DC Restaurant Review: Creme Cafe and Lounge

$9 Hot dog...are you kidding. This hot dog better be Iceland quality. Crap, if I spent $9 on hot dogs I could buy a pack of dogs, buns, relish and mustard. We are talking 12 hot dogs. Why on God's green earth would I spend $9 on a hot dog, singular? Well guess what I did and it was pretty damn good.

The U Steet area of DC is bustling and changing, slowly changing. To bad we find it better to take affordable housing away form hard working Americnas so that yuppies can have lofts with exposed ducts and fake brick walls. Sorry, I digress..inthe midst of this renaissance are a whole series of hip restaurants and watering holes. One such establishment is Creme Cafe and Lounge. Creme has great modern furniture. The service was attentive but not over bearing. A big huge bar and a nice lounge area.

I was with some friends and we were scaried that we werent going to get a table , Creme doesnt take reservations, so we arrived a little bit before dinner rush. Dinner included some Big Tatto White wine, sauteed mushrooms in a truffle oil with manchego shavings, a tomato salad, Momma Laurie's Chicken and I had of course the $9 hot dog.

The mushrooms were incredible, amazing, i could have eaten a whole dish of it, i mean it was amazing, by far the most intriguing mushrooms I have had in awhile. The tomato salad was alittle uninpired and the dressing was a bit over powering. it had this tomato puff pastry on top that seemed a bit out of place and alittle too sweet. So you can probaly skip this salad.

The chicken was suppsoed to come with a big portion of rice. When it came out it was a laughable size of rice b ut half a chicken, of course too much rice is bad for you so I guess it was the apporpriate amount. The chicken was good, for roasted chicken it was flavorful and moist and for $14 bucks well worth it.

In my limited yet global hot dog taste testing Creme's hot dog ranks near the top. it comes with a plate of exotic condiments: dijon mustard, hearty brown mustarrd, sauteed onions, pickles, garlic, kimchee, sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red pepper marmalade. The hot dog was good, i think it was a dodger dog though The great part was that it came in a pretzel bun. The dog snapped when you bit into it and it tasted like a hundred percent beef with no weird mix, random meats. The only problem with the dog was the side that came with it were "fat fries." Cheese and crackers, it was two massive idaho potates cut into quarters and dropped into a fryer. i love steak fries but this was out of control. So i loved the dog but switch out the potatoes in favor of tatter tots.

No dessert or coffee- we went to cake love instead. I am going to expand on that in another article but my God Cakelove rules!

A great neighborhood bar and definitley something off the beaten path. It is a good meal and very affordable, $25-$35.

DC Scale: This place is awaiting the Presidents signature.