It seemed a bit silly to order the so-called American breakfast platter of eggs and grits at a venue promising more authentic Mexican fare, albeit stuff derived from local gringo and James Beard Award-winning chef Ann Cashion. So I went with the breakfast tacos: a double layer of white corn tortillas, spread with a thin goo of melted cheese, topped with softly scrambled egg and, at my request (and additional charge), piled high with crumbled chorizo. The bits of spicy sausage are so abundant that they’re prone to tumble all over your table and lap, if you don’t cradle your taco with enough care.

For an added kick, sauce it up with one of three available salsas available at the pumps, ranging from medium to medium-hot. (It seems Cashion’s peeps aren’t much on extremes, at least when it comes to the condiments.) The traditional huevos rancheros are also a viable option, though, in my experience, the ample supply of refried beans and cheesy eggs provided on the platter far outweighed the modest tortilla allowance. Sólo dos?

Ay dios mio! A small selection of Mexican-style pastries is also available. My repeated requests for a little horchata were disappointingly declined. “Not ready yet,” the cashier kept saying. Even an hour later my thirst for milky cinnamon refreshment went unquenched. Thankfully, the fresh pineapple juice, served slightly sweet but not too sugary, proved a suitable alternative. ¡Salud!

Taqueria Nacional, 400 North Capitol St. NW, (202) 737-7070

Allow me to offer a disclaimer before I start: You can trust my picks for the District's best shopping districts as much as you can trust Bernie Madoff's financial advice. Through years of selective focus, I can walk through any neighborhood and ignore all manner of shoe shops, clothing stores, and perfumeries, my mind singularly focused on the latest eatery to open its doors.

As such, you'll have to cut me some friggin' slack if I missed one of your favorite shopping meccas. This ain't my area of expertise. So, with that in mind, here are the best neighborhoods to mix shopping and eating on Black Friday, the day that I personally plan to stay at home, far from the marauding hordes armed with their razor-sharp plastic cards.

• Dupont Circle: I've heard you can buy good shit around here. I know you can eat well, although that hasn't always been the case. I think some recent additions have significantly improved the dining in Dupont, particularly in the fast-casual area, which will probably capture most of the shoppers on Black Friday. You can't go wrong (well, you can, but not usually) at BGR: The Burger Joint, Panas Gourmet, Sweetgreen, Nando's Peri-Peri, and even Pizzeria Paradiso (if the place is on its game that day.) For more upscale options, you have the exquisite Obelisk and the newcomer Eola.
• Georgetown: With a few exceptions — Citronelle, La Chaumiere, and Leopold's Kafe + Konditorei — I've long considered Georgetown a wasteland of food options, a tourist destination where many eateries are content to slide by on mediocre fare. The neighborhood has improved of late. I like the big juicy patties at Thunder Burger & Bar (and the craft beer selection). I admire the Neapolitan pies at Il Canale, and I know I can always get some decent sweets at Georgetown Cupcake and Baked & Wired. And if all else fails, I can just slip into my favorite little bistro in the area.
• U Street Corridor/14th Street Strip/Logan Circle: OK, granted, this is really several neighborhoods clumped together, but what the hell. It's the holidays. I'm feeling generous. The dining options in this area have exploded. The hard part is not finding a decent place to eat, but deciding which one to pick. There's Masa 14, Teak Wood, Bar Pilar, Oohhs & Aahhs, Cork Wine Bar, Great Wall-Szechuan House, Little Ethiopia, JJ's Cheesesteaks, and, of course, the mother of all beer emporiums, Birch & Barley/ChurchKey. I know where I'll be shopping this holiday season.
• Capitol Hill/Barracks Row: I've heard this is a good shopping area, but I have my doubts. I do know that you can get quality bites in the neighborhood. You, of course, have Spike Mendelsohn's fast-food two-fer, Good Stuff Eatery and We, the Pizza. Come to think of it, casual dining (some more refined than others, obviously) rules in this neighborhood. You have Matchbox, Ted's Bulletin, DC-3, Zest Bistro, Montmartre, Ba Bay, Market Lunch, Taqueria Nacional, and Tunnicliff's Tavern. If you want to take a few steps up the gastronomic ladder, you can always hit a pair of restaurants run by two of the District's most notable chefs: Johnny's Half Shell under Ann Cashion and Bistro Bis under Jeffrey Buben.

Good luck with your shopping on Friday, and please, someone, let me know when it's over.

