Wow, great info, thank you all!!
Some more input from me. I wasn't really looking for "quintessentially DC". Sometimes there are must see places in a city. Like in NYC if you were to go there and wanted a memorable, special, romatic dinner you MUST go to the River Cafe in Brooklyn. That's a bad example because that's not what we're really looking for. Maybe a better example would be Windows on the World atop the Wor;d Trade Center (of course that fell the terrible fate of 9/11/01) or Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Now none of these would work for my son and I due to our long day traveling and touring and therefore not being properly dressed. But we have choices here that are more low key, the above are just the more famous in NYC that came to mind.
I guess we're really looking for some good dinner suggestions with a few things in mind:
1. We will be driving down from NJ leaving home around 6am and spending the day at the Smithsonian so we will not be very "fresh" or well dressed.
2. I know we can always go to a TGIF (yuck) or Ruth Chris' (a notch or 3 above yuck) but would rather like to try something we can't get here.
Ray's looks interesting. It looks like we could go to our hotel in Laurel and freshen up before dinner. How important are reservations? Are walk in's discouraged or just require some waiting?
Thanks again everyone. This list is an amazing find!!!!