The next restaurant on the list is the first chain of the list, &Pizza. I hope this does not compromise the guidelines of my blog post because &Pizza is not exclusive to Washington DC. In fact, multiple &Pizzas can be found all over Maryland. &Pizza is cool because it is a chain that presents itself to the customer in a few different ways. Most of t &Pizza’s restaurants can be found in DC. It also can be found many places as stands on street corners, in train stations, and in shopping malls. Lastly, &Pizza, as you can see above, also serves its customers through food trucks, which are especially popular in Downtown DC around Capitol Hill.

One way to describe &Pizza is Snap Pizza, but better. Their menu consists of a handful of signature pizzas divided up into two sections called “The Hits”, their most popular and frequently ordered pizzas, and “The OGs” or their original pizzas. My favorite from “The Hits” is the Dirty Bird which consists of, garlic ricotta, shredded chicken, jalapeños, shredded mozzarella, blue cheese, ranch, buffalo drizzle, and baby kale. Served piping hot, each bite is perfectly satisfying on the taste buds. From the “OGs” I would highly recommend the Gnarlic, consisting of garlic ricotta, fresh mozzarella, grilled onion, basil pesto, and parmesan. This pizza does have an acquired taste though; a lot of people are not the biggest fans of pesto sauce and thus may be turned off just by the sight of it. However, I think if you give the pizza a try, you will be pleasantly surprised. The rest of the pizzas made at &Pizza are all custom; you choose your dough, sauce, toppings, and proteins. Unlike a traditional pie, all pizzas here are served as large ovals (basically the shape of a racecar track) and presented to you in a rectangular box for you to enjoy.

&Pizza is great for various reasons. If ever in the area with a significant other, or potential significant other, it is a great place to start date night; the food is filling over hopefully flowing conversation. It is also very good to eat while taking a break from shopping. In fact, my first time at &Pizza was after spending two hours at the Tanger Outlets looking for a new suit. In my opinion, the best time to get &Pizza, though, is when in a train station and getting a quick bite to eat before getting back on the train. Especially in the afternoon after a long day of doing whatever, &Pizza hits the spot and makes your hunger go away. &Pizza is a place I would recommend if you have a busy day planned and are on the move all day. You do not need to set aside much time to eat here and it is open at all times of the day.

The next restaurant on my list of places to see in the nation’s capital is Clyde’s of Georgetown. As you can tell from the name, this restaurant is located in the southwest part of Washington DC called Georgetown (the same location as the catholic university). Georgetown is one of, if not the most, aesthetic areas in the city as it is located along the Potomac River. The backdrop of the water along with the vibrant restaurants and shops down cobblestone streets provides an exciting outing with family, friends, or whomever you choose to go out with. 

In all honesty, Clyde’s is less about the menu and more about the experience. The menu is nothing special, filled with typical American foods like burgers, fries, steaks, and shakes. For the 21 and over crowd, there is a bar serving beers, wine, and cocktails until two in the morning almost every night. On Sundays, you can grab a delicious brunch along with bottomless mimosas upon request. If you have had a long night out in Georgetown, you can go into the restaurant after certain hours and order from their “Late Night” menu, containing bar foods and snacks meant to sober you up and wind you down for the evening.

Like I said though, ultimately one goes to Clyde’s, and most other restaurants in Georgetown, for the experience and fun of being in that part of the city, especially on warmer days. My first time at Clyde’s was during my sophomore year of high school. Every January, my high school’s (all boy catholic prep school) sister school puts on a winter formal, or Snowball as they call it. That year I was going with my girlfriend at the time. As a tune-up to the dance, our group of friends decided to have a pre-dance dinner at Clyde’s. After Clyde’s, we had the opportunity, with the weather being in the 50s, to walk down to the waterfront and take group pictures. We got to take a handful of cool pictures in front of the river with each other before walking back up to the girls’ school for the dance.

The next place I would like to give you a taste of is a small food shop located a few blocks up from Capitol Hill on H St. Unlike the luxury feel you would get at the last restaurant (Claudia’s Steakhouse), Tony’s, as it is affectionately known by the community, is much more laid back and made for the everyday person grabbing a quick bite to eat; the food is comparable too! If you were to ever visit Tony’s though, please do not make a very common mistake and visit the shop on the other side of the street called “Tony’s Place”. The two are not connected, and the food is not nearly as good; somehow, a lot of people make the mistake.

