Just east of Downtown, Chinatown is an historic ethnic neighborhood that today is more well-known as home to the Verizon Center and a plethora of associated shopping and eating.

If Washington were New York, Chinatown would be its Times Square. Once a gritty ethnic neighborhood, since the construction of the Verizon Center Chinatown has increasingly become the city's most prominent chain-dominated retail and nightlife experience. It's the place where suburbanites come when they want to experience "the city" without leaving the comfortable confines of Fuddruckers or McDonalds. Although there is a trace of genuine Chinese culture left on the fringes of the neighborhood, most of Chinatown's "exoticness" runs only surface deep - the City of Washington's sign ordinance requires all those Chinese glyphs. It is, in short, a fun but not exactly "real" place.