We'd always talked about going to the massive Florida Ave Market (Actually the Capital City Market), but had always been overwhelmed by its size, complexity (think more crazy market than supermarket or even yuppie-filled farmers market). As part of Cultural Tourism DC's WalkingTown free walking tours this weekend, we found our solution.

Richard Layman, urban planner and activist, gave us a heartwarming, depressing, informative, and mouth-watering tour of the market area. It began as an offshoot of the freight unloading area that used to occupy the space around what is now the New York Ave metro stop, just north of Union Station. It remains
a popular wholesale outlet with limited direct retail storefronts; catering to a wide variety of international tastes for jaw-droppingly low prices. Richard's blog at http://capitalcitymarket.blogspot.com/ covers much more about the market, and follows the ongoing attempts to "redevelop" it (that's code for getting rid of it in most cases).

Regardless, if you need to buy lots of really low-cost meat and oils, or need a goat, or random hard-to-find Caribbean, Indian, various African, or Latin-American ingredients -- or, the true find, an amazing Italian deli -- then the
Florida market has you covered (for now). There's an amazing map of the area you can print, thanks to designer Christopher Taylor Edwards (after the jump)