Last week I finally tried out what's rumored to be a great but little known happy hour, and was not disappointed. Taberna del Alabardero, the venerable (and expensive) Spanish restaurant in downtown Washington, offers half price tapas and glasses of sangria for $3 (pitchers go for $12) every weeknight from 3 to 7 pm. Whether you are lucky enough to snag a table on the patio on a beautiful night or one in the small and elegant tapas bar, the food is good and you can't beat the prices. When full-price, items on the tapas menu range from $3 for a glass of gazpacho to $16.50 for Serrano ham and manchego cheese (which must be either a big platter or really high quality ingredients, one would hope), with most items in the $7 to $10 range. In addition to the items on the menu, small tapas are beautifully presented behind the counter -- so there's a lot to be said for parking on a bar stool. The bartender didn't charge us for the off-menu small bites -- I don't know if that's typical (and don't know what they would go for anyway, but presumably not much, as they are very small). Two of us had perfectly fried Serrano ham croquettes, smoky grilled chorizo marinated in red wine, tiny towers of ham and cheese on toast, an itsy-bitsy sculpture of thinly sliced tomato layered with something like cream cheese, a basket of bread, two glasses of sangria, and a bottle of sparkling water (which cost as much as the two glasses of sangria) -- all for $22 (pre-tip). Total. You'd be hard-pressed to get out of Cosi for that.
Taberna is on 18th Street between H and I, cattycorner from the 18th Street exit of the Farragut West metro stop. According to their website, free parking is available after 5:30 pm at the parking garage "right before the restaurant entrance." (Traffic runs north on 18th Street, so I assume the parking garage is closer to H than I.)
Taberna del Alabardero
1776 I Street, NW
(entrance on 18th between H and I)
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 429-2200
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