Recs. for restaurant near Kennedy Center

I'm taking my 13-year old daughter to the Kennedy Center on a Friday night and need some recommendations for a casual, yet nice restaurant. She likes Italian, Mexican, American, Chinese. We're taking the metro so something between the Foggy Bottom station and the Kennedy Center would be great.

Sometimes before the Kennedy Center we hit Luigi's on 18th or 19th near L. It's not too far, has a large and varied menu, and a fun, old-school Italian atmosphere.

For fancy French-Belgian, see my post about Marcel's. Probably not sufficiently casual though.

I haen't had Luigi's pizza in 30 years. But then it was great, or at least it was great for D. C. What is it like today?

There's Kinkead's (seafood) and Bertucci's (chain) at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave, about 3 blocks from Foggy Bottom, away from the metro stop and Kennedy Center (eastbound).

We had lunch at Jeffrey's in the Watergate Hotel (now the Swiss Hotel) over the holidays. We thought it was quite good and that the service was quite professional. (Early reviews were very negative on the service.) A good friend reports that dinner is good, too. I think (but am not certain) that they're participating in Restaurant Week, which begins today (3 course dinner for $30.01 - be sure to get the oysters if you can)! (An alternative that is even closer to the Kennedy Center would be Dominique's. We had dinner there several months ago and thought it was OK, but not great.)

Don't know anything about them, but I do know that there are restaurants AT the Kennedy Center. One is a more formal type dining, the other is more heavy appetizers and drinks.

Link: http://www.kennedy-center.org/visitor...