Evening Star Cafe — Restaurant in Alexandria

The short version? Evening Star Cafe in Alexandria, VA is awesome and you need to eat here.

Evening Star has only about 20 tables, but they can accommodate larger groups by pushing tables together and, in a move I haven't before seen, by moving the track lighting above each table. It’s a small detail but a very smart one. Decor is simple, allowing the focus to remain on the food. Plain walls offset imaginative, 3D dioramas handcrafted from wood and tin that hang above each booth. Interesting, without being garish.

Several in my party ordered cocktails, which arrived quickly. I forewent my usual in favor of an Old Fashioned off the bar menu, and I'm glad I did. Every time I took a sip, the generous slice of orange zest tossed a refreshing ting of citrus into the mix. I tasted my companion’s Hendricks gin and tonic and found it similarly well balanced.

The Planet Wine store next door also has a pass through into the restaurant. This intelligent sharing of space allows Evening Star’s adult beverage list to be far more extensive than its small size might suggest. In addition, they have the best pass-through policy I’ve ever seen. My understanding is that any bottle of wine in the store can be had in the restaurant at the regular shelf price plus a nominal $10 corkage fee. That’s astonishingly cheap, Let Joe be your guide, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. He chose all our wine, and his selections were honestly better than what we might have chosen for ourselves. He started us off with a Bille Carte Salmon Brut Rose while we got settled and looked over the menu.

Small plates/appetizers? Oh, yes, please! My party of five passed around roasted carrots, yellowtail sashimi, parisian gnocchi, shrimp hushpuppies, garlic hummus, a garden beet salad, steak tartare and the standout (imho) the fried cauliflower. All were delicious, but fried cauliflower was the standout. I can describe it in a single word: Satisfying. It’s crunchy and dense, cooked through without being mushy or even what I’d call “tender” for a vegetable. The outside is crispy and spicy while the interior retains its texture. It eats much like a perfectly cooked piece of fried chicken, and I would recommend them to anyone who doesn’t think they could get by without meat. That said, tempting as it might be to slip these to children disguised as chicken tenders, these might be a bit spicy for young-uns. Or maybe that heat came from the dipping sauce? Regardless, order them for yourself. They’re da bomb.

Then, Joe whipped out a lovely, full-bodied red (2012 Crosarola Amarone della Valpolicella) and we got down to business. One friend ordered the duck confit which he reports was very good, and the other the NY strip steak. I dived into the less sophisticated end of the menu by ordering the bacon pimento burger, but don’t judge! A hamburger doesn’t have to be a sloppy, unsophisticated stand-by for children who don’t know better. I would have been completely satisfied, had my partner not carved off a lump of his strip steak and put it on my plate.

Oh, that steak. Oh. That. Steak! The instant I bit into it, all my salivary glands let loose at once and my eyes rolled back in my head. I feel somewhat guilty, like I’m failing as a Buddhist, because I still can’t stop thinking about that steak! I suppose I should say something about the healthy serving of maitake mushroom/shallot/chard trio that came along with the meat. I had a taste and thought they were very good, and then I put that steak in my face and lost all perspective.

At the end of our meal, Joe poured us a glass of Cocchi “Dopo Teatro” Vermouth Amaro which proved to be a very nice digestif. Vermouth is a wonderfully drinkable summer wine, and it’s a pity that most Americans think of it as nothing but the punch line to a vodka martini joke. I’m glad Joe introduced us to this one, and I guarantee I’ll be buying more of it.

When we’re in the area again we will make it a point to come back, and we hope that your experience is as good...

We've been there a few times years ago. Our most recent one of a few days ago was a disappointment. Our party ordered sottish salmon, tonnarelli with lump crab, chestnut soup and caeser salad. The food quality was generally good but nothing distinctive comparing to comparable restaurants' in DC area. The volume of the food was about 60% of the comparable restaurants'! The restaurant's menu sounds far more interesting than the food itself both in terms of quantity and quality. For example, my tonnarelli is supposed to have jumble lump crab meat, but I got none. What I got was a couple of tiny bits of crab meat with lots of fluff, such as capers and a pungent ingredient like garlic. You might as well call the tonnarelli as "pasta with crab meat flavor". The Scottish salmon was tiny and thin, about the size of a palm. A glass of wine is about a third of an average-sized wine glass.

