Café Bonaparte

with dc being one of those old historical cities with its cobblestone roads and its old brick row houses in quaint little areas like georgetown, it is fitting that there are small, home-y, old european-isque cafes sprinkled among the commercialized h&m's and banana republics.

and such a cafe can be found in Café Bonaparte. however, even with it's dimly lit, hole-in-the-wall, french inspired decor...it still exudes a sense of mainstream. probably because it is now filled by the clichéd artist or the snobby east coast prestige of georgetown undergrads...or just mainstream because food-loving folk like myself invade its private underground mystique. with all that said, this joint is definitely in need of reservations, or else be prepared to be outside for quite some time.

but we shall let the food speak for itself. my apologizes for not thinking about snapping a few pictures, but i hope you readers will take my word for it. having planned on a restaurant week style lunch/dinner...we went at 3pm so it was a little in between...but their dinner menu (which is extremely appetizing) wasn't available until after 5pm. taking a gander at their lunch set for restaurant week, we decided it might be more enjoyable to just order á la carte.

our opening french onion soup wasn't particularly spectacular, though moderately priced. nam's steak sandwich, however, probably isn't the best dish to order in a french crêperie, but we didn't want to overwhelm our senses with crêpes sense i was ordering a shrimp filled stuffed crêpe with a saffron cream sauce that was too decadent to pass up. but if there was a problem with the dish, the too much shrimp did factor into the over-saturation of seafood into an otherwise delicious meal.

sadly, service was not up to par. filled with perhaps room for only 60 or so patrons, there were only 2 overworked servers and being restaurant week, were probably a little overwhelmed. the wait for our waiter to stop by and inquire about desserts made the desserts themselves sound unappetizing and we left without enjoy the sweet side to balance the savory.

so a recommendation to you fellow dc-restaurateurs, Café Bonaparte is definitely worth a try. perhaps on a weekday where the attention of being "cool" doesn't attract such a crowd and you and a delightful french cuisine are the only two members of the party.

Café Bonaparte
1522 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20007