I was first introduced to Tony’s as a freshman in high school. I attended Gonzaga College High School on N Capitol St, five minutes from Tony’s and located right off of H St. However, as a freshman and half of my sophomore year living in Southern Maryland which is 30-40 minutes away from downtown without any traffic. With traffic though, it would take us two hours to get to school, often making me late to first period. One day, my dad decided we would be leaving at six in the morning to just avoid the heaviest part of the traffic and settle with getting to DC at 7:10 even though school would not start for another hour. Giving us plenty of time, we went around looking for places to eat breakfast and kill a little bit of time before he would drop me off at school. After this day, Tony’s not only became a breakfast destination before school, but also a popular lunch destination once I had my car my last two years of high school. This is how we discovered Tony’s Breakfast.

The first thing you will notice when you walk into Tony’s is that even though it brands itself as a breakfast restaurant, they have a whole array of items. Behind the glass by the front door are loads of chicken wings from the time the place opens. There is also fresh fruit and delicious looking desserts all day. On the menu are different platters and plates of food that you can eat for breakfast that include pancakes, waffles, breakfast sandwiches, toast, eggs, sausage, etc, all prepared on the grills in the kitchen in the back. If you are not feeling breakfast though, they have plenty of lunch options. From burgers and tuna melts, to subs and BLTs, the combinations and possibilities are endless. Lastly, the fried chicken wings I mentioned earlier are a must try. They come in multiples of three, and what you want to do is order fries with them and get a special kind of sauce native to the DC and Maryland area, mambo sauce. A sweet and tangy sauce formed from a tomato base, mambo sauce has been the staple condiment in this area for decades now and perfectly tops off your chicken wings and fries, creating a perfect flavor combo.

The best part about Tony’s hits you when you ring up to pay. You can order a very filling lunch and stay under ten dollars. Everything is priced around two to four dollars to keep prices cheap being that a lot of homeless people around that area are also frequent visitors. The reality is the whole community loves it and writing about it cannot really do it justice, this is one of the places you have to try for yourself.

The first restaurant in Washington DC that I want to recommend holds a special place in my family and in my heart. This restaurant is called Claudia’s Steakhouse and is located in downtown DC on 15th and K St, right by the Farragut North Metro Station (so it is very convenient for a traveler exploring the city). To give some context on why Claudia’s is so special to my family, the restaurant owner, Claudia, is a very close family friend of ours. A long time ago, before my family moved closer to the city, we lived in a suburb of the DC Metro area called Waldorf located in Southern Maryland. In this quiet suburb, we found a small restaurant one day called Brasas that served delicious food from all over Latin America. After eating there a few times, the owner began to recognize us came out to meet us. This began a beautiful friendship that has lasted to this day. We became a part of Claudia’s restaurant family and met everyone from the chefs to the cleaning staff and spent countless nights there well past closing time just enjoying each other’s company. Brasas became a second home for me, and every birthday dinner for four years was spent at the restaurant until it closed down in 2016.

After closing down Brasas, Claudia decided to go bigger and open up this restaurant in the heart of the city. My first time there of course was on my 16th birthday in 2017. Claudia’s has taken on a different look from Brasas. It is much more upscale, and while it still maintains its Latin cuisine on the menu, it has fused into a legitimate steakhouse that also has a good selection of seafood options.

Claudia’s is the perfect place to go after a long day of tourist activities or a place to end your vacation in the city. You will want to dress nicely and have an empty stomach that is ready to eat. While a tad bit pricey, the food is 100% worth it. While Claudia may not be around because she has gotten married and started a family in Palm Beach, Florida, the restaurant still has a warm and welcoming atmosphere and they love to see new faces (especially from out of town) in the restaurant trying their food. Claudia’s brothers manage the restaurant while she is away, and are just as friendly and will ensure you have a terrific evening!

For my new passion blog theme, I want to talk about restaurants that everyone should give a try while in the nation’s capital. While not a DC resident, I have previously lived in the heart of the city and currently live two minutes outside of the city’s lines. I also went to high school in DC and have done my fair share of exploring around the city looking for places for good lunch dates, family dinners, breakfast, etc.

