Jeff Black, who owns restaurants such as Addie’s, Black’s Bar & Kitchen, Black Market, and BlackSalt recently opened Pearl Dive Oyster Palace on 14th Street, a lone oyster shucking house on the DC corridor. Step in past the doors and you instantly get the feeling of having stepped into a weathered Cape Code restaurant that’s served hundreds of thousands of people over the decades, rather than a restaurant that’s just opened a not more than a couple of months ago. Indeed, every detail is put together to compose a tribute to the fresh seafood shacks of New England with reclaimed distressed wood walls to rickety chairs that feel as if they could collapse beneath you if you leaned at just the right angle in one.

The restaurant reads almost entirely of seafood dishes, which is great if you’re looking for food and not a discount warehouse for jewelry robbed from shelled mollusks. That being said, you shouldn’t shy away from the land dishes like the Braised Pork Cheeks. This dish explores the tenderness of the often overlooked pork cheek and complements it with a creamy bed of stone grits, flavored with a vibrant chipotle-ham hock broth.

For those looking to get down with the rawest of raw oysters, you’re in luck. The restaurant offers a wide array of varieties hailing from both the East and West coast, although having heard the server list out the different kinds twice, I simply noted that there were ‘regular priced’ ones and ‘more than regular priced’ ones.

Our table took a dozen of the former, and you know what? They tasted like raw oysters. Deliciously raw, with almost no discernible aftertaste, I would have gladly eaten the entire dozen myself if I weren’t sharing the plate with several others.

photo by Jonathan Bruskin

The cooked oysters are equally as good if not better, especially the Angels on Horseback. A quartet of oysters wrapped in strips of bacon and grilled, then served in a vin blanc and vinegar reduction. Amazing, succulent, and full of flavor. The salty slight crisp of the bacon exterior gives way to a juicy oyster inside, with the vinegar and vin blanc pulling the flavors together for possibly the best oyster dish I’ve ever had, although I might be slightly biased because of the bacon. I would, however, have several other suggestions for a renaming of this dish, including:

• Angels on Piggyback
• A Mermaid and a Pig Walk Into a Bar
• Unicorn Bacchanalias in your Mouth

photo by Jonathan Bruskin

I took it upon myself to be the judge of just how good the restaurant’s Oyster Po’boy was, but I needed a comparison ready at hand. Thankfully, the restaurant also offers a C.E.B.L.T. Po’boy (fried catfish, over easy egg, bacon, lettuce, tomato) and, being your diligent gastrohead, ordered both as my main course.

You might think of it as a little extreme, I just call it ‘a regular dinner’. The oysters used in the Oyster Po’boy (pictured in the foreground) as deep fried to a golden brown and served with housemade pickles, a spicy cayenne aioli, and served on Leidenheimer bread (THE bread to use for a Naw’lins Po’Boy) for something as good an authentic Po’Boy outside of Louisiana. It’s greatest challenge, by far, is that the C.E.B.L.T. is leaps and bounds better, with deep fried pallets of catfish, a creamy pocket yolk and strips of bacon to match.

Advantage, fish.

You’re given the option of having a side salad or fresh cut fries, neither of which were a disappointment.

There are a number of other dishes available, including mussels, seafood gumbo, duck confit, grassfed hangar steak, and more mysteriously, the Que Sueno de los Gatos, or, ‘What Cats Dream Of’, a large dish of Pearl Dive Seafood Stew served with Shrimp, Redfish, Squid, and Mussels in a Saffron Milk broth.

There’s not much to dislike here, if at all. The service is outstanding, the seafood is standard setting, and the large open bar that spills out to the sidewalk makes it the perfect place to meet up and have a quick drink or bite on the warmest of District days. If that’s not enough, there’s a separate Prohibition Era dressed bar upstairs called Black Jack, and rumor is that there’s two bocce ball courts on the premises, too.

Being that Jen’s not exactly keen on meats, anyone want to take a visit with me? First drink is on me.

