Washington has the largest Ethiopian community in the United States, and its Ethiopian restaurants — concentrated around Shaw and further out in Silver Spring — are the city’s most distinctive food. Injera, tibs, and shared platters eaten by hand.
The half-smoke is the local dish proper: a coarse, half-pork half-beef smoked sausage, split and grilled, served with chili and onions. Ben’s Chili Bowl made it famous but it predates the fame.
The embassy population and a steady flow of international arrivals have made the wider restaurant scene unusually global for a city of this size. Union Market and the 14th Street corridor are the current centres of gravity; the Maryland and Virginia suburbs hold much of the best Vietnamese, Salvadoran and Korean cooking.