Johnna’s Pick of the Week: Fast Times, Fast Food (DC)

So we’ve been on a budget. Moving, recession and bills all came full throttle in the past month or so. We had to cut down on our expensive eating habits (*Oh how we miss a good meal at Citronelle or Marcel’s…we digress…). We started looking at our cheaper foodie options. This actually became a fun research project for us and we decided this weeks “Pick of the Week” would focus on the top cheap, fast food restaurants (*Well as fast as JKGF can go…). Being on the go and with little funds allows the imagination to run wild, here’s what we came up with:

1. Panera Bread– We love Panera. It is the best quick, soup and salad place a person could ask for. We go in with the intent to try every soup on the menu (*which are all pretty good) and we end up getting our usual: Soup and salad combo (*Cheddar Broccoli soup & Caesar Salad) with a Green Tea. The tea we must say is some of the tastiest green teas out there, sure beats the bottled stuff from the store…

2. Noodles and Company– We used to spend every other day in Noodles and Company when Pentagon Row was the center of our world, but now we barely even get a chance to visit. It wasn’t until a recent visit over to the Sprint store (*We’re thinking about breaking up with Sprint, but that’s another story for another blog entitled “Rip Off with a Bad Attitude”…) that we realized how much we missed the huge bowls of hot noodles. We used to try our hand at the Mushroom Stroganoff and the Pad Thai…not bad @ all;-)

3. Tropicana– Sometimes the mood strikes when we need some really tasty Jamaican food in our lives, this is where Tropicana comes into play. You remember us telling you about that house guest we had recently?? Well, they were fixated on indulging in Caribbean cuisine on their visit to the District and that’s just what we did. Unfortunately, we found out the place where we had originally started was where we should have stayed: Tropicana. This was our first Caribbean food experience in the District so many years ago and still to this day rings true to have some of the best curry and jerk on this side of town.

4. Jumbo Slice– Say what you please, but Jumbo Slice after a night of drinking is like a clean shower after rolling around in mud. It is cheesy, greasy and cheap. Pretty much serves our purpose instead of having to wait in that long line in Adams Morgan (*Restaurant names will remain anonymous, but if you’re from DC you know which one we’re talking about…) and for a price of $4 a slice (*Huge slice, that is.). Our complaint, however, is it’s Cash Only…who carries cash anymore??

5. Surfside– Don’t believe the hype. Seafood does not have to be expensive. This is the purpose of a place like Surfside which believes in “casual, cheap and delicious” fare. We have been on a fish taco kick (*ironically after we said how much we didn’t like fish…mood swings…) and Surfside is the place to get that fix on a budget. We love the Glover Park neighborhood because there’s always parking and there are some great hidden foodie gems in this neck of the woods.

So there, we said it. We are keeping our foodie life fab on a budget…just trying to stay recession free.

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Category: Johnna's Pick of the Week, restaurant reviews, Washington D.C.