Not to assume that anyone here has been to the city, but a fair amount of people I have met on campus always tell me in response to “I am from the DC area” that they have been to DC before. So in turn, I ask them just out of curiosity where did you go and visit during their time there. I follow that up with another curious question of where did they eat while they were there. Most people give answers like at their hotel, at a food truck (which are for the most part all very good in their own right), or at a fast food or chain restaurant. I am not going to be dramatic and say it hurts me because honestly it makes no difference to me. However, I would just like to put out there that the city has so many lively places ranging in price and formality where people could eat at that would only serve to enhance their experience.

As a result, this blog will be dedicated to highlighting some places all over the district where one can grab a delicious bite to eat during their long day of tourist activities. Bon Appetit!

The best international trip I have ever been on was to Liberia, Costa Rica, a city located not too far from the Pacific coast of the country. My family and I loved it so much in fact that we have been twice to the same exact hotel resort and everything. Costa Rica is my favorite destination because of the beaches and scenery and for the people from the country who have some of the best outlooks on life.

I took this photo one evening from the beach at the hotel we were staying at the second vacation there. It is one of my favorites because it was a mild night weather wise with a light breeze, and the view of the ocean into the mountains was perfect. During the day, getting to ride through the rain forest, up the mountains, and across the beach presented even more great visuals as I got to see some of the most beautiful parts of the country. In the rain forest, I saw the famous howler monkeys that are native to that region in Costa Rica known as the Guanacaste region. In the morning, the tour guides took us to their home, and we got to learn why they are called howler monkeys as after waking them all up, they greeted us with hundreds of shouts. Up in the mountains, you get a perfect view of the whole city and the beach in a peaceful and quiet location where only a handful of people live.

In Costa Rica, the people have a saying known as “Pura Vida”. It is posted all across the country on stamps, murals, buildings, etc. as it is a national motto and way of living they all adhere to. It literally translates to “pure life” or “simple life”, and that is exactly what they mean when they say it. When talking to different people from the country, they all embody the phrase in the way they are naturally laid back and seek to enjoy the beautiful things in life without having too much worry about the things that make us unhappy. I thought that was a beautiful outlook on life.

After two visits, I love the country and have envisioned myself moving their one day to retire and live a simple life with my own home in the mountains. For me, that would be a dream come true being able to settle down from the fast paced life I live here and have a home with my wife in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

In the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year of high school, I joined some of my classmates on a summer service trip to Sevilla in the southern region of Spain. This region is known as Andalucía, distinguishing it from other regions like Catalunia (Barcelono) and the Basque region (Bilbao). On this trip, we were able to spend time with students from the local Catholic school, play and train with one of the best clubs in the world, and do community service in the area our host families lived in.

The school we visited is called Santa Maria del Valle and is one of a conjunction of schools part of the Catholic order Sacred Heart, or Corazón Sagrada. There, we spent a day with the students our age and got to experience what a day in high school was like to them; it was much different than a high schooler here. My favorite part though was getting to hang out with the students outside of class a few times. Their lives as teenagers are radically different then the lives we have here in the US.

My favorite part of the whole trip was getting to train with the professional club Sevilla FC. Even though most of the players on the trip had never played soccer, the experience was still great getting to train with some of the best trainers in the world. I even got a chance to train with the youth team in my age category for a session in their preseason tuneup. In the end, we ended up playing against their u14 side and embarrassingly lost 5-2, but for a group of guys with only 3 guys who played soccer on it, that result wasn’t terrible.

The most enriching part of the whole trip was getting to perform community service in the local neighborhoods. The area we were staying in was filled with lower middle class families probably just meeting ends meet. It was a great experience to talk to the children of the town and realize they have the same dreams all kids do, they just don’t have the same opportunities.

San Juan, Puerto Rico is like a foreign home to me. My family and I have traveled to Puerto Rico a total of four times, and each time I have a great experience. San Juan is located on the northern shore of Puerto Rico bordering the Atlantic Ocean. While technically not an international destination as Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, I still like to consider it a foreign vacation because, as has been the theme with so many of my other trips, the culture is different from what I experience at home. Puerto Rico is known for its vibrant culture, outgoing animals, and a rich history being that it has been in the power of different nations for hundreds of years.

The animal pictured above is known in Puerto Rico as a “coqui”. While frog in Spanish translates to “rana”, Puerto Ricans have dubbed the animal “coqui” after the sound it makes in the forest. The coquis are everywhere, and can especially be seen in abundance whenever it rains. Another interesting animal in San Juan are the monkeys; they have a personality of their own. For one, they do not like to be woken up in the morning, and love to sleep late into the morning. If stirred, they are known to take their waste and throw it at oncoming traffic beneath the trees.

