{"id":5182,"date":"2025-02-14T10:43:58","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T02:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/?p=5182"},"modified":"2025-02-14T10:44:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T02:44:03","slug":"dining-in-dc-the-hamilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/2025\/02\/dining-in-dc-the-hamilton\/","title":{"rendered":"Dining in DC: The Hamilton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital<\/a><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This gorgeous restaurant near the White House actually has good food<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The main reason for our trip to Washington DC this year was to meet up with my cousin Adriana and her family who were coming to the States for some tourism of their own.  My husband loves Washington DC, and I love hanging out with Adriana, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity for both of us to get what we wanted from a vacation.  So on our second day in DC, we met Adriana and her family at the People’s House<\/a> and then made our way to The Hamilton<\/a><\/strong>, taking in the outside of the White House (fully adorned with snipers on the roof), on the way.<\/p>\n\n\n
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I had originally wanted to go to the Old Ebbitt Grill<\/a>, a Washington DC institution popular with both tourists and politicos, but I found out that they don’t have tables for six within the restaurant itself, and large parties are confined to an atrium adjacent to the restaurant.  The nearby The Hamilton is owned by the same company and promised to provide a more welcoming atmosphere.  I’m glad I chose it.  Not only was the restaurant outright gorgeous – so I got to impress Adriana -, but the prices were reasonable for such an upscale place and the food was very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Hamilton is quite large and it has at least a couple of dining rooms, as well as a large bar.  It seems to be a favorite spot for lobbyists and we overheard some of them making their machinations while we waited to be seated.  The large booths were comfortable enough, and the service was as good as what I learned to expect in Washington (California has much to learn in this regard).

The menu<\/a> was pretty broad and included your basic American fare plus some sushi.  My cousin and her family weren’t particularly adventurous and they all got the Hamilton burger<\/strong>, which came with a “‘sunny-side up egg, bacon, B&B pickles, shredded lettuce, cheddar, Gruy\u00e8re, garlic aioli, house made sesame brioche” ($21).  They all said they loved it. I didn’t try them myself and they might have been being polite, but even their son ate most of his and children don’t tend to eat out of politeness alone. 

I had the ragu americana & rigatoni<\/strong> ($26), which consisted of rigatoni and “red wine braised short rib, Nonna\u2019s meatballs, Grana Padano.” At first, it just tasted like your run of the mill pasta dish, but it grew on me with every bite.  The short rib sauce was comforting and with all the umami you expect from a tomato based sauce. The meatballs were delicious.  I kept thinking and craving the dish for days to come.  If I go back to DC, I’ll definitely head back to The Hamilton for it.  Seriously, if you like pasta, you should try it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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My daughter had the garden sushi roll<\/strong> ($15), “avocado, carrots, cucumber, lettuce, miso dressing.” She overall liked it, though she wasn’t blown away with it.  To be fair, she’s had a lot of great sushi out there (particularly in Argentina), so that might be a tall order.  She did say she’d order it again.
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Mike had the jumbo lump crab cake<\/strong> ($28).  He thought it was absolutely delicious.  The crab cake had lots of crabs and came apart easily, but it was perfectly seasoned.  His only regret was that he didn’t order the double portion ($48).  

I don’t remember us having dessert.  

We managed to get lunch done in a little over an hour, and we quickly headed out to the Ford Theater to see where President Lincoln was assassinated. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Hamilton<\/a><\/strong>
600 14th Street N.W.,
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 787-1000<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dining in DC: Notes from a Week in the Capital This gorgeous restaurant near the White House actually has good food The main reason for our trip to Washington DC this year was to meet up with my cousin Adriana and her family who were coming to the States for some tourism of their own. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[689,293,89,28,74,688],"class_list":["post-5182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-restaurants","tag-adriana","tag-american","tag-pasta","tag-reviews","tag-sushi","tag-washington-dc","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}