Hello Fodorites,

I have been reading several posts and I appreciate the ideas. Monuments and Union Station sound great, however, where can we find food? All the way in Chinatown or other ethnic neighborhoods I reckon... yummy but far away.

Same for the Washington Cathedral. Do they have a cafe?

Thanks

Susana

DC's Chinatown is tiny but very centrally located.

Since Dec. 25 is such a big movie-going day in DC, and there is a big movieplex at the Gallery Place/
Chinatown Metro station, I'd expect both Chinese and other eateries nearby to be open at least limited hours. Maybe some at Union
Station too, and the big downtown hotels have restaurants open every day.

No cafe at the Cathedral and probably not much available in that neighborhood on Dec. 25.

As you get closer to the date, I would advise you go to OpenTable.com and look to see who has avaibility on Christmas Day. Most Open Table restaurants open their reservation lists one month in advance, so you can do a search on November 25th to see what's open. You can sort by neighborhood, too.

Chinatown isn't much of an ethnic neighborhood, actually. I mean, it's not like a lot of Chinese people live there. It's more historical for the limited number who did, but it has a few good restaurants. It's right downtown anyway, it isn't far out anywhere. I don't think DC really has any ethnic neighborhoods, it's not like New York or Toronto. Now Baltimore does, it's more a real city, DC is different because it formed for the federal govt.

The suburbs now have some ethnic areas for certain immigrant populations -- Korean, Salvadorean, Senegalese, Indian, etc.

HOtel restaurants are probably all open on Christmas. I think one of my favorite restaurants at any time is open on CHristmas -- Les Halles, a French brasserie right near the Post Office museum. That would be a good choice.

Susanita--our Chinatown is nothing like those neighborhoods in New York or San Francisco; in fact it has mostly been subsumed by our sports arena, the Verizon Center. The neighborhood is, however, the epicenter of our hottest new restaurants; the Post food critic just did his annual 50 Best Restaurants which you can access on the website--it mostly is referred to as Penn Quarter and you'll see several restaurants on the list. The nice thing is that is walkable to the Mall so if you are celebrating Christmas, you can see the National Christmas tree and the smaller trees representing the states around it. If you don't celebrate Christmas, some restaurants should be open and you can go to the movies.

As as been noted, no cafe at the Cathedral and it is a residental neighborhood with a few restaurants that I doubt will be open.

Mary

Another good resource for what goes on around for the holidays is www.washingtoncitypaper.com They update once a week on Thursdays, and they skip a week on holidays.

The Adams-Morgan area has any number of ethnic restaurants, fromEthopian to Thai to you name it.

Another vote for the Adams-Morgan area of DC. Also check out Dupont Circle. City Lights of China is located there and is one of my favorite Chinese places.