food-lover<\/a>, indulging in a passion of mine in a new city puts me at ease.<\/p>\n\u201cOh, you want to eat?\u201d I was surprised by the greeting I received by the hostess upon my arrival. \u201cYep,\u201d I said. Of course I wanted to eat, that\u2019s why I was standing there. If this odd welcome was any indication of the rest of the night, I thought, I should have just stopped at McDonalds. So, I cheated a little and opted for the safer route and took a seat at the bar instead of the central table I was offered.<\/p>\n
It was 9 pm and I\u2019d just returned from a visit to Macy\u2019s before it closed (one hour is definitely not enough in that store, by the way!). I was craving a refreshing salad after days of too many drinks, pulled-pork sliders, and nachos. The restaurant had a small menu with a not-so-exciting \u201cHouse Greens\u201d option. Not entirely sure what I ordered, I opted instead for the ricotta dumplings with roasted broccoli, asparagus, orange, smoked almond crumble, and bacon, dressed with a vinaigrette. And of course, a large glass of Prosecco.<\/p>\n
I awaited my meal in the company of my bartender friend. He was a handsome, talkative gentleman from Argentina. We discussed food and travel prompted by the large screen of beautiful travel photos rotating above the bar.<\/p>\n
When my food arrived, I was so eager for the vegetables. I savoured the crunchy broccoli, creamy ricotta, light lemon and pepper sauce, salty bites of bacon, and citrus hints of orange. I used this time to reflect on my trip, people-watch at the bar, and have a lovely conversation with a stranger between moments of welcomed silence. The smell of mint being crushed for mojitos, the sound of mixed chatter from surrounding tables, and the comfort of being perfectly content was a nice, quiet ending to a trip filled with networking, group dinners, and new friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhat are you writing?\u201d It was my first time dining alone. The bartender noticed my notepad and introduced himself as Christian. I explained I was going to write about my experience. When I first stepped inside Cure Bar & Bistro in Washington DC\u2019s Grand Hyatt hotel, I was excited to finally unwind and enjoy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":11141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":""},"categories":[3551,3553,3549],"tags":[],"modified_by":"Iris Sinilong","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11128"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22096,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11128\/revisions\/22096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}