We kind of feel compelled to try the mac and cheese whenever we see it on the menu, if purely because of Patrick's bold and provocative statement:
And as the District -- which we generally found a lot better than what we had expected -- featured it as a side dish... Well, what choice did we have?
Here, sadly, something, somewhere went wrong. Granted, you can't really mess up mac and cheese that badly, and there were one or two things the District got right. The size, for example, was pretty spot on. Not too big, not too small. The bite of the macaroni wasn't awful either.
That's where it all stopped, however, and the flavor just kind of ended up killing the dish. Mainly because there was a complete lack of it. Flavor. None. Complete lack. Be it the cheddar on top, or whatever the white cheese mixed in with the noodles was, there was just nothing going on here.
In fact, the only thing saving the dish from complete blandness was the occasional jalapeño tossed in for good measure.
The District was for the most part a pleasant surprise. We had kind of expected the overall quality to be something like this mac and cheese. Should you happen to visit the spot, you probably just want to skip this dish. It'll make your day that much brighter.