Offbeat Eats

A quick check of my review list will show that the DC area is one of my frequent work travel destinations. For a large number of these trips, I end up staying in Crystal City. If I’m avoiding various special events, the rooms are cheap, the area has good Metro access, it’s a short walk (really) from Reagan National Airport, and if one wants to ride on a Capital Bikeshare rental bike, it’s right on the Mount Vernon Bike Trail (and I can get almost anywhere in DC or Arlington in 40 minutes by bike on a nice day). But it also has its weirdness: Crystal City was built as a super-block of integrated office, residential, and retail space, kind of like a self-contained city. And unfortunately, the food choices of Crystal City itself aren’t terribly great unless you are looking for high-end dining catering to the business dinner (like Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Legal Seafoods), and a rather large fraction of it is chain restaurants. But there’s one thing that the savvy diner can do if found in Crystal City: look West. Just one block West of Crystal City, on the other side of the Jefferson Davis Highway, lies 23rd Street, which has a surprisingly vibrant collection of restaurants, including a diner, a sports bar, two Ethiopian places, and, finally, my destination: Kabob Palace.

(Closed) Earlier this week, I had another of my periodic trips down to MIT to visit with collaborators, and, like usual, I used it as an opportunity to check out some additional restaurants, since Cambridge and Somerville have all sorts of great dining spots. This time, I was craving Persian food, particularly since rural NH is particularly lacking in Middle Eastern places. Looking over the offerings near MIT, I ended up picking Kolbeh of Kabob, across the street from Cambridge Hospital.