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Mélange, Burgers Shop in the old Ray's Hell BurgerSpace at the City Vista


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Mélange recently opened in the City Vista, taking over the spot left vacant when the excellent Ray's Hell Burger closed. We (and the neighborhood) have truly missed Ray's, but after an initial lunch on Friday, I think Mélange is a worthy replacement (though we will miss Ray's forever). 

@MichaelBDC ordered The Classic ($13). The description, burger with American cheese, iceberg lettuce tomato, pickled red onions, and brown butter aioli does not do the burger justice. In the words of @MichaelBDC "the chef makes one hell of a burger." I had one bite and agree it was truly delicious. An Eater article, notes that the burger is a Roseda Farm beef blend customized in collaboration with Harvey's butcher shop in Union Market. Things like this could be just hype, but in this case the burger lived up to it. 

I ordered The National ($13), a spicy doro wat style fried chicken, kebe aioli, turmeric slaw, and fried egg. This is a great chicken sandwich. Messy, but delicious. All the ingredients complement each other perfectly to create a perfect sandwich. A piece of chicken fell out and I had it without any of the sandwich accompaniments and it was very spice heavy, so the slaw, bun, and aioli are definitely needed to offset the spicing on the kitchen. We also split an order of fries, which are of the steak variety. The fries were a fine accompaniment but nothing to write home about. 

This is a great addition to the neighborhood and we look forward to visiting again soon. With Rasa having recently opened, we are glad that the K St. side of the City Center is filling back up. It only needs to find a replacement for the old Busboys and Poets space. 

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5 hours ago, eatruneat said:

I ordered The National ($13), a spicy doro wat style fried chicken

Tim Carman posted about this sandwich earlier on Twitter/Instagram. Really intriguing.

At some point I will go off the Hill again...

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@MichaelBDC and I popped in for brunch last weekend. The  brunch menu is pared down from what is posted online and the chef explained it was because people still want burgers at brunch.  So now they are offering the full burger menu with only a few brunch times. Between the two of us, we had the firfir (injera tossed in a berbere, jalapeno, tomato, ginger, and garlic sauce), Ethiopian scrambled eggs, and the doro wat style fried chicken sandwich. It was more than enough food.

If you, like us, love the parts of the injera that is beneath the vegetarian platter or whatever is beneath your order when you have Ethiopian food, then the firfir is for you. It was nice and spicy and I avoided the slices of jalapeno, but @MichaelBDC was game. For an extra $5 you can add braised beef. Instead, I added an order of Ethiopian scrambled eggs which is just two eggs scrambled with some tomatoes and jalapenos with a little bit of the berbere spice. Despite the simplicity it was really fantastic. Finally, we split The National, the doro wat style fried chicken sandwich with a fried egg. It was great. To drink, we had an off menu mimosas. The whole meal was great. No notes. Would order the same thing the next time we go. 

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