Mad Hatter: Alice hangs out outside the water closet

Mad Hatter was our final stop in Washington, DC, for a post-Halloween brunch, before returning to NYC for more than a week of lock-down following Hurricane Sandy (1319 Connecticut Ave. NW). We didn’t yet know how much the storm would put our lives briefly on hold, so we didn’t know to make the most of our last adventure outside of our apartments, before the rain and flooding made thousands homeless and shut down the NYC transportation system. (I’m thankful to say we were fortunate uptown: Sandy didn’t flood our streets or knock out our power, so we just faced boredom, something that’s easily conquerable, especially when you still have electricity.)

Mad Hatter has an Alice in Wonderland theme, so a large color print from the original book hangs next to the “WC” entrance upstairs. The restaurant feels a bit like an English pub — fitting, considering Lewis Carroll’s origin — and the paneling upstairs, including the restroom doors is dark wood. Inside the bathroom, there’s not much going on: a red wall, a radiator, a slightly spicier than vanilla sink / faucet and a small window that let in a chilly pre-storm breeze. With the old-school radiator, the basic restroom feels a bit like an antique, which keeps with the Alice and pub vibes.

Mad Hatter is known for its bloody mary bar — they give you a glass of vodka, and you fill it up with whatever sauces and fixin’s you want. K and Everswell were all over this, but I decided to stick with a giant brunch entree: the “early bird,” which is a grilled chicken breast with sausage gravy, French fries, fried eggs, a Mexican-style sauce and cheese. Ohmygoodness. Definitely had to take a photo (see below) to document this delicious, over-the-top, not-so-healthy-but-who-cares way to finish off a fantastic Halloween adventure in another city.

Restroom Rating: [rating=1]

 

 

Etete: Eating Ethiopian is an experience, even if the restroom isn’t

K and I had read that Washington, DC, is known for its Ethiopian cuisine, so it seemed like the right choice for dinner before heading out for Halloween. We browsed lots of menus and landed on Etete, because the price was right, and it had a lot of dishes K was familiar with from her semester studying in Africa during college (1942 9th St. NW).

Etete’s restroom was sleek but spare: a glass vessel sink on a dark wooden cabin, a trough-like faucet, a brushed metal frame on the mirror, which was lit by a row of three sconces. The walls were dark brown, as was the floor. The end.

Eating Ethiopian food is an experience. The sauces, meats and vegetables are served on a large platter spread with injera, a spongy pancake made of teff, a gluten-free (!!!) grain. Everyone sits around the platter, and you tear off pieces of injera and use them as “silverware” to pick up globs of everything, mixing and matching so that each bite is different. It’s a fun meal to eat with friends, much like Szechuan hot pot, Korean barbecue or raclette. Everything we ordered was delicious, except the honey wine — I was excited about it, because I love the stuff at Awash in NYC, but Etete’s made me gag.

Restroom Rating: [rating=1]

Carlyle Suites Hotel: There’s a hole in my soap!

Everswell was in charge of the hotel for our Halloween road trip to Washington, DC, and he landed on the beautiful art-deco Carlyle Suites Hotel in Dupont Circle (731 New Hampshire Ave. NW), a short walk from Adams Morgan, where we celebrated the holiday with costumes, giant slices of pizza, and a bottle of Disaronno mixed with Dr Pepper.

The photos of our bathroom, while lovely, don’t do the gorgeous vintage hotel justice (a photo of the gold and black swirled wallpaper in the hallway is still the wallpaper on my iPhone). The sink counter and shower floor were made of dark mottled granite. The shower had a two-foot panel of glass instead of a curtain or sliding door — I’m still not sure how, between the four of us, one of us didn’t  somehow manage to spray water all over the bathroom floor while showering. Outside the bathroom, there was a small area with a granite counter, cushioned stool and a hair dryer, perfect for costume prepping (I was Princess Peach / Toadstool, complete with a Mario, and my costume required excessive quantities of gold eyeshadow). The Carlyle Suites provides toiletries that are good for the environment (Green Natura brand). I was particularly impressed by the “waste reducing exfoliating body cleanser,” which was a bar of soap with a hole in the center — an ingenious idea, because how many times have you been left with that slippery little sliver of soap that jumps out of your hand?

The Carlyle Suites were an awesome place to have as our home base during our weekend stay in the nation’s capital. The rooms were great, they had Tempur-Pedic beds, the staff was gracious (they even had Halloween candy at the front desk!), and it wasn’t terribly expensive — although, to be fair, we split the room four ways, even though you were  supposed to have only two adults in the room. This has always befuddled me: why does a hotel put two full or queen beds in a room, and then say only two people can stay there?

Restroom Rating: [rating=3]