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Oh, dear. It was in Virginia. I have lived in the DC metro area for 20 years. Virginia is that terrifying place across the river where Glebe crosses itself and they shut down access to major roads at rush hour, and you can't get anywhere at all from the Parkway without going all the way down to the airport and returning via the northbound lanes. And where they don't tell you that you are getting into an HOV only situation until you can't turn around or exit. So I can't really say where we were. I THINK we were on Rte 1 south of Alexandria. We were going towards Barnes Furniture. To me, the opposite of dry is juicy. I have had a very good burger at Black's Bar and Kitchen. And a stupendous burger at a little dive just north of Johns Hopkins University in Roland Park (Baltimore's answer to Chevy Chase, hon), called Alonso's. I happen to love dives (RTS is too upscale for me!) EYHO: Since 1938 Alonso's has catered to stressed-out executives, party-hearty college students, and everyone in-between. Its very essence screams nostalgia; Alonso's is history personified. Wood-paneled walls evoke '70s-style club basements; the servers' beehive 'dos take you back to stereotypical Bawlmer gals who crack wise and call you "Hon." A wide array of interesting curiosities decorate the entire establishment: the "original" Jurassic Park dinosaur egg, Civil War paraphernalia, handwritten letters from Martin Luther King Jr. For nostalgia alone, Alonso's is a great place to throw back a few drinks with friends at the end of the day. Unfortunately nostalgia doesn't change the fact that the food is not very good. We opted to eat in to sample the tavern's famed meal-in-a-basket ($9.25), which features Alonso's jumbo bacon cheeseburger with French fries. Baltimore has heaped praise on this beef-on-a-bun classic for eons--City Paper named it "Best Hamburger" last year (Best of Baltimore, 9/17). I thought it worthwhile to find out how other food fares as well. Regarding the burger: First of all, its size is alarming--the jumbo is too gigantic for human consumption. With bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and other garnishes on top of the huge beef patty, the sandwich can't even be picked up, let alone bitten. Make sure you use a fork and knife--we saw a few idiots using their hands and apparently trying (unsuccessfully) to inhale the damned thing. (One man lost control, and his fresh burger ended up square in the middle of his khakis.) Another hint: Bring along a group of people to share the burger-eating experience. Our party of four made ingesting the jumbo beef sandwich I ordered a group project, and we still had some left over. However hard the burger is to handle, the critics are right: It is delicious. For the life of me I will never understand how Alonso's cooks a burger that big perfectly to order while maintaining the succulent, juicy beef flavor. Alonso's truly does have the best burgers in town.