Porchetta District — Restaurant in Washington

Porchetta District has promise I think but, on my first visit, it didn't really deliver.

I got the basic porchetta sandwhich which had arugula, olive oil and porchetta. I would have rathered that it had broccoli rabe as the default bitter green, a la a philly style sandwhich, but the arugula was a good stand in and I really quite liked it. They did have another version for an upcharge that had broccoli rabe. The bread for the sandwiches -- which is ciabatta-like but not totally sure it's technically a ciabatta? -- was quite good. Thumbs up for that. Where they fell down, unfortunately, was with the porchetta. The flavor was there -- real strong on the rosemary which I liked -- but there were two main issues:

The fat was unpleasant - It goes without saying that porchetta is pretty fatty but I'd rather the fat melt as with well cooked pork belly rather than being hard and kind of unpalatable. Unfortunately, it was the latter.

Big chunks of meat - I guess this is just a stylistic thing but I'd also rather that the porchetta roll was sliced thinly (again, in the philly style) rather than being chunked. Unfortunately, this made the sandwhich a bit hard to eat and resulted in quite a number of the inedible hard fat chunks referenced above. Slicing thinly would probably also make the fattiness a bit more palatable in the event that it isn't quite at pork belly melt in your...

We stopped in here on an afternoon visit to Georgetown based on a ‘best sandwiches’ article from the Washington Post.

My dining partner and I split the Porco Banh Mi’sh sandwich. The pork was moist and well seasoned, if slightly salty for my taste. The flavors of the sandwich were excellent and the toasted ciabatta roll was a nice change from a crusty baguette.

I would not say this is the best sandwich I’ve ever had, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. We would probably return to try some of the other sandwich choices on a future visit to Georgetown.

The service...

My sandwich lover of a boyfriend dragged us to this place, and despite it being 100 degrees, I could not be happier. The porchetta was perfectly tender, and the bits of fat were delightful (think fatty cha siu). We ordered the Kunz Melt and Cubano. While the truffle in the spicy truffle aioli did not come through, the melt did not need it. Both were wonderful to eat, and we are looking forward to coming back whenever we’re in...