job in the future, let me assure you!  Stay tuned for the upcoming posts of Dim Sum, Beer towers, and more!