Pleasant Pop

Good coffee, a chocolate scone and wifi in a pleasant sitting for only $4.95

I-81 – You get what you pay for

I recently spent several years avoiding TSA scans and gropes (which I believe we will find out will cause cancer for some of us, besides being unhealthy for our Bill of Rights), by boycotting air travel for any trip that could be done in a drive of 2 days or less. One of the main arteries for getting out of the DC metropolitan area, particularly for points south and west, is Interstate 81, which runs a little less than 2 hours west of DC down through Virginia to Knoxville and beyond, with connections to other highways that go to North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia and states beyond.

It’s easy to stay in a motel on the interstate for under $50. In Tennessee roadside ads (which are plentiful in Tennessee but appear to be heavily restricted in Virginia – though Virginia has an abundance of state trooper ticket traps, and Tennessee virtually none) they claim you can stay in a motel for $29 if you search hard. But you get what you pay for.

I have stayed in a variety on several trips, from $45 to $79. Curiously everyone has cable TV usually including HBO, and cleanliness is unaffected by price. (I have found dust on the slats in vents and abandoned stripper wear under the bed in places in different states, including several hundred dollar a night beach front Delaware joints.) My only, and very painful and long lasting, attack by what I think were bed bugs, did occur in 2010 after a trip down I81 where I stayed in the cheapest motels.

There are some things you just expect if you are spending less than $50 or $60 a night. The wifi will not exist, or will stop working, or will only be in the lobby or in the room closest to the lobby (ask for it?) even if available wifi was advertised. Windows and doors will leak, and if you are near them you will feel cold drafts. The promised continental breakfast will not include eggs or meat or any artisanal baked goods. If you are lucky there will be that funny flippable waffle iron and you can make your own waffle.

At most Interstate gas station you can get a free magazine format coupon book with maps and locations of motels with some pricing and amenities information, and discount coupons.  Promised amenities, particularly WiFi, may not actually be available.

Brasserie Beck (Washington, D.C.)

On the K Street corridor near the Convention Center, Chinatown, the Cato Institute and points downtown, Brasserie Beck features an encyclopedic European beer menu and a menu that goes well with drinking beer and wine, from oysters on the half shell to hearty continental dishes.

I’ve dined there from time to time alone and with others, and only once did I have something badly done, weirdly wiener schnitzel, which was dry and somewhat flavorless.

The wait staff are very attentive, except at the bar, where the main bartender, who used to work at the old Johnny’s Half Shell in Dupont Circle (before it relocated to Capitol Hill), is great, but the others may leave you with drink and no food forever.

WiFi:  Beck’s has good and free wifi.

Kramerbooks & Afterwards: Goats will eat anything — but will you?

Kramerbooks & Afterwards is a decades old destination for brunchers, readers, and blind daters in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle.  It’s actually as close to the Dupont Circle metro (subway) stop as you can get, at 19th and Q Streets NW, almost on the circle itself.

I ignored it for years, treating it as a bookstore alone, and not a restaurant and bar (and coffee spot too).

Then one day I asked a client from Manhattan who had moved to DC where he liked to eat in the neighborhood. (A common ritual in DC is for former New Yorkers to tell other DC residents about the tragedy of their forced relocation to our hick town, which has no art, culture, or food good enough for them.) Surprisingly he picked Kramerbooks and Afterwards.  I went with him that week and had a delicious pasta dish and I was sold.

Since then I have mainly gone for breakfast and brunch and from time to time for a beer at the bar.  The brunch features a variety of omelets, grits and ham, bagel and lox, and other choices, all served with a small plate of tiny breakfast breads and orange juice.  And after 10 am (because it’s DC’s blue law), a complimentary mimosa.

So today I decided to stop in and have lunch at Kramers.  I was pleased to see goat on the menu, a Caribbean goat dish on beans and rice with a side of diced mango.  I actually saw a dish of it before I was seated, and it looked good.

However…

It was way, way too spicy, which neither the menu nor the waiter informed me about.  And it was full of bones, which I only discovered when I put it into my mouth (full of expensive dentistry I cannot easily afford to pay for a second time).  Here’s a picture of the bones:

So not a bad place to eat, though one definitely has to be wary.

WiFi:  Though it is near one of the three Dupont Circle Starbucks, it does not pick up any of their AT&T signals.  Kramerbooks does not have its own wifi.  The signal from the Dupont Hotel across 19th street, which is free with registration, does reach tables closest to the sidewalk well enough to get something done.