First Look - Hudson

There are a lot of places that have pre-theatre menus, but not a lot of obvious places to venture after a nice evening at the opera at the Kennedy Center.

First off, I'd like to thank Evan for taking myself and "the family" to see Don Viovanni at the Kennedy Center. I've got to admit, I'm horribly uncultured (unless yogurt counts) and know almost nothing about the opera, but I only fell asleep a couple of times, which is a minor victory for me.

So after the final curtain, the question of where to go next appeared. Wanting to stay somewhere close, I suggested that we give Hudson a shot.

Arriving around 11:30 or so we were able to get a table for seven pretty easily. The place wasn't dead, but there was plenty of places for us to sit.

As soon as you walk into Hudson, you're very aware that suddenly you're not hip enough to be there. That's not exactly a bad thing, in fact, if that's what you're going for, that's a good thing, but don't go in expecting to find a little place to have a quiet little meal, this place is cool, and it knows it.

We decided to get some food and a few drinks, so I got a good look at the wine list and the late night menu.

I really like the late night menu - which has an Evan Tucker approved matzah ball soup (they need to put that on a sticker and plop that on the menu), a solid looking burger (yet another in the line of big money burgers), a variety of pizzas, mussels and fries.

I ordered the fries, which were thin cut and quite nice - coming with mayo, mustard and ketchup all in little containers.

The wine list was quite extensive, with some very afforable glasses and bottles. The glasses are actually glasses and a half, coming in a larger mini bottle (for lack of a better description) that's then poured into the glass sitting on the table.

The size of the wine list stands in stark contrast to a lacking beer selection, which our server really wasn't incredibly familiar with. I think this also is a larger reflection of the overall vision of Hudson to be more of a "lounge" than a "bar".

Speaking of the service, it was a little off, but not bad in general. Wine and food came out at a decent pace, but our server, once asked to come back to one of my friends after he didn't know what he wanted to drink, completely forgot about him. He made up for it though with some free fries.

I've got to say, I really liked Hudson. It's not the kind of place I'd go every weekend; but next time I feel like pulling out all of the stops and don't have a reservation at PX, I'll be in the West End - I'll be at Hudson.