If I had my own cupcake shop, it would have an awesome name. That goes without saying. When I say the sign for, “Hello Cupcake,” in D.C. I thought, “Hey, that’s me!”

In college when I was a designer for The State News, we created a page of valentines for people to cut out and I drew a picture of a cupcake for mine with the simple text, “Hey there, cupcake.” It was cute.

So I like cupcakes. Another thing I like: oreos. So a cookies and cream cupcake has got to be tried. Crumbs has some sort of oreo something cupcake but we all know what I think of that. This cupcake wasn’t just a cookies and cream on top, the batter was cookies and cream too. And that’s sweet. Anyway, Hello Cupcake is cute and the cookies and cream cupcake is pretty good. They have so many crazy options, my friend Ryan was blown away:

Sophia was pleased too:

Helloooo cupcake. In other news, today is my baby sister Sambe’s 21st birthday! So happy birthday, Sambe! She’s also coming to NYC this weekend with some friends and it’s gonna be bomb. :)

Did you ever listen to Good Charlotte? You know, before they got huge and lost whatever it was that originally made them famous? Are they still playing? Who knows. But in high school, they were my band. So for this post, East Coast Anthem it is.

“Walking on the streets of D.C., on the East Coast, where I live…”

Okay, I was walking on the streets of D.C., but it’s not where I live. It’s where my friend Ben lives. This picture above is his home and it was huge and kind of awesome, even though you can’t tell from the picture of his front door and all the people standing in front of it. But it was nice.

I like these pictures of D.C. because it shows you how different all the homes were. They were all kinds of shapes and colors and they give the city a lot of character.

But the best part about where Ben lives in D.C. is that it’s close enough to walk to the White House. So we did:

We waved to Obama from the outside and pretended to take pictures for other tourists when they asked us to. Just kidding, we took pictures for them.

So that’s my first time back to D.C., y’all. I’m hoping to go back for the Cherry Blossom Festival in the spring. Holler to that. I hope you’ve enjoyed City Mitten: D.C. and next week we return to our regular programming with City Mitten: Restaurant Week. Hellz yeah.

Hi. Those are sliders. On top is onions. All delicious.

Let’s have a chat. When I hear the restaurant is called “Matchbox,” I immediately think of a few things. First is Smashbox, the makeup brand. Second, would be Matchbox 20. Third would be a boxcar and fourth is an actual matchbox. I’m not sure why I felt that was important, but I did.

Now, tell me we’re going to a pizza place in D.C. called Matchbox and I think first, that the best pizza is already in New York, and second, I should expect white and red checkered tablecloths. Perhaps it was because Matchbox was billed to me as the “pizza place down the street” that I had such low expectations, because let me just say, Matchbox is not your typical pizza shop. Do you order heaping plates of sliders at your pizza shop with gorgonzola cheese? I didn’t think so.

Matchbox is not a pizza place. It is a really good restaurant and one of its dishes happens to be pizza. So here it is:

Tempura sandwich for Missy.

Crab soup for P, which I ate.

Pizza also for P, which he ate.

Meatball pizza for Benny Boy.

I didn’t take a picture of everyone else’s food because we weren’t besties yet.

And I hate to say it (not really) but I was the winner. Since we were there on Sunday morning during brunch hours and there was an actual brunch menu (not to mention that I, as a New Yorker <3 brunch), I ordered something completely off the charts:

Stuffed french toast. With honey cream cheese inside. Maple butter. Fruit Salad. Complete.

I am nice and I share and everyone who tried it almost died. It was amazing.Why is it that you can put cream cheese with anything and it is pretty much delicious? Bagels? Check. Cheesecake? Check. With pickles and bologna (don’t ask)? Check. French Toast? CHECK. It is goooooood.

So Matchbox was fun. And I love going out to eat with large groups of people. Oh and this is what their menus look like:

And here is the entire gang:

So basically, if you’re in D.C. and you need a place to go for some good eats, I would definitely recommend Matchbox. Leave your preconceived notions behind.

