Oh right. This is sooo original. Reviewing Ben's Chili Bowl are you Jason? Well, yes. I am.

So Amy and I went to the Carbon Leaf concert Saturday night.  Carbon Leaf was completely inspiring and sounded better than ever. You can read more about the concert on Amy's site .  Now on to the FOOD!

Prior to the concert, where we drank a whole bottle of wine that our friends had given us. The fact that the wine bottle is in the trash is no indication to how good the wine was. Rather it is an indicator of how incredible the whole night was. After finishing the wine at about 9PM we left for the concert. We probably had about 2 beers each there and we were surprisingly sober thoughout the whole concert (I remember every detail).

Afterwards the concert, I had a craving for some cheese fries. Believe it or not, I've lived in DC for three years and never eaten at Ben's Chili Bowl. I'd always heard from other people that it was overrated. Boy  were they wrong! It was around 2:30AM when the concert ended. On the way there Amy asked, "Do you think they are still open?" I replied, "Of course they are! These guys are THE institution of drunken, comfort munchies." I was trying to sound like the expert, but in reality I didn't have a clue. I was praying they were open because I was STARVING!! When we arrived, of course they were open AND there was a line. It was not too long, but there still was a line. Coincidentally, we recognized the guy in front of us. He was this complete TOOL that pushed his way through us to get closer to the stage. It's a long story, but at the concert he was with a girl and now he was alone. What a shame. :)

Unsure of what to order, we just went with a large chili and cheese fries. After we ordered we went over and sat at the counter and they brought the food to us shortly thereafter. The styrofoam plates and plastic forks were perfect. All I can say is that I could have eaten three helpings of the cheese fries. We dumped a bunch of chili on the cheese fries and dug in. About 5 minutes later when we have finished up the fries and chili, we were ready to order more, but something told us that we would regret the next morning. We decided to hold off.

On the way out there was this cranky woman that as we walked by yelled, "DON'T TOUCH ME. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T TOUCH ME!!" We happily obliged.

Overall I wouldn't have expected anything else from Ben's Chili Bowl. It was the ultimate DC "Foodie" experience. I'll be going back again, that's for sure.

Ben's Chili Bowl
1213 U Street, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20009
(202) 667-0909
Map

Dress Code: hehe, what do you think?
Hours: 
Mon-Thu 6 AM-2 AM
Fri-Sat 6 AM-4 AM
Sun 12-8 PM