Washington, DC, is known for many things. For us, one of the most important (aside from visiting
the part of the family known as the Washington Bureau) is breakfast at Eastern Market. Just east of the US Capitol, in a residential neighborhood that’s been gentrified, Eastern Market is a smaller version of Soulard, with indoor stalls and some outside sellers who appear on weekends. The vendors are intriguing, with lots of seafood and some absolutely seductive sausages, enough to make vacationers without access to a kitchen grunt with dismay.
But they can console themselves with eating at Market Lunch, which, as we said, also does breakfast. In one corner of the building, underneath several large fans, eaters line up, especially on Saturdays, when they do their legendary fluffy pancakes. But even on weekdays, it’s worth a visit, especially since those are the days best suited for viewing working Washingtonians playing hooky, loosening their ties and settling down with the sports pages and a beautiful plate of breakfast like two sunny-side-up eggs with golden yolks, snowy grits, a generous curl of golden fried fish and one of the house-made rolls. The rolls serve as both breakfast bread and a base for sandwiches. Also on the menu is something pretty much nonexistent in St. Louis, scrapple, which can best be described as polenta with lots of pork sausage inside, sliced up and fried. It’s good stuff, worth investigating.
The routine is simple. Line up at one end of the counter. Order. Pay. Take a receipt. Walk to the other end (about 12 feet) and put the receipt into someone’s outstretched hand. She loads the plate, double-checks what she gives against the receipt, delivers with a smile. Add a drink and, perhaps, some syrup for the pancakes. Take the results outside in the sun, or join a long, high counter with stools on either side. Eat.
Although fat, juicy, perfectly spiced crab cakes are not on the official breakfast menu, Market Lunch does serve them at that hour. There’s not much better than a truly good crab cake with eggs for morning food, even without the brunchly blessing of hollandaise, a bit of lily-gilding not found here and not missed a whit, so good are the cakes. The eggs are handled deftly, as well, of course. For those who had need something sweet, French toast, with just a wee hit of cinnamon, is made from diagonal logs of French bread. Syrup is serve-yourself from a large commercial electric soup pot, a reminder on quiet mornings of what it’s like on Saturdays with the pancake hordes. No, we haven’t had the pancakes, but there are testimonies to their wonderfulness from various publications, local and national, plastered to walls and demi-partitions.
The Metro stop is Eastern Market. Closed Mondays, lunch only on Sundays.
Market Lunch
Eastern Market
225 7th St. at N. Carolina Ave., SE
Washington, DC
202-547-8444