What’s a Laker to Eat (in Georgetown)?

Several spa members of a major Georgetown hotel confronted a common question from out-of-town guests around 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1. It posed a special problem.

The question: “Where is a good place to eat around here?”

The problem: The guests were a number of six-foot-five (or more, much more) Lakers — the real-live famous ones from Los Angeles – who are scheduled to play the Washington Wizards at 7 p.m. tonight, Feb. 2, at the Verizon Center.

The players had just flown in. They had worked out. It was only 5 p.m. for them. And they were hungry.

They wanted good food (plenty of it, obviously). And money was no object when even some of the first-year players make seven-figure salaries.

“We don’t advise them on how to spend their money, usually,” one coach said, shrugging.

Under ordinary circumstances, when guests ask where to go, Georgetown dwellers will direct them to the number of new and increasingly famous gourmet restaurants in the area — many listed in the just-released, first-time-ever Michelin Guide for Washington D.C. But, somehow, a restaurant serving liver mousse with Riesling-thyme gelée didn’t seem quite the right place to suggest to these young athletes.

How about Italian? Café Milano and Fiola Mare at the Georgetown waterfront are standouts. But they’re not exactly heaping-plates-full-of-spaghetti-bolognese places, though they do have lots of appetizers. Maybe not an Asian restaurant either, with largely vegetarian dishes and diced meats. Indian food seemed interesting to them: curries and rice and the like.

No decisions were made. But it looked like they were leaning towards a good slab of beef — or two or three — at a nearby gourmet steakhouse.

Gotta wonder if they ever fill up.