I planned to buy this wild meat during the Texas trip.  San Antonio apparently had a famous speciality meats store, Exotic Meats USA. However, when I arrived and looked up their website, I found that the store had moved to Reno, NV.

Foiled, I put this culinary experiment on the back-burner for a few weeks.

What’s a Crocodile Anyhow?

Finding crocodile meat quickly turned into a biology lesson. As I Googled where to find crocodile in the DC area, I began to wonder what is the difference  between a crocodile and an alligator, anyhow. Alligators, which live conveniently in the southern US,  are relatively easy to find on DC menus.

The San Diego zoo enlightened me. Crocodiles live in Central and South America, Africa, SE Asia and Australia. They have V-shaped snouts and a tooth that sticks out of their mouths. Alligators have U-shaped noses and no visible teeth (when their months are shut).  So, in other words, there’s not much difference.

So, I’m Americanizing this list, which was orginally compiled by a Brit. I’m having alligator.

What Alligator Tastes Like

Fortunately, RT’s a cajun restaurant, which is located conveniently down the street from my apartment, serves the meat in stew form.

Opened in 1986, RT’s is a neighborhood institution — in a neighborhood that has transformed dramatically in the past decade. (See this Washing Post article on the subject.) The area know as Little Chirilagua is home to thousands of Salvadorian immigrants.  Pupsarias, international markets and Latino bakeries now surround the restaurant.  I drove past the place dozens of times, not realizing it wasn’t another pollo ala brasa place.

The restaurant was quiet on a Tuesday night, and the manager walked over to chat. He asked us if we had been to the restaurant before. No, we replied, we were new to the neighborhood. When we told him where we had moved from — Arlington — he snickered. Apparently, it didn’t make sense to him to move a few miles down the road.

Then, taking leave of this decade and our surroundings, he took another look at me.  He announced sagely that I, judging from my “vivacious personality,”"must be an Aries.” Um. No.

Eventually, the alligator stew arrived. The meat, served diced in a slightly spicy, gumbo-esque broth tasted just like Wikipedia describes crocodile: “a cross between chicken and crab.”

The rest of the food was decent — We had fried catfish and crawfish etouffee — but the bill came to nearly $50. And we were treated to one last conversation with the manager.  He stood next to us as he chatted with his boss about the lack-luster evening and how he didn’t manage to sell as single piece of sweet potato pie.  Ah, it’s all in the name of blogging.

Crabcakes

Jimmy’s Grill

Maine Avenue Fish Market
1100 Maine Ave SW
Washington, DC 20024

Have a lot of free time? Jimmy’s, a stand in the southwest waterfront serving crab cakes, fried fish, clam strips and other artery clogging seafood dishes, is the place to go if you have a hankering for crab cakes and an entire afternoon to waste. First, you stand in line examining the 20 different signs hanging around the shack. Each is printed with a different version of the menu. One offers soft shell crab with fries. Another offers creamed spinach as a side. Then, place your order with the harried cashier standing at knee level inside the buried stand. Then, wait and wait – until the cashier calls your number. All the while, the other customers are interrupting the staff to complain about their order or demand drink refills. There’s no shade at Jimmy’s and no where to sit.

The food is worth it and prices are cheaper than you will find anywhere else in DC. Our crab cake platter was big enough for two. We ate it standing up, underneath a neighboring stand’s umbrellas, overlooking the Potomac. However, there’s another hazard of Jimmy’s. While we were munching on our crab cakes, to the left was a group of Hill interns smashing steam crabs and blabbing on about the Senators they’ve seen in Capitol elevators.

The bill: $9.95 for the crab cake platter

Cheesesteak

Al’s Steak House

1504 Mt. Vernon Avenue
Alexandria, Virginia 22301

While Geno’s, the Philadelphia cheesesteak institution, promotes cheese wiz as the authentic sandwich topping, our Philly source claims that’s false marketing. She says the shop promotes cheap cheese wiz to cut down on the food cost. The real cheese of choice is provolone.

If that’s the case, maybe Al’s Steak House in Alexandria is more authentic than Geno’s. The sub shop only serves its cheesesteaks with provolone. Also varying from your typical cheesesteak, Al’s stuffs its subs with onion, sweet peppers, green peppers etc. While the sandwiches could use a shake of salt, it’s worth the compromise. One Yelper puts it well: “I don’t know if they make a cheesesteak as good here as they do in Philly but I don’t really care. This place is five minutes from my house, Philly is not.”

The bill: $14 for a large

New Haven Pizza

Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza
1400 Irving St NW
Washington, DC 20009

The quest for clam pizza ends, however unlikely, in Columbia Heights. This unassuming lunch spot next to the Metro sells New Haven style pizza to NW hipsters. Although it’s in the same genre as what we ate in New Haven, it’s a distant imitation. My main complaint is their by-the-slice model. Pete’s doesn’t do a brisk enough business to sell by the slice, so the pizza just ends up getting cold. When they reheat it for you, the crust gets a bit burnt while the cheese is still not melted.

The bill: $22.95 for a New Haven style clam pizza

Clam Chowder

Well, despite extensive research we couldn’t figure out where to get an excellent bowl of clam chowder in DC. Although we heard good things about Blacksalt Fish Market & Restaurant (4883 MacArthur Blvd NW) it’s soup features cockles (fancy clams) and costs $11 a bowl. Where can we get a decent bowl of chowder for a reasonable price?

The whole thing started in the side room filed with Washington knickknacks. In addition to some furniture and a “coffin strap,” the room housed the instrument used to bleed George when he was dying of some sort of respiratory infection. Feeling nauseous at the prolonged description of 18th century medicine, I had to duck out to hallway.

Next, we moved on to murals and 17-foot-tall statue, both of our first president, in the main chamber. I zoned out and snapped some photos.

Then, as we boarded the elevator to head up to the second floor, I got to chat with some of our co-tourists. We were the only locals. Two older men were from Australia and visiting relatives in the US. They both belonged to the Australian Masons. One kept musing throughout the tour how “absolutely fascinating” it all was.
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Fascinating was not the word I’d use to describe the the room of fez hats (the 3nd floor). Or the 4th floor’s tribute to George Washington, which contained more details about the president’s death along with his “masonic apron,” a bib-like garment worn to show one’s rank. The 5th, 7th and 8th floors were all dedicated to the York Rite of Masonry. I still don’t know what that is. However, the group does have a fascination with a mash-up of ancient Egyptian and Hebrew decorating schemes. The walls of the room in the picture were painted with hieroglyphic-type murals and contained a stage with a menorah.

Eventually, we came to the 9th and top floor. It was decorated with a mini version of the Temple of Babylon and dedicated to the Tall Cedars of Lebanon, another group for Master Masons. I grabbed one of their brochures on my way out to the observation deck. They weren’t s impressive as the name sounds. Inside were photos of old men in funny hats and their dowdy wives in holiday-themed sweatshirts.

The view from the 9th story was gorgeous, though. I could see Old Town, across the river and into downtown DC. It would have been even better on a clear, spring day. But there’s no way five minutes of pretty scenery is worth another round of that tour.