Washington, D.C. – Inside the door of Bangkok Joe’s Dumpling Bar and Café, on the Georgetown waterfront in Washington, D.C., you’ll find a tumbler of red sticks with numbers on them. To observe Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year, diners could pick a stick and read the corresponding fortune posted on the wall.
Mine, No. 12, was not so good. “Difficulties at present in personal matters. Will realize that you have had illusion about your past helper. However, good prospects regarding about your legal affairs. Misunderstanding between you and your partner will clear up. No fortune foreseen in near future.”
Well, dang. But after a million fortune cookies promising me untold riches, fancy cars and trips around the world, such candor was refreshing.
Spring seems like the perfect time to start the year.
In Thailand, Songkran is commemorated April 13-30 with housecleaning, gifts and tributes to monks and temples. Water rinses away the bad luck of the previous year, so scented water is poured gently onto Buddha statues and the hands of elders. Then people go into the streets with squirt guns and buckets and have a gigantic water fight that leaves everybody soaking, a welcome feeling in the hot month of April.
A home at the Marriott
In Washington, the famous cherry blossoms turn the trees around the Tidal Basin into fluffy pink confections. What is less well-known is that at this time of year, everything explodes into bloom, from the pink tracery of the redbud trees along the Rock Creek-Potomac Parkway to azaleas and dogwoods.
Red and yellow tulips were planted in ranks around our hotel, the Marriott Wardman Park, and school kids and families were out in force for spring break. This Marriott is the biggest hotel in D.C. and a magnet for conventions, but it also works well for touring families, with two outdoor pools and the Woodley Park-Zoo Metro stop half a block away.
Good restaurants are nearby along Connecticut Avenue, and two great food neighborhoods are within walking distance, Adams-Morgan and Dupont Circle. At the zoo, panda cub Tai Shan is receiving visitors on a timed-ticket basis, along with a cadre of less famous but still adorable zoo babies such as cheetah cubs and a North Island brown kiwi chick.
No pandas for us, alas. We were stuck in a conference room on K Street, but it boasted a stunning view over the elevated Whitehurst Freeway to the Potomac River and Arlington beyond. All day we watched crew practice, teams of people rowing in twos and fours and eights and the occasional freelance kayaker.
From six flights up, all we could see across the river were flashing oars and shells gliding across the water. The sky was blue, the river like glass. Occasionally a jet leaving Reagan Washington National Airport or a pod of helicopters going to and from the Pentagon would intrude on the view.
On the rising waterfront
The Georgetown waterfront is a work in progress. Georgetown itself was built as a port city, handling mostly tobacco, and the terminus of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. It was a workingman’s town, largely African-American, and after the canal was closed in 1924, it became a slum. The jewel-box townhomes of Georgetown were preserved because nobody could be bothered to tear them down and build something grander.
The riverfront was more recently blighted and industrial, and the elevated freeway was built in 1949 to camouflage such unlovely enterprises as a meat-rendering plant. Now it’s coming around, slowly, with a public riverfront promenade, small parks and a Loews cinema complex.
Bangkok Joe’s faces away from the Potomac, but its outdoor tables are still pleasant. We ate some special Songkran appetizers, including Meang-Kum, shrimp served on collard green squares with toasted coconut, ginger, shallots, roasted peanuts, lime and Thai pepper with a sweet lemongrass sauce ($6.95). Full of wholesome ingredients, this dish is supposed to impart health for the new year. Another traditional finger food, Chor- Muang ($6.95), was described as “King Rama II-style flower- shaped dumplings,” and came filled with minced pork loin, salted turnip, peanuts and herbs.
So much ugliness happens in our nation’s capital that it’s easy to forget that Washington, D.C., is a lovely city, never more so than in spring, when lawns and trees and floral colors pop against white neoclassical buildings. It’s the Thai Year of the Dog, Buddhist Era 2549, symbolizing optimism and openness. It’s a good thing to remember in democracy’s hometown.
Lisa Everitt is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Arvada.
The details
Bangkok Joe’s Dumpling Bar & Cafe, Georgetown Washington Harbour complex, 3000 K St. NW, 202-333-4422. 11:30 a.m.- 10:30 p.m., Monday-Thursday; 11:30 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Friday; noon-11:30 p.m. Saturday; noon-10:30 p.m. Sunday. Lunch from $7.95, dinner from $9.95.
Marriott Wardman Park, 2660 Woodley Road NW (at Connecticut Avenue), 800-325-3535 or 202- 328-2000. Special “Spring Fling” weekend packages including breakfast and free on-demand movies start at $169. Visit marriotthotels.com/wasdt.
The Smithsonian National Zoological Park, 3001 Connecticut Ave. NW. Open daily except Christmas, admission free. Until Oct. 28, grounds are open 6 a.m.-8 p.m. and buildings 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Visit nationalzoo.si.edu/forms/pandacubviewing for timed e-tickets for panda cub viewing.