One of my favorite parts of vacationing in Puerto Rico is going downtown and walking around on the cobblestone streets, looking for new restaurants to try.  My favorite restaurant to go to though is called Parrot Club. Parrot Club is a vibrant, family owned restaurant that serves a blend of international cuisine along with local specials. A Puerto Rican favorite is mofongo served with saltfish. Mofongo is a plantain based dish and is served with just about anything. It is shaped like a mini mountain and is most certainly delicious.

From Pre-K to the 5th grade, I attended a Spanish immersion elementary school. At this school I learned all my academic subjects in both English and Spanish. I was also surrounded by culturally diverse faculty raging from Chile, Dominican Republic, Mexico, etc. My teacher from Mexico comes from a small province in the capital city called Tejupilco de Hidalgo. In order to foster cultural growth, he set up an exchange trip where we would visit his boyhood school one year and families would come to the US the next. After missing out on it during the first year of the program and hosting a family the next year, I was very eager to visit his hometown my 1st grade year.

Being that the trip was so long ago, I cannot remember every name of the people and places I visited, but looking back on this trip today, I have a greater appreciation for the cultural immersion we received. It went well beyond the food we ate and the language we learned; it manifested itself through art and dance, and the people and their way of life that was so much different than ours. The province of Tejupilco has deep ties rooted in ancient Aztec culture, and this was evident in many of their hobbies. My favorite, though, was the dance festival we attended. At this festival, we got to learn how to perform a ritual dance depicting a group of hunters preying on a deer for food, and the story that is told through this event. After learning, we were afforded the opportunity to watch professionals perform the ritual up close, and I remember being in awe of how elegant and fluid all the movements were and how they all intricately tied together.

My favorite part of the trip was witnessing another Mexican tradition. I found it odd at first that so many people gathered around in a decent sized arena to watch chickens fight for up to maybe 30 seconds until one of the two died. Thinking about it now, it’s a little barbaric, but my seven year old self was eating it up. I was thoroughly entertained not only by the action, but by the spectacle of it all as people danced on the floor after the fights were over, and waiters were constantly walking around serving food and drinks.

The part I appreciate most about this trip is that you got to get away from a big city that has all the things you could find in the US. By being in a small province, I got to experience real culture and family atmosphere from people who were not at all like me.

In the spring of 2016, I attended a youth soccer tournament along with my team on the Grand Cayman Island in the Cayman Islands. It was honestly a tough decision to make to go in the first place. In leaving for a week and a half, I missed all of review week, reading day, and the first two days of finals during my freshman year. While my teachers were not too pleased to hear that I would be leaving for a while at such a critical point in the school year (and one tried to convince me I was making a mistake), in the end I am more than glad that I left and went on one of, if not my favorite soccer trip ever.

On the field, there was a mixed bag of experiences. On one hand we did not do as well as we expected and would have wanted to. We lost the first game to Manchester City 5-1 after being up 1-0. We tied an inferior Cuban National team. We beat the Houston Dynamo in the last game of the group stage, and tied our consolation game against the Cayman Island National team. On the other hand though, while the results were disappointing, each individual game brought a cool unique experience. For those that are not soccer fans, Manchester City is one of the best clubs in the world, and have been dubbed to have some of the best youth teams in the world as well. In the game we played in, several of the guys we lined up against are currently playing professional soccer in England and Germany, and it was great to be able to have a chance to match up against them. In the game against Cuba, we played a team of boys that had never left the island of Cuba before this tournament.

Off the field, there were more opportunities to meet guys from all over the world and to enjoy the beautiful country. In our hotel, we stayed and had dinner with guys from Swindon Town in England, and Kingston, Jamaica. Guys from both teams had different and interesting outlooks on life that we did not have coming from Washington DC, and I’m sure the experience was just as enriching for them. We also got to share the hotel with Olympic Sprinter Usain Bolt, as he was on the island competing in Olympic trials ahead of the summer olympics in Rio that year.

The only regret I have about the Cayman islands is not getting to see more of the country. Our schedule was jam packed and our only day off we spent at the beach. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to go back and have more tourism opportunities.