I like to check out city markets when traveling, and in Washington, DC the Eastern Market on Capitol Hill can be a fun and yummy stop, especially on a Saturday morning in the fall.  It’s one of the few public market buildings left in the city, and as far as I know, it’s the only one that’s still operating as a market.

The building itself is a National Historic Landmark, dating to 1873, and is filled with vendors selling fresh meat and poultry, fish and seafood, cheeses and other dairy products, eggs, baked goods, deli foods, and fresh pasta.  When we stopped in on Saturday, we saw so many kinds of ravioli that we never imagined existed, including one kind that was stuffed with butternut squash, cheese, and apples!  They also had chocolate and cream raviolis … mmmmm!!  In the bakery case the Napoleons looked especially delicious, and there were tempting cookies and other kinds of pastries.  Buy some fixings for a picnic or just pick up some food at the Market Lunch, known for its crab cakes and blueberry pancakes.

The market sprawls outside the building onto the sidewalk with produce and fresh flower stalls on the long side fronting Seventh Street and arts and crafts stalls on the North Carolina Avenue end.  This weekend’s produce feature seemed to be every kind of apple imaginable with samples available for tasting before you buy, and folks were choosing their pumpkins and gourds for seasonal decorating.  Maybe you’re not hungry (although I warn you, it’s hard to walk by all that food without buying something!) … so wander among the arts and crafts stalls instead.  There’s jewelry, framed and unframed photographs, clothing, pottery, ethnic craft items, decorative switch plates, and more.  This time around I bought a matted photo of the Capitol with tulips in the foreground, a Christmas ornament egg painted with a snowy scene of the Capitol (this was from a stall operated by a Russian woman), and two switch plates, a floral one and one with a music theme.

Eastern Market isn’t hard to reach - in fact, it even has its own Metro stop!  It’s on the Blue and Orange lines … just get off at the Eastern Market station and walk north for a block or so to Eastern Market.  If you drive there, follow Pennsylvania Avenue southeast beyond the Capitol and turn left at the traffic light on Seventh Street.  Go straight ahead for a block, and you can’t miss the market on the left side of the street.  The market has limited parking facilities on C Street so your best option may be to look for space on the streets in the area.  The South Hall (main building) is open Tuesday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.  The arts and crafts market is only open on Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information on the market in general:  http://www.easternmarketdc.com/
For information on the arts and crafts folks:  http://www.easternmarket.net/

If it’s lunchtime and you don’t want to picnic or you’d rather have a sit-down lunch, head straight across Seventh Street to Tunnicliff’s, a Washington, DC institution.  It’s a bar/restaurant with a menu concentrating on American cooking, and on Saturdays there’s lunch/brunch with various omelets featured as well as sandwiches and salads.  In good weather you can sit outside, and there’s a seated bar in the front half of the building and regular tables in the back.  Lunch entrees range between $7 - $15 or so.  The service is friendly and prompt, and the food is good, if not fancy.  Our group ordered an omelet with mashed potatoes and cheese, a grilled chicken sandwich with fries, pancakes and bacon, and scrambled eggs with home fries and ham, all of which were tasty and filling, and the wheat toast with the breakfasty entrees was especially good.  Tunnicliff’s is definitely a local hangout, and on Saturday there was a football game on the TV and the bar was filled with people watching it.  It was a bit noisy in the dining area but not so much that we couldn’t easily carry on a conversation and visit with each other.  If you’re in the area, check it out!