This report begins at the Sheraton Crystal City, where
I occasionally try to find a cheap room the night before a
very early flight (moderately early ones get a different,
nicer, often cheaper hotel, probably the Hilton Mark
Center). I checked in around 4 with the pleasant desk
staff, one of whom at least pretended to remember me. I
slung my bag into the 14th-floor room and headed to the
club lounge, which was accessible and had two staffers
but was devoid of snacks and drinks except for a couple
Coke products, so I went back to the room to surf a bit
and returned around 6 to find chicken wings, soggy but
flavorsome, and eggrolls, soggy and of below-average
tastiness, followed by a quite respectable chocolate
whipped-topping cake. Beck's was listed at $4 but appeared
on my bill next day with 9% tax added.

My friend Susie was as usual working late and joined me at
8 at Harar Mesob on "Restaurant Row" - a block-long section
of 23rd St. She is close to vegetarianism, and I am into raw
meat, so Ethiopian sounded good.

It's a smallish room with a combination of western and
Ethiopian-style seating and a bar area (important for the
survival of restaurants around here) at the far end. I'd
guess that it seated 50 or so. I think there were nativish
decorations, but it was kind of dark, so I couldn't really
see them. Piped-in music ranged from presumably African to
international pop to Beethoven, in a loop that became
familiar as the evening went on.

The service was pleasant but way too leisurely.

Ethiopian food seems to consist of raw lamb or beef, pulses
of various kinds, and cruciferous greens, in similar but not
identical red-tinged spicy preparations, on a tablecloth
of spongy steamed leavened bread called injera, which here
is said to be made out of half teff (the authentic grain)
and half millet (a related grain, said to hold the water
better); it had that typical pleasantly sour but to me less
pleasantly brown cereally taste. What is most notable,
though, is that it was served cold. In fact the whole
restaurant was kind of cold, come to think of it, and the
dishes, of varying temperatures when they arrived, but
never hot, got cold quickly.

I like kitfo and gored gored, buttered spiced raw beef, the
former minced, the latter cubed. As the menu promised tender
prime beef, I went with gored gored, which turned out to be
almost unchewable probably not very prime round in a sauce
that had a spicing scheme, involving citrus, that I was
unfamiliar with and didn't really care for. It was sadly a
huge serving, over 12 oz, or enough to feed an Ethiopian
village, and I left much of it. Susie got the vegetarian
combination, which was served with mine on the same injera
plate; good thing she doesn't object to carnivores, or, for
that matter, animal protein.

A red lentil dish was nicely spiced, rather like a veggie
chili; its yellow lentil counterpart was pleasant but a
bit bland, sort of like split pea soup of course minus the
ham. Stewed cabbage and sauteed collards were ordinary
preparations. A tomato salad had diced jalapenos and onions;
I'd have liked more of this and would have asked for some
but for the fact there was too much food for two Americans
or half a dozen people elsewhere. There was a ladleful of
some red substance that might have been any legume cooked
down to a puree with tomatoes; this had a musty taste that
took some getting used to but ended up becoming really good.
A kind of crumbly white cheese rounded out the meal.

Given I'd had a beer or two, I was too full and logy for
dessert or anything else. I saw Susie off to the last train,
returned to the hotel, and collapsed into bed.

A strong menthol-eucalyptus scent next to me wakened me
around 3. As I'd not entertained a guest of any kind, and
as I haven't used Vick's in a year, this was a bit of a
suspicious circumstance. I sniffed around, and parts of
3 of the 4 pillows had the odor, as well as the lower
half of the sheets.

This was an unpleasant development. I leapt out of bed
and immediately took a long hot shower, scraping and
scrubbing every square inch of me; then around 3:30
went down and checked out. Ah, I was only going to get
a couple more hours of sleep anyhow. The desk clerks were
polite and seemed to make an effort to make me feel better.
My complaint netted me enough points for 1/2 a night stay in
the future; I figure I'll use them for a full night's stay
at an honest category 2 sometime.