Who: Dano
Where: 1st and R NW—Bloomingdale
What: Grilled portobello salad, peach iced tea, DALE’S pale ale

The dream of the 90’s is alive in… WASHINGTON, DC??? What?!??! That’s not how it goes!!!! Where did all these people come from???

So after all that blabbing about the Dream of the 90’s and the wonders of Portland and how there’s no place on earth that still has that crazy combination of Kurt Cobain meets Brooklyn hipster meets ‘I just got finished hiking 12 miles straight uphill and now I’m ready for my soy latte and local craft IPA before I go river rafting wearing a mildly ironic but actually funny shirt’ we found a place that met its match—and embarrassingly it was only about 14 blocks (or 1.1 miles) away from the apartment: Big Bear Cafe. That’s a lot cheaper than a flight back to PDX.

A little enclave of Portland-esque paradise, Big Bear Cafe sits oddly tucked into the extreme end of an extreme NW neighborhood which, unless you lived exactly right there (or frequent the Bloomingdale Farmers Market), you would have only experienced from the window of your car while sitting in three hours of traffic on Florida Ave while attempting to leave the city for I-95. If you walk from my house, you get a lovely view of old, historic townhouses, kids playing on the street and people coming out of church. If you walk from the other direction, you might die. That is what is weird about DC—the only thing that separates a drive-by and a jumbo slice at 3am is a one-speed hipster bike paradise breakfast restaurant (and a random dude with a “Trust Me I’m A Ninja” tshirt).

But don’t worry, we can all take a deep breath because this is still Washington. You can Dream of the 90’s-it-up all you want, but let’s be honest, any free spirited, no rules Dream of the 90’s-er who lives in our nation’s capitol isn’t going anywhere without ample availability of wireless networks, outlets and interpretive modern art for the their assortment of Macbook Airs/Ipads/graphic design imaging software that allows for the capacity to do a freelance direct mail consulting gig and read a discounted corporate subscription to nytimes.com at any moment, day or night. Let’s be serious, we are not William Rehnquist over here—it’s 2011!!! The DC Dream of the 90’s uses twitter!  I mean, where do we think we are?? Portland or something??