The Great Shutdown of ’11. Didn’t happen. We say: take matters into your own hands by spending a would-be workday hopping around from patio to roof deck to sidewalk café. Call it your own private shutdown.
To start, you’ll want to take up a post where you’re likely to encounter people working harder than you. Enter Capitol Hill, where you’ll grab a seat at Belga’s sidewalk café for mussels with red ale, bacon and asparagus, followed by a Hoegaarden Float, with lavender honey and housemade vanilla ice cream.
You’re breaking rules, sure. But here, they’re a little more lax. Like letting you puff away on their cigars (including a pre-embargo 1959 Cuban) on the garden patio. Pair them with Bourbon Steak’s new classic cocktails like the Scofflaw, the Monkey Gland and the Fog Cutter. Just don’t confuse your Fog Cutter with your cigar cutter.
By now, you’ve worked up an appetite. One worthy of a shareable mountain of oysters, shrimp, crab claws and half a lobster. Get there between 5 and 6:30pm (good thing you had nowhere else to be) and pair it with $5 beer, wine and cocktails. Tip: wave to the West Wingers as they punch out for the day.
About this time, you should head across state lines. No, not because of the favorable extradition laws. Because there’s a giant new tiki-themed roof deck awaiting at Whitlow’s—at which you’ll sample the BBQ sandwiches, crab cake sliders and a redneck-y cocktail called the Double Wide, which consists of light beer and OJ.
Your favorite former carpet warehouse on H Street has thrown open its second-floor back deck, which means two things: your James Brown Derby (bourbon, grapefruit, honey syrup) and large-format beers like Ommegang Three Philosophers will stay cold longer. And you’ll have to eat your prawns with chorizo that much quicker.
