As part of yesterday’s Sex and the City Paper experiment, Y&H got the privilege of eating in front of naked women. I had lunch at Camelot Show Bar and, at the urging of a certain restaurateur known to date strippers, I ate dinner at the innocuous-sounding Crystal City Restaurant.

My stomach is fine this morning. My conscience is still a little bruised.

You can read about my adventures in strip-club cuisine in four easy installments below. But one final note before you do.

Read More “Strip Club Food: Not as Nasty as You’d Think” »

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

When the discussion turns to ethnic eats in the D.C. area, Caribbean and/or Jamaican cuisine often gets the shaft. It’s always Ethiopian this, Vietnamese that. The fact is, the District and surrounding areas are crawling with quality Caribbean joints, whether Caribbean Palace, the outstanding Trinidadian takeout in Takoma Park, or the Junction International Market and Jerk Center in Chillum. The sole reason to step foot into Junction is for its jerk chicken; your Styrofoam clamshell comes stuffed with grilled, gorgeously charred bird parts drizzled with the darkest, pepper-flecked sauce you’ll ever lay eyes on. The sauce’s sweetness is, in part, derived from caramel, which helps defuse the fowl’s search-and-destroy level of heat. This is jerk chicken for those who want more than a cosmic burn.

 Junction International Market and Jerk Center. 900 Chillum Road, Chillum, (301) 853-0193

This past Saturday, I stopped by the Advance Auto Parts store on New Hampshire Avenue, near the D.C. border, to purchase a new headlight for the old Global Warming Machine. I asked the clerk if there were any good places to eat in the area, and he directed me to the Junction International Market & Jerk Center in Chillum, about a mile away, where he said they make a killer curried chicken and oxtail stew.

But when I arrived at the Jamaican-theme carry-out at 900 Chillum Road, I asked the guy at the counter whether they bake or grill their jerk chicken. When he said the latter, I knew I had to try the dish, since so many other joints bake their jerked birds (Young & Hungry, “Jerked Around,” 7/7/06). I ordered a quarter bird with rice and beans, a beef patty, and coco bread. When I flipped open the Styrofoam clamshell that concealed my chicken, I discovered a gorgeous collection of grilled parts drizzled with the darkest, pepper-flecked sauce I’d ever seen.

They tasted even better than they looked. Some of the thicker breast pieces were slightly dry, but the wings and thighs were moist, charred, sweet, and hot enough to keep me reaching for my bottle of ginger beer. It was the sweetness that sealed the deal for me; it balanced out the distinguishing characteristic of jerk chicken—its flame-throwing heat—and provided a depth of flavor typically missing from such many one-dimensional dishes.

I asked the counter man what the source of the sweetness was. I wondered aloud if it were molasses, given the color of the sauce. Naturally enough, he wasn’t so forthcoming with details; he did confess to the addition of brown sugar, which satisfied me for the moment. But as I was walking out of Junction International Market, I noticed a small bottle of “browning sauce” on the shelves next to the Jamaican breads. The liquid was as dark as the tip of a burned match. I read the label and noticed that browning sauce is made with caramel.

As I left Junction, completely content with my new go-to place for jerk chicken, I asked the counter man if the sauce included browning. Bingo!