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it was hard to realize what a mess the world was in. There were three fine seafood restaurants we enjoyed.  I suppose [[underlined]]Hogate's[[/underlined]] was the best known. Also it was the swankiest and somehow swank and seafood don't seem to fit together too well. The two I preferred were [[underlined]]Naylor's[[/underlined]] and [[underlined]]Herzog's[[/underlined]]. Both of them were on the waterfront. At Herzog's you could dine on a balcony overlooking the water and I think that was my favorite. It was still four years before we were to take up boating in Erie but I felt the lure. The shrimp, crab, oysters, clams and lobster were superb, most of it fresh from the Eastern Shore. Steamed clams and deviled crab! What a meal! Perhaps I was prejudiced against Hogate's because it had been the scene in 1940 of my attempt to eat a meal with a strep throat and it nearly killed me, I flew home the next day and was home for several days. A few months later Dr. Delaney removed my tonsils. A super-swanky place was the [[underline]]Shoreham Hotel[[/underlined]]. This was where the top brass stayed in Washington. I never stayed there but participated in a dinner or so there. The most memorable meal was one at which Charlie Whitehead got super-mean drunk and I have faint recollection that someone very fortunately interfered with his hitting somebody with a beer bottle. It was quite a party; I think it's to be found in my diary. The [[underlined]]Balalaika[[/underlined]] was a Russian restaurant, so-called, but we concluded that most of the performers in the show hailed from Brooklyn. They had good food and drink and there was dancing to a small orchestra. If you wanted to appear to be living a little differently and maybe dangerously, you went to the Balalaika. I believe I took Henry Guy there one night and he danced long and enthusiastically with Frances Grace. A unique restaurant we went to occasionally was the [[underlined]]Del Rio[[/underlined]]. Its uniqueness stemmed from the fact it was in an old bank building and they even had the bank vault fixed up as an extra-special little drinking spot. The bank must have been a good one because the building was large and full of marble columns and walls, very impressive. There was a similar place across from the Shoreham Bldg. called the [[underlined]]821[[/underlined]] where I went to drink wine with Bob Van Zandt a couple of times. I presume these banks had been victims of the 1929 crash and its repercussions like the Second National in Erie, which also would have made a good night club. A couple of blocks from the Carlton and right across from the White House was an extremely genteel hotel called the [[underlined]]Hay-Adams[[/underlined]] where you could hole up for a quiet lunch or a private drink amid dark woodwork, luxurious furniture, oil paintings and exquisite taste--but not much fun. We didn't go there much. I'm not saying much about the [[underlined]]Carlton[[/underlined]] because I've already pretty well covered it. One note that I'll add is that the name of the elegant cocktail lounge off the lobby was Sher Zhad, which doesn't appeal to me as being quite up to the Carlton standard, the name, that is; the place was ultra-ultra. I've written about the [[underlined]]Dodge Hotel[[/underlined]] and I can't think of anything more about it that ought to be added here.