meridian pint

meridian pint
3400 11th St NW(between N Park Rd & N Monroe St) Washington, DC 20010
tel: 202) 588-1075
hours: sunday-thursday 5pm-2am, friday-saturday 5pm-3am

what was consumed: beer! fries with this gravy sauce thing, pulled beef short rib sandwich, buffalo wings.

housemate tyler told me about a new beer place opening up in columbia heights weeks ago. so exciting on a number of different levels: new eateries near home AND libations! hooray! a bunch of us finally got a chance to visit meridian pint, within a few weeks of their opening at that ... and i'm super duper happy that we did!

meridian pint has a street level dining area and a basement bar area (with 2 pool tables, a table shuffleboard/shufflepuck, some booths and tables, and a lot of standing room). christine, et al, got there first and saved a booth downstairs. as i head down the stairs, i was happy to be greeted by a nice chill in the air (yay a/c! especially on these hot hot hot DC days/nights). when i met the rest of the party, i was happy to see that we got one of the tables with beer taps right on the table (hooray!). what a great idea! more about this in a little bit ...

food: meridian pint has a series of dishes for whatever you're craving, anywhere from light appetizers and things to snack on all the way to full on entrees. this time around, i tasted the fries and buffalo wings. i love that the fries were served with this gravy sort of dipping sauce that was delicious! the buffalo wings were ok, but i prefer mine fried and without any sort of sauce (though, i guess, then they're not buffalo wings, but rather, just fried chicken - haha). i also didn't finish the wing i was eating because the meat started getting redder and redder the closer i got to the bone. i'm sure it was ok (and i felt ok afterwards), but i refrained from continuing. and, per usual, i wished they'd put more celery sticks on the plate. i didn't get a chance to taste the pulled beef short rib sandwich as i wasn't too hungry. but, quite a few people at the table ordered it and raved about it. that's a good sign, right? there was quite a pile of beef short rib in the sandwich on a nice sized kaiser roll. and that it's served with fries is always a plus! what should i have the next time i visit?

drinks: at meridian pint, you can order beers from your server or bartender (and they have quite a great selection of beers and a lot of liquor options as well) or you can pour your own pints straight from the table (and i hear you can reserve these tables, but that this is something new? shoot, the entire place is new). our table had sam adams and hennepin by ommegang (which i love). i hear that they are going to rotate the table taps - can't wait to see what they put in next! anyway, you pay based on the amount you drink, not necessarily per glass. having experienced bartenders at our table (i.e., christine) definitely helped with avoiding foam. friend jenny made a really good point - even if the beers on tap at your table are not your favorites, you can pour yourself a little glass as you wait for the server to bring you your preferred beverage. on top of that, because you can pour short glasses of beer, it's sort of a way to ensure that your beer will always be nice and cold - excellent! one thing to note: they have a pint maximum (i think it's 12 pints) as to cut people off from going overboard. this makes sense and i think is a pretty good idea (and we only ran into it because our party was so large, not necessarily because we drink a lot. or is it ...). the actual/real downside: it was hard to divide our bill as no one could remember how many pints of beer each consumed (especially as we started pouring partial pints) and we were all over the place with our ordering from the server. then again, we had a pretty big group (12 of us at one point!) and that added to the confusion. in the end, we figured it out ... i think. lucky for us, our group is a pretty generous group, so we were far from short when it came to closing our tab and tipping our server.

oh, meridian pint, welcome to the neighborhood! i'm glad you are here. i imagine you will see me again. and again. and again ...

online: www.meridianpint.com/