SCK Adventures: Nomz, Museums, and Late Nights (Day 2)

(Day 1)

Day 2 is probably the morning that we woke up most refreshed after getting the most amount of sleep during this SCK adventure. This is because of what happened at the end of Day 2, but we’ll get to that.

TL;DR We focus a lot on food today, kicking off with fried food galore, doing some museum hopping in the afternoon, and then going out for a night on the town with friends before eating a late night meal at 4 AM.

Friday

After getting our beauty rest, Christine, Karen, and I headed into DC for breakfast. You know what makes a great breakfast? Fried chicken and doughnuts. Yup, we stopped by Astro Doughnuts & Fried Chicken for breakfast because they are one of the many businesses in DC running a cherry blossom special with a cherry treat.

Doughnuts from top to bottom: key lime, maple bacon, cherry blossom | 4 piece white meat fried chicken they were out of dark meat already...) — Doughnuts from top to bottom: key lime, maple bacon, cherry blossom | 4 piece white meat fried chicken (they were out of dark meat already…)

Immediately following breakfast, we digested briefly by walking to lunch at Plan B Burger Bar, which was the winner of Washingtonian’s Great Burger Battle. I’ll talk a bit more about Plan B in a future Eat DC post, but we had a pretty good meal here considering how much fried food we had just a little bit before arriving.

Burger flight included: tavern burger, Italian style burger, Cuban burger; we got em with TOTS — Burger flight included: tavern burger, Italian style burger, Cuban burger; we got ’em with TOTS

Since Friday’s forecast had high temperatures and thunderstorms in store, we decided it would be a museum hopping day. First stop, the Hirshhorn Museum, which is a museum of contemporary and modern art. I’ll do a more in-depth post about the Hirshhorn, but here’s a quick snapshot of our visit:

Our next stop was right next door: the National Air and Space Museum. I haven’t see the NASM since I was in the 3rd grade (and that one time I went to see Buzz Aldrin!) so this was pretty exciting to me. Less exciting was how many people were in the museum: way too many people.

That Wright flyer is NOT a replica - it's the original with new canvas! — That Wright flyer is NOT a replica – it’s the original with new canvas!

After learning about modern art and air-and-space travel, we headed to Jaleo for sangria hour. As previously mentioned, Jaleo is the flagship restaurant by celebrity chef José Andrés and basically THE tapas restaurant that launched the small plates trend in DC. I knew the hype was probably too much for this place, but I’ll admit, I was pretty disappointed even accounting for the letdown from the hype.

Off to U Street for some more food! No trip to DC is complete without visiting our most iconic DC food establishment: Ben’s Chili Bowl. The most famous joint in all of DC, hands down, and a landmark of historic U Street. It’s been said that no DC mayor can get away with not eating here.

Still touted as Bills favorite, and his face is still on the mural outside, but the half smoke is legitimately delicious

Before heading home, we stopped by Ted’s Bulletin for a homemade PopTart, as that’s what they’re most famous for. Since it’s cherry blossom season, we got a nice cherry blossom one! Hurray for DC’s cherry blossom-themed pastries!

I couldn’t get my own photo, but the one we had looked just like the one that the Ted’s Bulletin Twitter posted

With our bellies full of good food, it was time for our evening activities to begin. We were planning on going out with a few of my friends, so we got dressed…

Photo credit: Christine on Karen's selfie stick — Photo credit: Christine on Karen’s selfie stick

… and went to Russia House first. I stopped by here for Halloween this past year and the dance scene is just meh. But, they are known for excellent Russian food and a lot of great vodka. However, Don and Christine weren’t impressed with Russian beer. By this point, I was feeling the pressure to find a good spot, since my “constant raving” about Russia House is what brought us here. So, I had us go down to Midtown, where we definitely had a lot of fun dancing the rest of the night away.

L to R: Christine, Karen, me, and newly engaged Megan Don — L to R: Christine, Karen, me, and newly engaged Megan & Don!

OH but the night wasn’t over! We narrowly caught the last train out of DC to meet up with my boyfriend to get late night Korean BBQ at Honey Pig, one of the last establishments that would still be open at 4 AM. (Originally, we wanted to get all-you-can-eat KBBQ, but those places closed at 2…) We ate and were merry, and somehow, when we got back to my apartment at 6, we stayed up just chatting for another half hour before finally passing out, the sky starting to get light again…