Kitchen Wench

Since moving here a year and a half ago, I’ve heard that H St NE (a small stretch of bars and clubs between 12^th and 14^th and H) is the next rapidly gentrifying hot spot. The two block strip, across from an Autozone and several fried chicken/subs/Chinese food/seafood carry out joints, is the baby of DC nightlife mogul, Joe Englert. You’ve probably gone all sloppy-faced at his joints and didn’t even know it (Lucky Bar, The Big Hunt, Pour House, DC9… the list goes on). For better or for worse, he knows what he’s doing.

My first trip to H St occurred several months ago in the form of dinner at Dr. Granville Moore’s and local band night at Rock and Roll Hotel. I’ll admit, I was kind of stressing out. I find that DC nightlife can be rather depressing due to certain breed of suburbanite that flocks to Georgetown and Adams Morgan on the weekend, acts like an obnoxious, then drives drunkenly home, thankful they don’t actually live in the scary city.

But I also keep reading about this mythical creature known as the DC hipster (or “hip-tard” by so-called suburban haters), mostly in the DCist comments threads. Since H St is still a little rough, I figured it might have just enough street cred to keep the striped shirt crew away. Like, there might actually be cool people there. People so cool, they would take one look at me and know that I wasn’t cool enough. I might walk into Granville Moore’s and encounter a sea of shrunken striped sweaters, unwashed hair, and Chuck Taylors. I obsessed that my poser status might be given away due to my lack of canvas messenger bag and 1970s ski vest.

It turns out that H St is cool. But not in the way I was expecting.

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Despite living painfully nearby, I actively avoid shopping at the Columbia Heights Giant supermarket whenever possible. It’s always crowded, the service is poor, and the lines are horrible. But yesterday I forced myself to venture to Giant on my way home from work, mostly because I have become addicted to Special K (I swear it’s laced with coke) and was out of milk.

So, I’m standing in the “Express” line (haha), clutching a basket of eggs, milk, and spring greens mix and contemplating whether I should buy the February edition of Martha Stewart Living when I observe the following conversation:

Mother: [calling out to the lady at the end of my line] Hey, is anyone behind you? No? [walks over and sees the end of the line, then turns to her young daughter] Here, hold my things. Okay, now, stay here with this strange lady.

And then she proceeded to walk away and finish shopping while her daughter shared a very awkward moment with Strange Lady.

Wait, whaaat? Did that just happen? Did she just call that random woman strange to her face (even if it was true)? I never thought I’d see the day when parents would entrust their children to some weird-looking stranger just to hold a place in the check out line. So, if you were wondering if the lines at Giant were really that bad… well… yes, they are.

The first time I visited DC’s Chinatown, I thought I was going to cry. Or maybe puke. In either case, it was an adverse reaction. “Chinatown” is a joke–a bunch of chain stores and restaurants with Chinese characters tacked on their neon signage. Most of the translations are purely phonetic (Clyde’s Restaurant is “ke si lai”, etc.) and in traditional characters, probably because someone on a city planning committee thought it looked more “Chinese” than simplified characters. This, of course, does not bode well for the state of Chinese food in DC. This fact has been a source of major disappointment on multiple personal and gastronomic levels.

Commercialization aside, there are still a handful of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, including the much fabled Eat First. For some reason, white people think “Eat First” is a funny or clever name. The cranky Sinophile in me would like to point out that it’s actually a very common thing to say in Chinese, a culture that is so food-centered that the common greeting is not “How are you?” but “Have you eaten yet?” But I digress. Last week, Lee and I decided to meet up after work to try Eat First, which has been consistently ranked on various best bargain and best ethnic restaurant lists around town. Read the rest of this entry �

A Guide by the Men of Park Road:

1. Hang out. All the time. You too can find yourself a working woman to support your loitering habit if you stand near a Metro station or bus stop during rush hour.
2. Chicks dig it when you say “Hola” without looking them in the face.
3. You must master the fine art of uttering pick up lines while riding your bicycle on an uneven sidewalk. Nearly falling off your bike while grinning lasciviously is so last summer.
4. The canned soup aisle in Giant is a great place to snag a Friday night date: “Hi sweetie, wanna come over for a bowl of Campbell’s Chunky clam chowder?”
5. Upgrading to a truck or car will allow you to slowly follow women down the street while blowing kisses at them out the window. This is not creepy at all.
6. Elevator eyes are gaining social acceptance these days. Also, as long as her back is turned, you are free bend over and peer critically at her ass.
7. Mumbling inappropriate phrases in Spanish is a perfectly acceptable conversation starter.
8. Unwashed hair = hotttt.

For a while I thought that there was no way I could write about any sort of scandalous or juicy exploits in my life. Of course, there was the privacy issue, but mostly, my life is pretty uneventful.

Culinary exploits aside, (and, mostly, I am still too broke to have very many culinary exploits) there are some weird and/or unsavory things that seem to happen as an urban dweller in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. I thought it was time I started keeping a record of all those “What was I thinking living here?” moments.

Tuesday, July 18th. I move in to my new aparment. As Lee unlocks the front gate, he apologizes for the scent of urine permeating the entranceway. Homeless folks like to pee on the yard next door. The urine smell subsequently returns every time it is particularly hot and humid (e.g. the entire summer in Washington, DC).

Wednesday, July 26th. I begin to notice that my walk to and from the metro station usually involves passing through a gauntlet of Hispanic men, who invariably fall silent and then one of them mumbles something to me in Spanish. I can’t understand and suspect that it’s better that way.

Sunday, August 12th. I spot a strange shadow of a person’s legs through our living room window. Later that evening, Lee and I discover a paper bag stashed behind the bush in front of our apartment. “What do you think it is? A dead baby?” I ask. “Maybe it’s a drug drop,” Lee replies. We then gleefully contemplate the possibility of our house being the site of a police sting and possibly a major drug bust. However, our dreams are quickly shattered when Lee reaches into the bag and pulls out… a Jane Fonda workout tape.

Sunday, August 20th. There is a drunk man in our alley. He is passed out… in our parking space.