Senate Dining Room

The catch here is that one needs to be the guest of a Senator or a former Senator to eat here. Still, if you can surmount that hurdle, it’s actually pretty fun. Congress people abound, and seeing who is having lunch with whom can be enlightening. [say, who’s that dining with a senior VP of an oil company?]

The second catch is that jacket and tie is required for men, and no jeans can be worn. [I’m not sure how much help the DC law would be here.]

Anyway. Once you’re in, the Dining Room itself is rather small [it might hold 50 or 70?], but the service is exact to a fault [former senator’s _wives_ getting more deference than former senators themselves], and the food is quite tasty. And cheap. [Your tax dollars at work!]

I had a tomato tart with spinich salad. It was fresh tomatoes and cheese cooked on a puff pastry shell, with a baby spinach and hard sharp cheese salad on top. [I missed the name of the cheese, sorry.]

This is the 100th anniversary of the “famous bean soup”, but I didn’t try any, sorry. The bread basket also has some insidious warm corn muffins... evil, but so good.

All in all, not a bad way to spend an hour.