Now when I come home for the holidays, I try to meet up with my friends in DC a bit more just to check out the scene. The food and drink scene has definitely come in to its own and while it's still not NYC to me, it's definitely stepped up over the years.
I met up with my friend Dan and Kevin after seeing Mean Girls the musical (which I would highly recommend - super fun and campy). We started at another bar with a few drinks and we were at the point that we needed to eat or be in real trouble. We went to Chaplin's which wasn't too far from where we were and unbeknownst to me, it turned out to actually be a ramen bar. It's got this dark funky decor to it and it was definitely not very Japanese, so if I were to pass it I wouldn't have guessed that they were serving Asian inspired food. The menu is pretty extensive here with a lot of appetizers but their main section is a variety of ramen dishes. We started with the chaplin buns ($9) and then I got the Stamina Spicy ramen ($14) since I had a bit of congestion going on and thought something spicy would help. I should note that if you come here before 7pm it's happy hour and they have 1/2 off wine and they have an AMAZING Cab Sauv from Silver Ghost in Napa Valley - it's usually $18 a glass but if you can get it for $9 a glass, do it and drink as many glasses as you can.
The buns came with braised pork, cucumber, lettuce, carrot, in a steamed white bao bun. I could have done without the cucumber and carrot part of it, but otherwise it was a standard but tasty pork bun. As for my ramen, it was indeed spicy AF. It came out pretty red looking and it tasted how it looked - it was definitely spicy and cleared out my nostrils but it didn't burn or hurt me like some other crazy spicy foods I've had. It had your sliced pork, scallions and poached egg as well as some ginger an garlic. I would have liked some bok choy or seaweed in it but I didn't feel like it warranted the extra $4 and making my ramen almost $20. To me, those are kind of basic ingredients that should be in any ramen dish.
The meal definitely hit the spot and helped with a congestion issue. Unlike my other Asian fusion experiences I didn't feel like this was a total fail but compared to true ramen places like Ippudo, it's still not quite up to snuff. But if I lived here I would definitely come at happy hour, order 2 or 3 glasses of the Ghost Silver Cag Sauv and maybe a less spicy ramen and feel fairly satisfied. Total bill: $44/pp with tax, tip and drinks
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