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s

I absolutely refuse to feel ashamed that D.C.’s best taqueria is run by a Harvard-grad gringa with a James Beard Award to her credit. Hell, if that were the case, I’d also have to feel bad that one of the District’s best hamburgers is produced by a Frenchman (Michel Richard at Central). The truth is, Ann Cashion is a student of la cocina mexicana, and her tiny takeout behind Johnny’s Half Shell proves she has deep respect for a cuisine too often bastardized for an easy buck. (You listening, you Salvadoran-Mexican joints?) I’m still trying to figure out how her corn tortillas taste so fresh when they’re not even made in house.

Taqueria Nacional, 400 N. Capitol St. NW, (202) 737-7070

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Because Y&H has developed a warm, personal relationship with Joe Englert, Mr. Fatlas, I mean Mr. Atlas, District invited me to a sneak-preview of the long, long, long-awaited H Street Country Club on Sunday night, and I have just one thing to say: You'll never get a tee time.

This place is going to have longer lines than Ben's Chili Bowl during the inauguration. Everyone will want to putt-putt their ball between the bloated legs of a D.C. parking meter-reader who's exposing just a little too much butt crack. Or across the Reflecting Pool and up the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial. Or between the decomposing bodies of several dead presidents. Or around a multi-car pileup on the Beltway. Or....oh, hell, you get the point. This is miniature golf as imagined by the Coen Brothers.

Come to think of it, some people might even visit H Street just to sample the Tex-Mex menu designed by Ann Cashion, founder of Taqueria Nacional. Well, maybe.

Despite my utter delight at the playfulness of H Street Country Club — and its willingness to tweak D.C. and its institutions, including the never-say-die Marion Barry — I still think the place is going to have issues. Congestion being one of them. I can foresee several spots on the upstairs playground where customers will be bumping into each other with regularity — or even poking plate runners in the face with their putters. I also think Englert better have a budget to fix those K Street lawyers on Hole No. 3 and those dead presidents on Hole No. 5 who are bound to take a severe beating from indoor duffers.

I relayed some of my thoughts to Englert during a phone call today. He was touched by my concern. He also dismissed them all out of hand, including the notion that anyone could destroy the statuary designed by artist Lee T. Wheeler, who apparently built his sculptures out of the same substance that the auto industry uses to make cars.

That subject put to rest — at least for Englert — I raised the issue of a certain gargoyle hovering over Wheeler's links-oriented version of the Washington National Cathedral. It resembles a certain nightlife mogul, but with devil horns protruding from his noggin.

"It's a recurring joke," Englert tells Y&H. Wheeler "puts some [demonic] caricature of me in all the bars I own."

So there you have it. It seems that you can now play the Joe Englert version of Where's Waldo? in every watering hole that the mogul owns. Let's begin compiling the list of demonic Englerts now, starting with this one:

More pics from H Street Country Club:

The disappointments were stacking up yesterday morning by the time I took my huevos rancheros back to the car. For reasons I couldn't explain, I wanted a plate of warm, airy beignets dusted with powdered sugar. Maybe all the talk of Mardi Gras had made me miss New Orleans. I don't know. Whatever the reason, I knew I could get them at Johnny's Half Shell. What I didn't know is that I could get them only til 9:30. I was a good 30 minutes late.

So I ducked behind the Half Shell and ordered a to-go box of huevos rancheros from Taqueria Nacional.

When I got to the car, I opened the container and stared at its contents, disappointment dripping from every pore: a puddle of refried beans on one side, and a pile of scrambled eggs on the other. A handful of shredded cheese had been sprinkled over a fraction of the eggs, while the salsa was buried somewhere underneath the cooked yellow curds. If I couldn't have a taste of Crescent City, I at least wanted a greasy plate of Tex-Mex, not this polite arrangement of ingredients for the Capitol Hill gang.

Then I took a bite of the refried beans. Sweet Jesus, they tasted as if they were prepared in a third-generation cast iron skillet seasoned with the lard of 10,000 pigs. Rich only begins to describe the flavor of these earthy legumes mashed to a velvety consistency.  The beans tasted deeper than anything a mere mortal could make; they tasted like earth and animal melted together into some primal flavor. On my deathbed, I want a plate of Ann Cashion's refried beans.

Those beans served as the base for the breakfast tacos I put together with the pair of soft tortillas tucked into the container. The eggs were fluffy and fine, and the salsa piquant enough, but those refried beans gave each bite of taco a depth that it would otherwise never have. This wasn't huevos rancheros, at least not the kind I remember, but I didn't care anymore. I had my stash of beans to comfort me.