 See Pearl Dive Oyster Palace on a map here. Recommended For:

• Fans of the Mollusk
• Pescetarians
• Paleoheads
• First Dates
• Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Not Recommended For:

• Vegetarians
• Mikimoto Mavens
• Frugalistas
• Barnacle Barry

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool anybody with that turkey bacon shit you’re serving us, bro. -Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln the Restaurant celebrates the life and times of Abraham Lincoln the U.S. President, through food, drink, and kitschy decor. The first you’ll notice walking through the doors of the restaurant is, that, well, you’re now inside a restaurant. Obviously. But take a closer look around, and the more minute details come out, such as the copper coated bar, resembling only what would best be described as simultaneously ‘the color of Abe Lincoln’s bowling ball and his ’84 Coupe DeVille’. The floor is completely tiled from end-to-end with copper pennies, and an oversized white leather bench sofa with penny pushpin details  serves as not only one of the largest seats in the restaurant, but a gentle remind of Abe’s giant marble chair at the Lincoln Memorial. It is with this great attention to detail that one can’t help but wonder why there aren’t more presidential themed/named restaurants in the area. Cross dressing servers at Hoover’s? Why not?

The food is served in the small plate style that has run amok among restaurants, allowing you to get a wide sampling of tastes without really ever really digging in an enjoying a full course of a meal. The upside is that if you do order something that doesn’t appeal to you, then the odds are that you can order something else that does. The downside is that you can and will likely order something that doesn’t appeal to you, and you’ll still have to pay for it.

Still, I guess I prefer hedging my bets and going all in on a nice sized plate of food, but sometimes you have to just go with it.

The tater tots with dill sour cream and American salmon roe are delicious and a slight feat to pop entirely in your mouth, with just enough details to make it fancy, but not stray too far from its simple roots.

The Pennsylvania Duck Sausage Roll is also a must have, a high brow version of Pigs in a Blanket, served with a bucket of mustard for dipping, and topped with microgreens for just a bit of color. The natural fat of the duck keeps the sausage succulent and flavorful, perfectly contrasted with the warm, crisp flakiness of the dough encasing it.

Other notable dishes included the Farmhouse Macaroni’n'Cheese, a single serving cast iron skilled filled with macaroni, then generously coated in a hot mess of smoked gouda, parmesan, and bubbling hot sharp cheddar cheese, a must have for any cheese eating surrender monkey out for a meal.

One of my favorites of the meal was a deconstructed version of the Chicken Pot Pie- a cast iron pan filled with chicken, spring peas, carrots, and celery, finished with a fresh soft and flaky pastry stove pipe top hat. Lincoln would have been proud.

The Lobster Beignets are another win for the restaurant, gently fried chunks of lobster served in a creamy aioli sauce with heirloom tomatoes and english peas. I did feel that the portion was a bit on the smallish side for this dish, but that simply forced me to savor each bite that much more.

And if you didn’t feel like you had enough duck from the Duck Rolls, you can always order the Coffee Rubbed Duck Breast, served with plum, walnuts, and a farro salad. Tender, juicy, and full of awesome for your belly.

That’s not say everything is mindblowingly great here. The Citrus Marinated Beet Salad with pickled gooseberries and horseradish creme fraiche failed to impress me, nor did the Watermelon Salad with endives, feta cheese and olives

The same could be said about the Poached Arctic Char (pictured top left), even with the help of several strips of prosciutto wedged in between the broccoli florets and golden raisins. The Braised Pork Belly (pictured top right), normally a sure fire win for me, lacked the crisp texture and ended up being really living up to what I know pork belly can be.

The Heirloom Tomato Risotto (pictured bottom left) with goat cheese also seemed a little deflated, but there’s only so much you can do with risotto, I suppose.  Finally, the Maryland Lump Crab Salad (pictured bottom right) was a reasonable dish, served as a roll, but didn’t impress enough to recommended it to anyone as more than a filler.

Lastly, the desserts here aren’t amazing, but if you’re still hungry, they’ll get the job done. I recommend the Peach Crisp a la Mode over the Funnel Cake with Berries, of which the latter looks more like something you’d end up cleaning out of your hamster’s cage after a few days of neglect.

