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Our nation’s capital may have the highest per capita number of white guys in charcoal Brooks Brothers suits, but it’s also got a vibrant indigenous scene if you know where to look. So forget that trip you took to the Holocaust museum in ninth grade and give Washington, D.C. another chance—just like Heeb correspondent, Mitch Rothenberg.

Bars:

Dan’s Cafe Â
2315 18th St. NW
(Adam’s Morgan)
This is the perfect place for serious alcoholics and not-so-serious binge drinkers. You go to the bar, pick your favorite liquor and pay the bartender around $12, and he gives you a four-ounce bottle of that liquor, a bucket of ice and whatever mixers you want. Then you bring everything to the long table in the center of the bar and you go to work.

Stetsons Famous Bar & Restaurant
1610 U St. NW
(U Street Corridor / Adam’s Morgan)
This is one of the few “bar” bars in DC, where you can wear a t-shirt and jeans, and no one judges you for not working for a Senator or Congressman. It’s a great place to chug a few Budweisers, listen to Bon Jovi and hit on 21-year-old girls having birthday parties. I was at Stetsons when it was the target of Guerrilla Queer Bar DC, a gay/lesbian listserv that picks a different straight bar each month to turn into a gay bar for one night. A gay friend tipped me off beforehand and the looks on the faces of the regular patrons were priceless.

Café Citron
1343 Connecticut Ave. NW
(Dupont Circle)
Cafecitrondc.com
For salsa and meringue, Café Citron is the place. Filled with lots of flashy dressed Europeans, this is a fun two-floor club with enough room to maneuver on the dance floor. While other bars tend to usher you out at 2 a.m., Café Citron doesn’t do last call until 2:30 a.m., and they let people dance all the way until 3 a.m. I have no idea what this place is like sober.

Clubs:

Sixth and I Historic Synagogue
600 I St. NW

(downtown)
Sixthandi.org

This functioning synagogue located in Northwest D.C. also regularly plays host to film screenings and indie rock shows. The building is beautiful—high ceilings, ornate stained glass, intricate woodwork—which makes seeing a show here while trashed all the more special. Check out Heeb Storytelling here on November 17 and the Heeb Hundred photo exhibition here in December.

Food:

Manush
H Street between 20th and 21st Streets
(Foggy Bottom)
Everybody in D.C. knows Manush. He tends to set up shop around 10 p.m. or so on H Street on weekend nights, but I’ve spent many a night waiting for him to show up—sort of like Linus and the Great Pumpkin. Not only does Manush have the best hot dogs and pretzels (which he cooks over an open flame), but he always has a wide selection of juices. I had a girlfriend in college who would frequently get urinary tract infections (I may have been responsible for this in some way) and she would often send me to Manush at 3 a.m. to pick up cranberry juice to help her pee. The line crawls at a snail’s pace because Manush cares more about talking to his customers about philosophy than selling hot dogs.

Lindy’s Red Lion
2040 I St. NW
(Foggy Bottom)
This is great GW burger place where both students and professors like to hang out. They have good beers on tap, which you can order in a pitcher (rare for DC) and great burgers. The prices are extremely reasonable (also rare for DC)—a double cheeseburger costs about $7. My friends and I came here after 9/11 to drink the fear and sadness away. But it’s also a good place to go when our nation is not under attack. When you come, be sure to order the “Burl Ives,” a double burger, topped with a grilled hot dog, bbq sauce and a pickle.

Hotels:

Watergate Hotel
2650 Virginia Ave. NW
(Foggy Bottom)
Thewatergatehotel.com
My favorite part of the Watergate Hotel is the barber shop. Run by old-school Italian barbers (at least I think they’re Italian), you can get a great haircut or shave for $22 ($20 with student ID). Some of the more prominent people who have lived at the Watergate include: Condoleeza Rice, Bob and Elizabeth Dole and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If you’re more interested in political scandal, make your way across the street to the George Washington University dorm that was converted from an old Howard Johnson hotel. If you can get ahold of a GWU student ID, or get a GWU freshman drunk enough to take you back to his/her room, go up to the 7th floor to where G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt set up shop to spy on the DNC.

Books:

Kramerbooks & Afterwords
1517 Connecticut Ave. NW
(Dupont Circle)
Kramers.com
If it’s 3 a.m. and you absolutely need a piece of pie, the place to go is Kramerbooks & Afterwords, which is open well into the night. However, they know they’re the only late night dessert place in town and gauge their prices accordingly. The last time I went there, a friend and I had two pieces of pie and one cup of coffee and the bill was $16. The other half of the building is a regular bookstore, but the books are never on sale either, and if you try to sit on any of the stools, the clerks will yell at you and explain that the stools are not for sitting on—only to use to reach the books on the top shelves. And don’t try to use the bathroom unless you have a token.

Olsson’s Books & Records
418 7th St. NW
(Dupont Circle)
Olssons.com
If you’re more interested in great books and music than pie, check out Olsson’s Books & Records, where you can never go wrong with the employee suggestions—plus, they’ll even let you use the bathroom. It was here that a clerk convinced me to buy the Wilco/Billy Bragg CD, “Mermaid Avenue,” which remains one of my favorite albums of all-time.

Movies:

The Uptown Theater Â
3426 Connecticut Ave NW
(Cleveland Park)
Uptowntheater.com
The Uptown is by far the best movie theater in DC. The seats are big and plush, and they have a gigantic screen, which is 40-feet high and 70-feet long. They also have a balcony. Seeing a movie here is like traveling back in time to see a movie in the 1950s, when going to the movies was a “big night out” and people used to dress up. This is also the place where the Warcraft junkies will put on costumes and camp outside for days before every major science fiction release. When they re-released the first Star Wars, people were out on the sidewalk three weeks before opening night. And they didn’t even get an iPhone.

Exorcist Steps
3607 M St. NW
(Georgetown)
If you manage to hook up in Georgetown, take a detour on your walk of shame the next day to check out the steps from the original Exorcist movie where Father Karras fell to his death. Located next to an Exxon station, there are 97 steps in all, and you can walk up them, or down them, or pose for a photo lying at the bottom of them—with your neck at a weird angle. For free.

For more stuff to do in our nation’s capital, get a copy of this issue at Heebmagazine.com/subscribe.

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