Off the 18th St. strip in Adams Morgan is a bar that we’re a little hesitant to tell you about. You see, this is Adams Morgan — a neighborhood full of people with big beads or popped collars, descending on weekends like a plague of locusts, ending their nights by scarfing down jumbo slices at 3 A.M. Five years ago? Maybe. Nowadays, we’re curmudgeons.

One of the exceptions to our general dislike of Adams Morgan bars is Pharaoh’s Rock’n’Blues, near Comet Liquors on Columbia Road. As the Going Out Gurus note, the decor at the bar is pretty dormtastic, with no real Egyptian theme despite the bar’s name. With two levels, the bar is slightly smaller than Ghana Café but never as crowded; on the Saturdays we visited the bar we were able to find seats very easily — often after 10 or 10:30, unimaginable at most of the 18th St. bars. Prices were also fair, hovering between $4-6 depending on your choice of beer. We were hoping to have an Egyptian style option, but the beer selections were the strictly standard Bud Light to Heineken range, without any Pyramid brews in sight. No matter; the availability of seats, some with various board games as distractions, was attractive enough to win us over.

Stay at Pharaoh’s past 10 on weekend nights and you’ll hear the owner and his band rock out with sounds originating not from the Nile but the Mississippi River delta. There’s no cover to enjoy the bluesy rock, and it serves as good background — though if you’re on the lower level it makes conversation a little difficult. Still, that’s a small quibble for a bar that’s an oasis in the middle of the overcrowded expanse of the Adams Morgan bar scene.

Pharaoh’s Rock’n’Blues
1817 Columbia Road NW
Metro: Hike from the Woodley Park Station, or take the 90/92/93/96 to the intersection of Columbia Rd. and 18th St. NW.