Whiskey & Oyster — Restaurant in Alexandria

I visited this past Sunday, 3/16. It was very quiet, even with the employees. They don’t really greet you. Me and another lady were waiting and an employee came by, said “Hi” and walked away. The young lady who I found out was the hostess, walked up and greeted me. I told her I wanted a booth, but none were clean so she had to buss my table herself. Which she said she wiped off but I had to ask for it to be wiped again, TWICE. This caused the other patron to have to wait a while longer to be seated. Once seated the hostess let me know Kendra would be serving me. While Kendra was very nice, service was extremely slow, they looked to only have one server taking care of, from what I could see, 5 tables inside and an unknown number of tables outside. I had been seated about 10 minutes before she came to our “section” and checked out the table across from me. Granted she acknowledged me and said she would be right with me, it was approximately another 18 minutes before a different young lady asked if I ordered yet, which I hadn’t, so I ordered with her. I will mention that at around the 14 minute mark, Kendra did come tell me she was so sorry and that she would be there shortly.

Another thing I noticed was that upon my arrival the front door facing booth had not been cleaned, and remained unclean for 16 minutes after I had been seated. So, for almost 30 minutes.

They also didn’t have many of the raw oysters listed on their menu. But they had other options not listed on the paper menu. I also wanted fries, but they warned me that they may not have those either (they didn’t). I initially ordered 2 Blue Point oysters, Grilled Oysters with Chimichurri, and Lemon Pepper Asparagus.

My Blue Points were brought out first, by Kendra, who again apologized for the wait. So delicious that I had to double back for three more. The asparagus needed a bit more seasoning, I tasted no lemon or pepper. And the chimichurri on the oysters was underwhelming, but adding a bit of Tabasco sauce to both did them justice. I literally inhaled it. I did realize that after the fact, the bottom of the chimichurri oyster plate was covered in salt. So I probably could’ve used that to give it more flavor. And lastly for my drink, I ordered an Old Cuban. It...

Unfortunately the only thing we appreciated was our waiter’s honesty about the need for us to finish, because everyone else was basically looking to go home because it was NYE. My partner and I thought the late dinner we selected would have brought us into the celebratory hour to ring in the New Year. We also understood that after being told we were not going to be able to bring the new year in at the restaurant because they were to close about 11ish, mind you our dinner reservations was for 10:45pm which I made over the phone after asking if I could get the last reservation. but wished we were warned that it would have been better if we had made earlier reservations. The food was less than to be desired. It came in a rush fashioned, with one of the dishes tasting overly salty. It was explained to us after having to return it, that the dish was cooked in anchovies and additional anchovies scattered on top. We were not able to substitute anything, to avoid having pork in the dish, so my partner took the dish, but avoided the swine part. The crab soup was soupy, but I didn’t see any chunks or pieces of crab and a creamy mess, I brought it to another waiter’s attention, and she did say it would taste better with bread, so I asked for a plain piece of bread. She asked if I wanted it toasted, and I responded yes. That bread and the first glass of wine that came with that meal were the only great tasting part of this so called Chef’s 5 course meal designed for the New Years Eve night. The last part of this meal being some sort of cheese board before cake dessert which we took to go, for the rush need to leave so the workers could leave.

We actually made it to our garage to bring in the midnight New Year in… bummer.

When we walked into our place, and looked at the packed up cheese board to go, we felt it did not look good, but my partner tasted it, but I would not, the items in this plastic to go container, did not appear edible, and honestly seemed like we were served the last portions of the pre prepared meals. Had we known it was better to come earlier, we would have. The Big Bang of this meal was the almost $300 dollar tab, that was NOT worth it. We wished we had gone with the...

A last minute change of plans had me in Washington for NYE. I’m a huge seafood and whiskey fan and this was close to my hotel so seamed like a no brainer. Unfortunately I wish I just grabbed whiskey here and ate elsewhere. The NYE chefs tasting menu or oysters were the only thing on offer for NYE.

I started with the octopus which came out overcooked and gummy the plate contents were lukewarm and chorizo burnt. Second was the she-crab soup which had a lovely flavour, albeit very thin. Which was also served lukewarm but did have some nice crab chunks within. The kale citrus salad was probably the standout from these offerings, which is really saying something since it wasn’t cooked! The dressing was well balanced. My main was the crab stuffed lobster tail. Where the plate looked so unapprealing over all I thought I was in a food cour and could fathom taking a picture. The crab stuffing was complete mush and the lobster was horribly cooked, although had wonderful flavour. I had to destroy the shell into tiny pieces to get any meat out of the tail. No garlic came through on the potatoes and both them and the zucchini/red pepper/mushroom vegg side were exceedingly bland. I chose the creme brûlée for desert and sacrilegiously it was served with whipped cream on top of the brûléed sugar! So, no crunch, no crack. The custard underneath had lovely texture and flavour though!

I had a whisky flight, which is pretty hard to screw up and made me laugh a little bit with the humour in the flavour descriptors. However I followed that with a blood and sand. Which is apparent the bartenders had no idea how to make. Not only did the drink come out brown tinged and clear, it tasted like it was made with Cointreau with heavy orange flavours. I asked the server to confirm how the drink was made with the bartender and he was hesitant to. He advised the bar “cherry syrup” was used for colour. To which I showed him the glass and he defended it was Bordeaux cherries.

My sever was lovely and attentive through the evening and made sure my courses had a good flow to them time wise! Apparently here that is on the servers and not on the chef or expeditor to time plates for...