I called my mom on the drive to D.C., and she asked what restaurants I was going to visit. I was pretty confused by this question, as I didn't have any specific favorites. The city's huge, how could I limit myself to a small subset of its culinary wonders? But then I thought about Detroit, and how if I ever went back, I'd make sure to go to Buddy's Pizza and then Steve & Rocky's. They have chocolate cake made to order.
But I wasn't going to Detroit, so I didn't have any particular place in mind. But I knew one place that I didn't want to visit. The last time we were in D.C., we met my old high school buddy for dinner at a place with a name that I forgot, except that it had something to do with the moon. Cafe Luna or Moon Diner or Stella Luna, I didn't remember, and I didn't care. Josh and I had both had Reubens there, and we had not enjoyed them. We are typically people who really enjoy our Reubens. I wondered why my friend had taken us to such a crappy place and figured maybe he had defective taste buds.
Our first evening there, we were slowly walking up the street back towards Kate's apartment. We planned to stop and eat in Dupont Circle, which had lots of new and exciting choices. We spied a little outdoor cafe on the sidewalk across the street. The tables were surrounded by shrubberies decorated with Christmas lights. There were lots of people, and they looked happy to be there, so we decided to take their advice and be there, too. I won't say the decision wasn't partially made by the fact that it was the first restaurant we had come across, but I was tired and hungry. Have you hung out with me when I'm tired and hungry? It's not that fun. I'm a ball when I've gotten a good night's sleep and a full tummy, though. But fatigue aside, the restaurant did look interesting.
The scrawly script above the door read "Luna" and I thought how weird it was that this restaurant would be so near to the other, bad Reuben restaurant with such a similar name. However, this was clearly not the same place. We had eaten at a table by the window at the other place, and there didn't seem to be an inside section of this cafe. Inside the door was literally the kitchen, so all the tables seemed to be right there on the sidewalk. I wondered if the place just closed down for the winter.
We examined the menu, found it acceptable, and sat down to rest our tired tootsies. We ordered drinks and food, then sat quietly, too tired to say much. The food came and was good. I had some pasta, while Josh enjoyed a crab cake sandwich. The food was unspectacular, meaning I wouldn't necessarily seek this place out on my next visit, but it was quite satisfactory. It was certainly better than a greasy Reuben. We decided this place could teach that other similarly named restaurant a thing or two about cooking.
As we were waiting for the check, I got up to use the restroom. I was a little nervous that I might have to use the employee restroom or maybe just a bucket in the corner of the kitchen, but a server assured me that they had actual bathrooms. He pointed the way, and I followed a hallway through the kitchen to find a bar and a big room with tables and chairs and people eating. This place had a normal front entrance with a normal looking dining room. They'd just taken advantage of their back entrance to add outdoor seating. In fact, as I looked at one of the tables by the window, I realized that I had eaten there before. I'd eaten a greasy Reuben at that exact spot. Probably a thousand restaurants in this city, and we had managed to come back to the one we'd been trying to avoid.
I felt cheated, deceived! The pasta that had tasted fine a minute ago took on a bitter quality. I had been tricked into enjoying a pasta dish when in actuality it was tainted with wasted corned beef potential.
Later that night, we told Kate our sad tale of being tricked into eating at Luna again.
"Luna?" she asked. "I love that place." I guess she hasn't had the Reuben.
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