The service was on the good side in terms of attentiveness. The greeting lady, the waiter, and the manager were welcoming. Attitude wise I give the service five star. The result wise I give three star. I never see a restaurant serving soup without a soup spoon! I was given a tiny tea spoon, which usually is used in stirring coffee in other restaurants. It took me a while to finish the soup, not a great feel in a cold day when soup gets cold fast.

When the bill came, there was a "kitchen appreciation fee" added to the bill. When we asked the waiter and the manager what it was. They told us it was an item from Covid era to show appreciation to the kitchen staff. We paid it but feel not fair for three reasons:

First, an item from Covid era to address a special condition is becoming a mandatory charge to customers to cover the restaurant's overhead expense. It looks like either the owner has not paid enough to the kitchen staff or used the good will in Covid era to boost its profit.

Second, if the restaurant really wants customers to show "appreciation" to the kitchen staff, it's only fair to make it a voluntary tip, like the tip line added to the waiter, rather than a mandatory charge.

Third, the kitchen charge is not disclosed on the menu or website. I do not view this practice as being honest. The manager said they were simply following a lot of restaurants' practice in DC area. I don't know how many are doing that as she claimed. Evening Star owns Vermillion in Old Town Alexandria, I guess that has the same practice. But I can tell Evening Star Cafe is the first restaurant I see that practice. In the recent months I've been to five restaurants that comparable to Evening Star in Alexandria including Old Town and Del Ray, and also been to two restaurants (comparable to Evening Star) in D.C. None of them charged kitchen fee. Their food portion is much more than Evening Star Cafe's.

The restaurant's ambience has changed from our previous experience. It used to be packed with people, a lively and funky atmosphere. We went there on a Thursday evening, expecting an average crowd. But the reality is the restaurant that night was more than two thirds empty! From where I can see, there were only six tables (including ours) occupied. It was dark and quiet, a bit sad.

In sum, Evening Star Cafe is a lousy value hiding behind a paper-interesting menu, accompanied with old memory from its bygone funky and vibrant era. By sacrificing the quality and quantity of food, the restaurant was able to maintain a seemingly mid-price range in its menu. After adjusting for the mandatory fee and reduced quantity and quality of food, along with inadequate serving utensils, Evening Star Cafe is in fact far more expensive than any of its competitors in the same price range/class in the area. On that note, if one looks for vibrant atmosphere, good food with fair price,...

My second time here and since I rarely provide reviews these days, I have to have a visceral reaction to my dining experience - either in a good way, or a bad way.

In this case, I had a bad experience.

The sad part is that it was avoidable. Here is the summary of my experience:

If I’m dining out in Del Ray or Old Town, I know that there are many options available for a great dining experience. The focus of my review will be my overall dining experience.

Looking at the menu, there were several appealing items. One of my favorites anywhere I go is a tomahawk cut of meat. I just love a well cooked tomahawk rib eye or pork chop. On the menu, I spotted a tomahawk pork chop. I looked at the photos on Yelp and it looked great and was well reviewed. For those of you reading this, there is one constant you can expect when you order a “tomahawk” cut of meat. It’s a LONG bone attached to the meat. A Tomahawk Pork Chop is for the meat lover. A long, bone-in chop – cut from the middle of the loin and down through the rib – it’s tender and packed with flavor.

When my plate showed up, guess what’s missing? The long bone. The bone makes it a tomahawk in the first place. I asked the waitress about it and she went off and came back and said “they told me this IS a tomahawk”. I said explained that minus the bone it’s just a pork chop - not a tomahawk. Another staff member circulated over and says “It is a tomahawk - I hope you like the taste of it at least”. The restaurant lost me there - it really aggravates me that two members of the staff ignored the issue I raised and basically told me I was wrong. What they should have done is offered to replace it and not make lame excuses. Instead they basically suggested that there were “alternative facts” about what a tomahawk pork chop is.

Regardless of how it tasted, this ruined my perception of this establishment, no matter what else happened during our dining experience.

I didn’t want a free or discounted meal - I wanted an acknowledgement of the issue and an offer to make it right - I got...