In other news, when we were there, we saw a kid wearing a “South Butt” sweatshirt. Apparently this is a thing. (Get it, North Face, South Butt?) I digress. I like Matchbox. The end.

If you need some food after the bar in New York, I can give you a million suggestions (chicken and rice at 53rd and 6th, for one). But after the bar in D.C.? I wasn’t so sure.

UNTIL…

Ben’s Chili Bowl, people. Apparently this is the spot to be because everyone and their brother’s second cousin was there. They had a bouncer managing the line outside. Insanity. Which is why I tweeted this picture:

I mean do you SEE this? The line wraps around itself!

So many people in line for chili. Chili half-smokes, chili dogs, chili fries, chili hamburgers… There’s a ton of other stuff on their menu too, but who cares? Obviously it’s about the chili!

This is only half of what we ordered. Sure, there were five of us, but we ordered a LOT and after I took this picture, they brought us the rest.

There was a big picture of Obama on one of the walls from when he was here, I have no idea why I didn’t take a picture of it. Ben (my friend Ben, not Ben’s Chili Bowl Ben) told us it was right after the inauguration and a little bit of a big deal.

Anyway, if you’re wondering, the chili had a nice kick and was definitely worth the wait. And of course we ate it ALL because 3/5 of us were boys and you know how they do. Seriously, I love people who know how to eat. :)

These are my friends, whom I love. Our first meal in D.C. was a fancy one, at a dim sum restaurant called Ping Pong, a London import. This is the first Ping Pong in the States and it just opened.

First of all, dim sum is fun because you order a bajillion things and you’re never really sure what you’re going to get. We ordered pretty much everything and they kept bringing plate after plate after plate. We also split two bottles of wine.

Look at all that food.

This is squid, which was probably my favorite thing that we ordered.

And this is how the sticky rice came wrapped, we were instructed not to eat the leaves part or it would make us sick. I liked the sticky rice a lot too.

I also liked the buns we ordered with meat in them. It sounds weird and I remember having that once before at a dim sum restaurant in New York with my mom years ago. But I thought they were delish.

The bad thing about dim sum is that you feel like you aren’t full, or that you shouldn’t be full because you’ve just eaten a bunch of pieces of things but you still feel like you haven’t eaten anything. It’s strange. We thought we ordered enough but decided to order three more things when we were finished. Our bill got pretty expensive, which is another thing about Pong, cause it’s fancy. Dolla dolla bills, y’all.

It was good, we all liked it and were glad we checked it out, but we wouldn’t necessarily go there again. I will however, go for some cheap dim sum in New York now, cause I haven’t done that since I’ve moved here and dim sum is just a good time.

This is what you get when you put two crazy girls in a car for five hours on a drive to Washington D.C. I’m not sure if it was actually supposed to take five hours, but it did with traffic and everything, so when we finally got there we were more than happy to walk from my friend Ben’s house to see some of the monuments. My friend P stayed back and took a nap cause he was so tired but we were on a mission. And yes, that’s the Capitol Building in the back of the picture above, in case you weren’t sure.

Ben and Missy strolling in front of the Washington Monument. Ain’t no thing.

Ben was a fabulous tour guide. He told us what it was like when Obama was inaugurated (crazy).

This is front of my buddy Lincoln’s memorial.

And there’s my buddy.

All of this was walking distance from Ben’s place, which was perfect because we had just spent nine hours in the car (not really). So it was nice to stretch ze legs and take a stroll. We also looked at some war memorials and other cool stuff. There’s an outdoor skating rink in the sculpture garden and I was like, “THANKS FOR TELLING ME, BEN!”

They also had a steel tree, like the ones they had in Madison Square Park that I was in love with two summers ago.

This was my first time back to D.C. since the 8th grade and I’m pretty sure back then I was more interested in boys than whatever I was supposed to be looking at. It’s nice to be a grown up now and have friends who live all over the country who I can visit and get a real tour from. This weekend was great and we did a whole lot so welcome to City Mitten: D.C. edition. Of course I’ve got lots of restaurants to show you, we had some really good stuff. Hope everyone else had a good weekend, too! Happy Monday!