DC Voyage Day 4

Today was really going to be a lot of walking! Adrienne started with an early morning coffee/breakfast run with her friend, so naturally I schnoozed. Don’t judge me, I’m on vacation. It should be further noted that she doesn’t drink coffee, but was kind enough to bring a cuppa back for me.

 

So for breakfast I had a cuppa joe and a blueberry muffin from Le Pain Quotidien. The muffin was sweet, the blueberries were full and succulent, but it crumbled and made an awful mess in the sink while I was getting ready.

 

We hopped on the Metro, rode one stop, got off, hiked past where she stayed for her internship, and entered the National Zoo. This is a completely different endeavor when you’re a doctor, because to us the most interesting animals are on the other side of the glass. Primates. Humans. People-watching. What follows was our favorite vocal interaction between a female and one of her calfs:

Mother: What sounds does a panda make?

Calf: Umm… “I am a panda!”

Of the animals, we saw a lot of Cuban crocodiles, a single panda who was being a complete jerk and not making panda sounds, sleeping tiger and lions, but the animals I think we liked best surprised us: the great flightless birds. The brown kiwi was also being a jerk and we couldn’t find him. There was a rhea that was checking us out and a southern cassowary.

At this point, we had walked several miles and were in an odd place – foodwise. We had dinner coming up at a restaurant that we knew was going to be good but we needed something to tide us over. So we stopped at a little place in the zoo and got each a cheeseburger and fries. I’ve chosen not to review these food options because a. it’s zoo food, what do you expect, and b. I don’t like writing negative reviews unless they’re about movies. It was sustenance we needed to make it to dinner.

 

We met Adrienne’s friend, Kelsey, who had recommended Floriana, at a little bar in the basement of the Hay-Adams Hotel. Adrienne had a mule that was sweet and went down easy and I had a traditional Manhattan. Drinks were good.

 

We then met Kelsey’s fiancé, Dennis, at Founding Farmers. It’s a popular place that the two of them discovered when it first opened. I would describe it as a farm-to-table nouveau-American restaurant. Portions are full, but all of the food is direct from the farm, high quality, and exquisitely prepared. Pro-tip: when food is quality, it tastes good, and there’s no need for excess sodium to cover the lack of flavor or poor flavor. This food was all quality and did not require the abundance of salt.

 

We started with some iron skillet cornbread. It made a mess, but this was a mess we were willing to overlook. A cornbread that cuts evenly usually means cornmeal/flour has been too well refined. When it crumbles, you know it’s on.

I ordered the platter – it seemed the best way to try a little of a number of different items to get a better feel for the place. On my platter were: two sliders, corn on the cob (covered with cheese and cilantro), barbecue ribs, potato salad, cheese dog, and fresh chips. The cheese dog was amazing: it was the best meat I’ve ever had in a dog. It wasn’t overly fatty, like you find in sausage. It was leaner, more like a traditional dog, but the dog itself was thicker. And it was covered with a small amount of ground beef and cheese – not enough to overtake the dog, just an accent.

Dennis had chicken and waffles that were impressive. Adrienne had chicken pot pie, and Kelsey had glazed cedar plank salmon.

 

The ladies have previously had an apple pie dessert there that they described as “hut-like” or “reminiscent of Bag-End (the home of Bilbo Baggins)”, which was not on the menu, and we were running a little behind, so we decided to forgo dessert entirely to make it to our show. It was a presentation of The Capitol Steps, an uproariously funny comedy troupe that specializes in bipartisan political comedy. At one point, Adrienne was laughing so hard I thought she was going to pull an intercostal muscle.

 

After the show, we made our way to the Hamilton, a very classy establishment, that appeared to have previously been a department store, intent on the dessert we had missed earlier. Kelsey and Adrienne each had a milkshake which came with exceptionally wide-diameter straws (presumably to allow for the passage of larger chunks of milkshake). I had a cappuccino and Dennis a mango sorbet. It was here that we finally decided to look up the infamous Bag-End Apple Pie and we (I) decided to purchase their cookbook and try it out. Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m going to need to borrow your mixer. Having had dessert, finally content with bellies full and sides split, we set back to the hotel to take some rest.

 

Here are my super-awesome stats from the day, I was pumped to surpass 20k steps, and 31 sets of stairs was fantastic! I’ve recommended FitBit (or similar items) to patients for attempted weight loss, and this is a great demonstration of it. Knowing that 20k steps = 10mi (almost) = 4,500kcal, that tells me about how much I should be exercising and moving to account for the calories that I eat. There is a lot of physiology, psychology, and endocrinology that goes into weight loss, but at the end of the day it’s all about calories in vs. calories out, and these contraptions, love ’em or hate ’em, they give you an estimate to help understand the second part of that equation.