Child-Friendly Dinners - Staying in Mount Vernon Square, Visiting the Smithsonian

[DaRiv18]

The twitter hashtag for the Metro is #UnsuckMetro. Metro’s own marketing campaign is “Back to Good”. Service on the weekends is even spottier. Just so you know. 

[DonRocks]

[I'll go ahead and move this to the Help Needed subforum soon.]

[zgast]

On 8/6/2019 at 5:09 PM, mongo jones said:

this is definitely not the right place for this question but any advice on subway passes would be welcomed. family of four (kids 10, 8), arriving monday night, leaving friday afternoon. does it make more sense to purchase tickets as we go or to get some kind of pass?

and best way to get from dulles to convention center: cab of some species or public transit?

Uber or Lyft.  Washington Flyer is the only cab company at Dulles and they run about 50% more than Uber whenever I fly into Dulles, which is 1-2x per month.

[mongo jones]

curses. daikaya izakaya just called to confirm our reservation for tomorrow and informed me that as it's restaurant week they only have a $35/head  4 course menu. that will not work for us. so we're going to do bantam king tomorrow and hope they have their regular menu. now to hope that laos in town does not also have an abbreviated restaurant week menu...

[mongo jones]

swapped to baby wale for tomorrow. we'll aim for bantam king on wednesday. 

[mongo jones]

On 6/30/2019 at 10:11 AM, Pat said:

Baby Wale is across from the convention center.

we had a very good first dinner at baby wale tonight. thanks for the recommendation!

[DonRocks]

The bar at Corduroy is $30 for 3 courses, and it is absolutely child-friendly (if a bit "grown-up").

[mongo jones]

today's meals were also hits: lunch at hill country (particularly liked the smoked wings that were a special today); and then dinner at laos in town. i have to say that as far as the food itself is concerned, we have better lao food in st. paul. but what we don't have in st. paul, despite having a large lao population, is a lao restaurant, certainly not one as hip as this one. sorry to miss thip khao on this trip. 

[DaRiv18]

I’m not surprised there is better loa food than LIT in St Paul’s, I think the food there is pretty accessible compared to Thip Khao. But where do you find loa food in St Pauls if there aren’t loa restaurants?  You mean at combo loa-Thai restaurants?

[mongo jones]

many thai restaurants in the twin cities are owned by people from laos and there are many lao dishes on their menus. lao-style papaya salad is a staple, for example, as is khao poon and the versions of both at laos in town were tamer than we're used to---not as much fish sauce funk or heat in the papaya salad, and the khao poon had less heat and was also less soupy.

[mongo jones]

lunch today was at rasika. they have a restaurant week menu that is a very good deal: three courses (app/main/sweet) for $22/head. lots of choices in each section. apps were uniformly good, mains were less so, desserts were good. portion sizes were very large and rice and a bread basket were also included.

however, the meal took forever--we waited almost 30 minutes between finishing the first course and getting the second. we ended up being in the restaurant for more than two hours---which was not optimal use of our museum-visiting time. and lunch also ended so late that it may have killed our appetites for dinner. i mean the two of us could go out for a late dinner but the kids need to go to bed earlier. we'll probably eat in at the hotel tonight (we're staying at an all-suites place with a kitchenette in the room). bantam king tomorrow then.

[mongo jones]

On 8/14/2019 at 1:13 PM, DaRiv18 said:

I’m not surprised there is better loa food than LIT in St Paul’s, I think the food there is pretty accessible compared to Thip Khao. But where do you find loa food in St Pauls if there aren’t loa restaurants?  You mean at combo loa-Thai restaurants?

see here, for example. this place actually has "lao" in their name, but even when restaurants are billed as thai, there's a good chance they're operated by lao owners/chefs.

if i'm not mistaken, in the case of laos in town it may be the other way around: i think i read something that said that the owners are from bangkok.

[DaRiv18]

On 8/14/2019 at 6:01 PM, mongo jones said:

see here, for example.

That’s a nice review, and sounds like a solid place. At the risk of mischaracterizing what you wrote, it seems that restaurant basically offers Americanized Thai dishes (but are willing to, say, make their pad thai less sweet) and more authentic lao dishes (to the point that they even serve the same Americanized Thai version of the dish, such as the papaya salad).  It’s a smart move on their part, just to keep the lights on. 

I think Laos in Town is doing the same sort of risk management, providing an casual date-night atmosphere and serving accessible versions of the cuisine.  I recommended it to you because it would provide another data point on laos food, as well as probably accommodating your kids’ palate.

That’s partly why Thip Khao is so cool, they are all-in on authentic Laotian cuisine.

the next time you are in DC without kids, you should definitely visit Thip Khao and also Little Serow, now that is a hip ( but not obnoxious) place that will blow your mind.

[As far as other split-the-baby compromises to accommodate both adult and kid tastes, 2 Amys remains a top choice in DC (neither side compromises, actually).  Daikaya, Convivial, and Dino’s Grotto have also always done our family superbly.  My kids like the New Big Wong more than I do.]

[mongo jones]

i'm done with my reviews on the blog of all the meals we ate in dc last month:

baby wale
hill country
laos in town
rasika
teaism
bantam king

all my dc reviews can be found here.

thanks to all of you for the recommendations. not sure when we'll be back again but i'll definitely hit you all up again. in the meantime, if i can reciprocate with twin cities, los angeles, delhi or bombay recommendations please let me know.