Ask:
We are planning a trip to DC in October. My husband is being sworn in before the supreme court!!! I am so proud of him. My question is, we've budgeted $40 a day for food total for both of us. Does anyone know some good cheap places to eat? I don't want to eat McDonalds 3 meals a day!! We're going to be there from saturday until Wed.
Answer:
Hello! I live in Northern Va and my dh works in DC. I think you might need to redo your budget. Maybe sell a few things you have laying around the house on Craigslist or something. are you staying in a hotel that has free breakfast? If so that is good. If not, you can hit MCD for their dollar menu breakfast. Tax is 5% here so a breakfast burrito would be 1.05. For lunch we have a burger place called 5 Guys there are many locations. They have 2 sizes of burgers and the smaller one is a normal size, the large is huge. So you could get two small burgers one being a combo sharing the huge amount of fries and drink for under $10. All the restaurants in DC are pricey, where are you staying? If you are not staying in the district you can eat at normal chain restaurants like TGIF, Ruby Tuesdays, Applebee's etc, tons of locations everywhere, let me know where you are staying and I'll get back to you with what is close to your hotel.
Congrats on your dh!
Answer:
thanks!! We are staying at the holiday in express in Springfield, VA. We are planning on taking the metro into DC everyday. We are flying into national, and taking the metro over to the springfield stop, then a shuttle will pick us up, so we won't have a car. I've tried to tell my DH we need to plan on spending more $ for food. I forgot to tell you, we are going to have Monday's dinner & Tuesday's breakfast provided. The hotel does provide a hot express breakfast bar (I don't know exactly what that means).
Answer:
You won't have to pay for breakfast at all during your stay. Full breakfast is provided at Holiday Inn Express. Hot express breakfast bar means, they'll have either eggs or sausage, or might even have a waffle maker there. Then ofcourse they'll have your basic, pastries, cereal, coffee, juice, and some fruits and sometimes yogurt. It really fills you up. My DH owns a Holiday Inn Express and that's some of the stuff they provide at their breakfast bar, and I'm sure that's a standard with HI-Express. If you're gonna be around the springfield area there will be plenty of low to mid budget restaurants just a cab ride away or might even be walking distance. HTH
Answer:
I am so jealous!! I grew up about 45 minutes outside of DC and would move back in a heartbeat. I can't think of any places of hand, but if you want to go to some of the non-chain, fancier places to eat -- go for lunch. It will be cheaper and just as good as the dinner items. Have a great time!!!
Answer:
Springfield Metro stop is right across the road from the Mall which has a food court and several restaurants plus restaurants around it. Places in the mall or next to it (across from the metro stop): Bennigans(inside), TGIF(across street from mall), Ruby Tuesdays(in mall), Bertucci's(after TGIF) is a brick oven pizzeria that everyone seems to love (I don't care for italian or pizza so I have never eaten there), Starbucks, several little places in the food court too and of course all your fast food. All those chain stores have coupons either in the sunday paper occasionally or on their websites. Those you could eat for $20-25 give or take, plus with breakfast provided that just leaves lunch so you can do $40 a day that way. You will have to let me know when you are here!
Answer:
I was just there! Well, we stayed in Alexandria not Springfield and our hotel had the breakfast too, so we just did lunch and dinner thing. One day we just did hotdog stand in front of the Tidal Pool by Jefferson Memorial - actually really good hot dogs. The other day we did the food court in the Air and Space Museum. For dinner we found a really cute and amazingly inexpensive pizza/pasta place in Alexandria I think it was called Bugsys or something like that on King STreet. Then walked to the riverfront and had an icecream cone. The other night we went into Chinatown and braved chinese food (one of my DS's figured out how to get there on the Metro) and then we asked around for recommendations and ate at the Wok and Roll which was good and not overly expensive. It was kind of neat in a historical sense because it was the building that John Wilkes Booth stayed in and planned the assination.
Enjoy your trip - there is so much to do and not nearly enough time or money to do it!
Answer:
We are arriving on the 7th and leaving on th 11th. Where is chinatown? Was is scary? We've never ventured out past the mall and georgetown. I can say, they've cleaned it up alot since our first trip in '96, but I'm still a scared little Okie when I'm there!! During the day, I'm not so scared, but I know we'll be out late on Monday night. All I think about is it being the murder capital of the country!!
Answer:
Originally Posted by sshallenbu
Where is chinatown? Was is scary?
Chinatown is on 7th street if I remember correctly. It was posted on the metro schedule and my DS who loves chinese food saw it and we tried it. There were tons of shops (like Gap, and places you would find at a mall) and the Verizon center where I think they play hockey or basketball or maybe both. Anyway, I felt safe enough, but we weren't there after dark. You can't beat the metro for getting around.
How exciting for your DH. Have an absolutely wonderful trip!