Zeppelin — Restaurant in Washington

I've been seeing posts from their Instagram page for a long time and now I can finally say I've tried Zeppelin. IN SHORT, the sushi here is great, along with my entire dine-in experience.

IN DETAIL: I ordered nigiri sushi + the Buta Bara Pork Belly Skewers + hot sake + the Matcha Crepe Cake (per my very kind waitress' recommendation), and then an order of Seaweed Salad + Gyu Donburi (Beef, Rice, & Egg) Bowl to go.

Yes, that's a lot. However, the sushi orders come with 2 pieces per order, as do the skewers. So, dine-in experience altogether, it wasn't at all overwhelming. The to-go orders, naturally, were for trying later.

SUSHI: Now, a short, sweet, and blunt rave: all the sushi I ordered was delicious. Everything tasted wonderful, was presented beautifully (see pictures), and had a joyous texture with each bite. They were all good.

Personal suggestion: use chopsticks, not a fork. Layer a piece of ginger on top of your sushi, and place a sliver of wasabi on top, then dip the sushi into soy sauce and layer your bite. It's delicious.

Sushi ordered: The Kampachi (Amberjack) nigiri Sake (Salmon) nigiri Unagi (Freshwater Eel) nigiri

BUTA BARA SKEWERS The Buta Bara Pork Belly skewers were equally delicious. They're simple at 2 pieces of bite-sized fatty pork belly, and seasoned with salt and pepper, with an added lemon slice for zest if you like.

SAKE: The sake was delicious, though I don't drink often. Ordering hot sake with my sushi is a personal enjoyment, so I'll happily recommend it.

TO-GO ORDERS My to-go orders were slightly underwhelming, however:

The Seaweed Salad was satisfying. It's a small appetizer, and also comes with a lemon slice for added zest.

The Gyu Donburi (Beef) Bowl was good, but lacking in flavor. It could have used a bit more spices, in my opinion, especially salt, and even at least a hint of spicy kick. It had none, and after adding my own hot sauce, found that the dish was only then improved. That is entirely my personal opinion, of course.

MATCHA CREPE CAKE Finally, the waitress-recommended Matcha Crepe Cake was not too sweet, just tasty enough to be satisfying as a post-sushi dessert. It was presented prettily, just like the rest of my dine-in meal. Next time, I'd like to try their Strawberry Cheesecake, though... their Instagram pictures make you salivate over it.

INTERIOR/EXTERIOR The place is lovely. There is the sushi bar upstairs, which I didn't visit, and a bar downstairs open until midnight, usually, but as late as 2:30am.

There are outdoor patios adjacent to both sides of the restaurant, and both are covered and well-decorated for the atmosphere. I arrived around 6pm on a Friday and luckily enjoyed a sparse, quiet meal before a big dinner rush out on the patio. The bar inside was a bit rowdier, however.

The single, shared bathroom, though moodily lit, could have used a bit more cleaning, especially given its location next to the bar.

FINALLY Overall, my experience at Zeppelin was very pleasant, aided by a very friendly waiter--I believe her name is Ning? She was very kind and helpful. The establishment has a lovely outdoor area in a neighborhood feel (it is located at the corner of 9th St NW and Q St NW, east of Logan Circle).

*Parking is nearby neighborhood parking. I lucked out and found a limitless free zone beginning at 6pm on Friday in front of a school on Q St a block up. Keep an eye out for that spot.

And that's all, I think. Zeppelin was enjoyable and I'd be happy to go again. I haven't mentioned pricing because sushi joints do tend to be a splurge anyway, so be prepared to spend a bit of money. Treat this place like a celebratory occasion and enjoy their atmosphere and sushi. For full disclosure, if I hadn't ordered additional to-go items, my bill for the 6 pieces of nigiri, plus the skewers and dessert and sake, would have been $59, excluding tip.

RYRY RECOMMENDED? Aside from the slightly underwhelming Gyu Donburi Bowl, Zeppelin was very good, and gets 4.5 stars out...

I recently visited Zeppelin for a dinner with three friends and I wish I could say that I had a better experience than I actually did. To start we ordered four appetizers/small plates. We received three of the four dishes pretty quickly, but they mistakenly brought out a completely different appetizer for one of them, and it took a few minutes for us to flag down our server and notify her of the mistake. They corrected the mistake and brought out our correct appetizer pretty quickly. All the apps tasted incredible. Then we ordered our entrees - one bowl of udon, the yellowtail kama, and two sushi rolls. The udon and kama were brought out in a timely manner, and a server brought out a giant sushi platter as well that we informed was not what we had ordered. My friends initially wait for the sushi to come before they start eating, but after 15 minutes go by and our sushi still hasn't come I encourage them to start eating. I flag down a server who says they will check on the sushi. Another 15 minutes go by and the sushi still hasn't come, so different server comes by and says they will check on our order. An additional 15-20 minutes go by before we actually receive our sushi - no less than an hour since we initially ordered it. My friends have already finished eating their meals at this point. The servers apologize for the mistake and compensate for the wait by offering us dessert on the house. The sushi itself was fine, but I have had much better rolls at other restaurants in the area.

I understand that mistakes happen and many restaurants right now are short staffed, but this experience still really disappointed me. I would absolutely be willing to give this place another try as the starters and small...

Honestly pretty disappointed this go round with Zeppelins. Their food is usually great, but this time everything except the miso soup was exceedingly mediocre. The sushi didn't seem fresh. The Shumai wasn't as tasty. The pork belly was overcooked.

Also, we specifically came on a Friday night to do karaoke. Karaoke at xeppelons used to be the best karaoke in D.C. , with fantastic food as well. But this time and last time they had no MC, so the karaoke was a mess. It started almost 30 mins late (which is late as hell when the start time is already 1030) our server didn't even give us the karaoke menu so a bunch of people in one group got to put their songs in ahead of us, there was no MC or anyone managing the karaoke so there was no one to scramble the songs, and a group of about 10 obnoxious girls SCREAMED (not sang---banshee shrieked) every song, all together...even the songs that other people signed up for. Instead of offering a mic to another patron, that just kept them and kept screeching.

When my friend got up to try and get a microphone because it was his song, they just kept screeching. It caused us and at least two other tables to leave bc it was horrifying sounding and no one could even participate in the karaoke anyways.

This is insane when you have a minimum for karaoke, and you add on a fixed 20% gratuity if you participate in karaoke. For what? There's no karaoke event being held, just girls screaming one song after another as they digitally submit song requests and ignore everyone else. Pretty sure I won't be...