Fruit Bat, 13th and H Streets NE, Atlas District - From the Owners of Wisdom - Closed

[turbogrrl]

Wandering around H Street, we were looking for a place to have a few drinks and some snacks before indulging in 11pm ramen. The words "Pork Shoulder Tacos" scrawled on the glass underneath the image of a fruit bat stopped me mid-stride. "Nicky- Fruit Bat!" I'd made my decision. The place is pretty darn tiny, and I have to image the kitchen is the size of a postage stamp. At 9:30pm on a Friday, they were more than struggling with kitchen stock. They were out of the tacos. They were out of the guacamole. They were out of the blueberry caipirinhas. I didn't really care. The music was great, the drinks were really great, and I was enjoying a date with my husband in a cozy bar while H street thronged with people.

I had an "Old School Player"- Old Overholt with orange juice, and liked it quite a lot. Nicky had something with grapefruit and coconut which sounds like an awful fruity mess but was actually really drinkable- we had two of these. And then there were the surprises. Suddenly, pork tacos showed up! I think someone ran out for tortillas- the tortillas were not at all in the same class as the pork, cabbage, and sauce inside them. But the effort was definitely appreciated. Then the bartender came by and explained that the doughnuts were taking so long because they had to make another batch of dough. Freshly-fried doughnuts sound great to me, thank you. And they were. Warm bits of freshly-fried dough on a bed of chocolate mousse with a dash of coffee and powdered sugar. We inhaled these. And then I tried to get up every last bit of chocolate with my spoon.

It's got to be incredibly hard to try to run a kitchen out of there. But the place is very warm and welcoming, and I liked it a lot. Given that many dinner destinations down on H street come with two-hour waits on a friday or saturday, you could do far worse than while away your time here.

[DonRocks]

Closing June 9th (via Fritz Hahn's tweet).