Ted Bulletin’s Excellent Adventure

I’m used to smaller spaces in DC. Small bathrooms, small bedrooms, small cafes, and small parking spaces. Imagine my surprise when we walked into Ted’s Bulletin in Columbia Heights last Saturday and we were greeted by a bakery to the left, a breakfast/full bar to the right, and then a backroom with a fairly large dining area? (My definition of large these days is still skewed, but if I can push a stroller through it without saying “Sorry, excuse me!” at least 3 times, it’s pretty big by DC standards.

I had seen Ted’s Bulletin in the Eastern Market neighborhood quite a few times and wanted to give it a try since a co-worker had mentioned they were family friendly. While looking it up, I saw that they had a U Street location. Sold!

We arrived at about 8:30 AM on a Saturday morning. While it was definitely hopping already with many of the tables, booths, and both bars almost full, we were able to get a seat right away. Little Man wasn’t in his stroller this time but I’m sure it would’ve been fine.

Likes: 

• The ambiance – Heavy on dark wood and yellow pleather. Pewter cream cups. It says fun and casual upscale all over.
• The breakfast bars – Sometimes, you eat alone. Sometimes you don’t need a table.
• Old school music in the background – Not obscure music but stuff we still remember the words to. Stuff that your grandmother can sing along to and you wont’ be afraid your kids will repeat during Show ‘n Tell.
• The bakery – Don’t feel like sitting in or waiting in the potential 2-hour lines? Just order your bakery to go!
• The open kitchen – I know this isn’t a favorite among friends that work in the culinary world but the cook side of me likes seeing the effort that goes into making my food. I like seeing the hustle and bustle of it all.
• Space! – Big ol’ booths and plenty of rooms between tables.
• The bulletins that showed the specials of the nights.

Meh…

• The pancakes, eggs, sausage and coffee are my standard affair. I don’t expect to be wowed by these. I generally order these because I like simple breakfasts and they’re hard to mess up. I did enjoy the fact that the sausages are hand formed, not pre-made patties or links.
• Next time, I’ll go for something a little more extravagant to see how things taste.

Dislikes: 

• The homemade pop tarts. They were dry! They weren’t 10x better than the kind you can buy in a box. As much as people had talked them up, I was expecting to want to have more than just one. For the record, we had the cherry cheesecake and blueberry pie.
• The men’s bathroom had one toilet. Yeah, I know it has nothing to do with the food but it did have something to do with the total experience. You have all that space and you couldn’t put in another toilet?
• The atrocious idea of mixing a 17-year old single-malt Scotch with anything other than a few drops of spring water. “Millionaire Malt,” I’m talking about you. Any bartender that receives this order should immediately stop what they’re doing, walk over to the customer, shake his/her head in disgust with hands on hip and then go back to making the malt with (Insert cheapest bottle of Scotch you can find).

The Takeaway: 

Space, ambiance, feel, relaxed, bakery. Carry the theme. Have a “signature” something.

Breakfast, the Most Important Meal of the Week.

I firmly believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But now, we’ve turned it into the family’s most important meal of the week. As part of this, we’ve embarked on a journey to explore of breakfast spots in DC. It serves two main purposes:

• Quality family time: During the week, Little Man wakes up around 7AM. We’re in the office by about 9AM. We’re home around 6PM (on days I don’t have BJJ practice) and Little Man’s back in bed by about 8PM. Factor in time for making and eating dinner, feedings, and getting dressed for the day, there’s really only about 2-3 hours tops each day that we get to hang out with Little Man. It’s even even less time that we get to spend with each other. A few weeks ago, we made a conscience decision to just spend more time with the three of us. Reason #1.
• Dreaming the dream: My family has owned a restaurant before. During my last years in high school and most of college, my parents owned a Vietnamese restaurant in St. Paul, MN that I dreaded going to (except, of course to eat). To this day, I still hesitate to make egg rolls because of the thousands of egg rolls I had to make whenever I wasn’t at a school event. Granted, I got it easier compared to my siblings because I was so involved in school activities, it was still scarring nonetheless. Regardless of all of this, we’ve had conversations about “what if” we owned something of our own? The conversation started with a bakery/coffee shop. Then it turned into a restaurant. How would it look like? What would the feel be? What about the clientele? What would we serve? The Saturday breakfast allows us to dream a little dream that someday may, or may not come to fruition. Reason #2.

So in the weeks to come, we’ll be adding more about the the restaurants we visit, what we like and what we’d want to incorporate into our “dream restaurant.” Happy Breakfast everyone! 

Jack Bauer’s got NOTHING on our last 24 hours!

5:00 AM – Little Man wakes up for a feeding.
8:00 AM – Up again, but this time we head out to Ted’s Bulletin for our weekly breakfast exploration.
11:00 AM – Little Man’s first hike at through Black Hills State Park in Maryland.
11:13 AM – Little Man’s first ride on a swing!
12:45 PM – Little Man’s first fishing trip! (Technically, I was casting the lures but hey, he was there with me.)
1:15 PM – Little Man’s first “nap” in a hammock with Mama.
4:04 PM – Little Man’s first car accident. No worries, everyone’s okay. No harm, no foul. Well, at least not to my car. Trailer hitches in DC are essential.
10:00 PM – Family Scrabble night. I got beat. Twice. Badly.
4:50 AM – Yes, AM, not PM. Little Man wakes up.
4:51 AM – We can hear knocking and pounding somewhere on the first floor.
4:52 AM – Brother knocks on the door and says in a voice reminiscent of the waterfall incident, “Come down quick! I think someone’s breaking into the shed!”
4:55 AM – I run outside in nothing but a pair of shorts to see what’s going on. I see a guy, underneath the deck just standing there. I tell the guy to stand still and don’t move. He listens.
4:56 AM – Police are called. Still standing there in shorts. Getting cold. Can hear Little Man crying from upstairs.
5:00 AM – Brother brings out sandals and a jacket.
5:19 AM – Call the police again.
5:20 AM – Police finally showed up. The guy is clearly intoxicated. They walk him off the property.
5:30 AM – Little Man finally goes back to sleep. So does Mama and Dad. Time to hit the reset button.