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Chinatown DC -- Cool / inexpensive Restruants?

DCDeac said:
We did it early on. It was good but like most of the take home stuff it does lose a little in translation. But just getting that Lychee salad...

We did Masseria for my wife's birthday and it was really good. Also some of our friends really liked the Unconventional Diner takeout they got.
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UD has been our go to for a while, since it’s right down the street. Their pandemic fried chicken meal is amazingly good.
 
Oh man I guess I'll chime in on the fancy take out reviews.

Sushi Taro, did it the week before they closed. Was great, can't wait for them to reopen.
Little Serrow, probably my favorite. Awesome food you can't get for takeout usually.
Unconventional Diner, really good. Only went there once in person in the before times, hopefully can open again.
Rose's at Home, was awesome, and not an exorbitant price given how good it was. Pork and lychee salad is great even at home!
Dabney, was great but 20% tock fee plus 20% service charge plus 10% tax means $100 turns into $150 (plus whatever tip). Tough to do that too often.
Red Hen, same as the Dabney.
Little Pearl, also awesome.
Bresca, for Mother's Day brunch, also awesome.
The Royal, was a great spot for to-go coffee, breakfast and brunch, but sadly closed (haven't said when they'll reopen).
Great Wall Szechuan, I mean it's not fancy, but I'm so glad they're back open doing take out.

If the ordering platform is toast tab or old school call the place, the price is much more reasonable. Tock must be making a killing with all the fees.

Looking to do Queen's English, Tiger Fork, and Masseria. We've also joined 2 wine clubs (Primrose and Domestique) and also get delivery cocktails from an out of work bartender who's a friend of a friend.

After typing all of that out, I think we may have a problem (gulp).
 
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We haven't done too much takeout/delivery.

When they were offering delivery, we got Gravitas once a week, but those are our people so we wanted to keep supporting them.

Did Primrose/Larry's Chicken once and it was good, but I dunno if we'll do it again. I miss Prim though. It's one of our go to spots and we love Seb, though he's going fucking crazy during this pandemic.

Got Red Hen this past weekend and it was great; just like being at the restaurant. Will absolutely do it again, and while it wasn't cheap, it wasn't over the top expensive, at least not for what we got.

Did Republic Cantina once, and that was unreasonably expensive for what we got.

Did Coconut Club once and had a great time with it. Got all of our tiki stuff out and decorated the dining room and and put on festive hawaiian shirts. Even though it was just wifey and I it was a lot of fun.

Will likely do Masseria this weekend.

For wine/liquor, we've been getting our deliveries from our guys at Grand Cata.
 
i'm mad i never got to little serow before leaving DC. my wife has lost her tolerance for spicy food so we always ended up somewhere else.
 
oh sweet, i didnt know grand cata was doing delivery. hitting that up fa'sho too.

red hen has gotten swamped lately. i live a block and a half away and would occasionally just order late night desert or amaro, but lately they've been shutting down orders real early.

only other one i'll add is mexicue (opened recently on 14th by logan circle) has awesome taco specials. plus free margs (one-time) with coupon code....margs.

has anyone done the maydan takeout? i can't make sense of their takeout menu and i'm a 99 lb weakling with a tree nut allergy so afraid of that too.
 
Julio and Pedro at GC are incredible guys and we're doing everything we can to support them. They've hooked us up with some cool private appointments in Argentina, Chile and Sicily. Super excited to check out their spot at La Cosecha once this mess is done. It was supposed to open in the fall but the whole complex has experienced some significant delays so they weren't able to "open" until right when this all started.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
oh sweet, i didnt know grand cata was doing delivery. hitting that up fa'sho too.

red hen has gotten swamped lately. i live a block and a half away and would occasionally just order late night desert or amaro, but lately they've been shutting down orders real early.

only other one i'll add is mexicue (opened recently on 14th by logan circle) has awesome taco specials. plus free margs (one-time) with coupon code....margs.

has anyone done the maydan takeout? i can't make sense of their takeout menu and i'm a 99 lb weakling with a tree nut allergy so afraid of that too.
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Hi neighbor!
 
aw man momofuku dc closing

their brunch was so good
 
Dave Chang has been one of the most vocal chefs about restaurants being fucked without help, and guess he's right. Must really crush him to close his hometown spot.
 
I've never been to any of his other spots, but I never thought that momofuku dc was all that special. It got much better after than changed chefs and completely revamped the menu, but it still wasn't a go to spot for me. And it's just a couple blocks from my office, so I really wanted to like it more.

Unfortunately, I think we're going to see a lot more restaurant closings around town (not exactly a hot take). There are a lot of places I don't want to see close up, but there are some that would be absolutely crushing for me. I don't even want to think about it.
 
Only place of his I've been to is in Vegas and I had the ramen, which was excellent. Maybe the best I've had. Seems like when his DC spot first opened it was a greatest hits sort of place with ramen, bao, etc, which is what his Vegas place is. But yeah does seem like DC got better reviews with the new menu that ditched his classic dishes.

I get that landlords need to make the money they're owed, but I just don't understand not working to keep good tenants around. Not like you're going to be filling that space any time soon. And I would imagine people are going to be much more cautious about going into the restaurant business in the first place, and I assume lenders will feel the same way.
 
noooooooo the only half decent lunch option at the watergate closed

“…Campono, a popular Italian lunch and dinner spot inside the Watergate complex, closed permanently on March 27 after more than four years in business. The restaurant attributed its closure to both the pandemic and a rent increase.
“[The landlord] requested additional monetary contributions in order for us to maintain occupancy and extend our lease. Given our current business model, we are unable to commit to the financial burden of this request,” Campono’s owners wrote in a statement on their website. “If we had been able to continue to operate under our current agreement, it still would have been a difficult road to re-opening (as many, many restaurants are going to soon be struggling with themselves).”
The cafe’s owners would not elaborate on their closure to DCist. But its loyal patrons, an eclectic mix of journalists working inside the Watergate, Kennedy Center theatergoers, and musicians, mourned its loss on Twitter.
“I converted much of my paycheck into soup,” David Dudley, an editor at Citylab, tweeted. “In winter, chicken tortilla or gumbo; all summer, gazpacho. Godspeed, Campono.”
Beyond its sandwiches, pizza, gelato, and coffee, Campono’s airy space hosted a hive of reporters looking to escape their brutalist offices. Scott Nover, a reporter at Adweek and a former events producer at The Atlantic, described the cafe as a hub for Washington media.
“It was somewhere where you see Jeff Goldberg talking to Ben Smith, you would see source meetings, you could see journalism in motion if you open your eyes and see where you are,” he says. “There weren’t too many places to congregate in the Watergate. It was brutalist and harsh but Campono was kind of an oasis in that sense.”…
 
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