Cafe Deli

This is a take out place. Don’t go there for service, don’t go there to see awesome décor. You go there to put decent food, for a good price, fast into your gut…
That’s it boys and girls I’ve eaten here TONS of times. For 5 bucks or so, I’d get a huge take out try of chicken and rice. With tons of a flavor, and all the extra fish sauce I could ever want. The guy who worked there time and time for the 5 or so years that I ate at this joint was Leo. 4 foot nothing of a Viet dude, lots of tats, and played a mean guitar. He always knew me by name, treated me way cool. He was there with sage advice when my my fiancée of almost two years up and left me for another guy. I think he was more angry that he wouldn’t be cater my wedding for free like he offered.
Yes there’s no plates, its take out. Its small, low budge, okay quality food, that’s made when you order it. The place does TONS of business take out during the day. Leo feeds a ton of homeless people at the end of the night.
4.5 stars in my book for what a quality, All-​American eatery should be… affordable, truthful, and something that makes me want to come back to it for reasons beside just the décor.

No clue how I ended up here, but it was a huge mistake. I guess I just got excited when I saw «tofu lemongrass curry» on the menu for only $ 5.50.
The price is good, if all I’d wanted was quite literally tofu (which tasted nothing like lemongrass or curry, I might add) and rice, but I was hoping for some veggies or something, which I had to pay extra for. Lame.
They also serve all of their food, even when you state that you will be eating there, in styrofoam boxes. Not okay! Can I get a plate please? And all condiments (soy sauce, etc) come in those little plastic packets. I just felt so wasteful about the amount of trash our small meal must have generated.
This place doesn’t have many redeeming qualities, so I’d recommend you walk right past!

I really, really like underdog restaurants that look like they were opened with exactly zero capital. There’s a buttload of restaurants within three blocks of Café Deli (now that I think about it, maybe I should deduct another star for the lame name???), but most of them are pretty slick operations. Fancy printed menus without typos. Advertising. Articles in Washingtonian magazine. You know, high-​rent stuff.
Café Deli? Definitely not high-​rent stuff. It’s small and a little bit rough around the edges. It’s also dirt-​cheap. I think we paid $ 13 (including tax) for two meals and a large can of young coconut juice. Can’t beat that… it’s cheaper than, say, burritos at either of the lame chains on 7^th street.
Was the food amazing? No, not really. But it was pretty damned good. I had a big bowl of vegetarian noodle soup, loaded with fresh veggies. The broth was a little bit sweet for my taste, but it was still solid. My companion ate an ugly plate of lemongrass chicken, which tasted far better than it looked. Three stars for the food quality, but a bonus star for the price and the opportunity to patronize a genuine hole-​in-​the-​wall underdog.

Kudos on the walls on this hole aside, I am not interested in going back. The sign says that they serve Vietnamese and Thai. Okay, they have good portions but the chicken (I think that was what it was), looked ghastly and straight off a rubber chicken. Supposedly it was green curry chicken… There was lots of it but without a good sauce to cover it, I couldn’t even pretend that it was yummy cat-​meat… blech.
Too bad really because this place has a great location and outdoor seating. But they must have something people like because the cops keeping coming back.