Overall, I enjoyed eating here and paying tribute to the great 16th President of the U.S. There’s enough of a variety here to find something you like, and the cuisine strikes a nice balance between your favorite down-home comfort foods and a fancy place you could take your parents to while they’re in town. The noise levels tend to get a bit high when it’s busy, but you can always opt to sit outside for people watching when the weather’s nice. Service is reasonable and pleasant, but nothing remarkable, which is sometimes all you could ask for in a good meal.

See Lincoln on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Groups and Troupes
• Birthday Dinners
• Comfort Food Cornucopias
• First Dates

Not Recommended For:

• Tour Buses
• Vegetarians
• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters

For Jen’s berfday, we headed over to the fanciest of fancy raw vegan restaurants in DC, Elizabeth’s Gone Raw (EGR). Well, I don’t really know of any other raw vegan in restaurants, period. So keeping an open mind and walking in through the french doors of the restaurant, I looked forward to my first raw vegan meal.*

The pre-seating event involves servers floating around with plates full of delicious appetizers, usually served on a gluten free cracker using alternative flours such as flax seed or sesame. I saw everything from dill to olive pate, roasted peppers, house made pesto, and even a savory sweet melon shooter.

Every person checks in at the front door with their reservations made in advance, and you’re brought to your table upstairs which may be shared with other diners, and leads to meeting some interesting and likely equally health conscious people, such as two lovely ladies that sat across from us. I’d suspect that if you pressed the reservationist over the phone, you could finagle a private table for two for a special occasion.

EGR  serves titanic bowls of  kale chips, baked with some sort of spicy vegan cheese like mix. These kale chips are definitely pro level chips, and the bowls of kale come as fast as you can eat them. Thankfully Jen and I had other people at the table with us, or I’d have taken every almost emptied bowl and tipped it to get all the crumbs at the bottom into my mouth.

The first course was a salad with a spring mushroom blend (yellow and blue oyster, beech, hen of the woods, and royal trumpet) tossed with boston lettuce and sunflower sprouts. Who knew sunflower sprouts could be so good? It’s topped with a truffle vinaigrette made with shallots, garlic, celery, macadamia nuts, coconut milk, apple cider vinegar, truffles, EVOO, agave, and nama shoyu, and finally topped with a smattering of gluten-free crackers. The complexity of jumbled textures and tastes of this salad is something of experiencing a symphonic explosion in your mouth.

The main course is an olive cannelloni with parsley salad, served with dressing and a heirloom tomato-basil relish on the side. The cannelloni itself is made with coconut water, coconut milk, and flax seed, wrapped around an olive filling made with scallions, lemon juice, macadamia & pine nuts, celery, and nutritional yeast. The relish, a classic combination of tomatoes, red onion and garlic tossed with red vinegar and chives, accentuates the flavors of the fresh parsley salad.  Finally, a semi sweet dressing made of apple cider vinegar, agave, and EVOO bring it all together to make, despite whatever the restaurant wants to call it, a vegan burrito. I know burritos have rice and beans stuffed inside, and those might have even helped this dish out a bit. While it was made with incredibly fresh ingredients and impressive to be completely dairy, gluten and meat free, this one wasn’t as good as either Jen or I had hoped. For me, it was the fact that it was just wasn’t satisfying; for Jen, it was because she despises olives.

Dessert is a generous slice of cacao layered mousse cake with goji berries and topped with a reishi mushroom powder, once used in tonics for emperors and kings. The cake is made with almond milk, agave, maple syrup, vanilla extract, coconut oil, almond powder, cacao powder, maca powder, and goji berries, while the chocolate mousse layers are made with vanilla extract, almond milk, maple syrup, and cashew flour. While I really liked the chocolate mousse layers, I found that the actual cake layers in the cake were too rich and heavy for me, without necessarily being sweet. In that sense, I did like the fact that it wasn’t over the top sweet, but I ended up scooping out and eating all the mousse and leaving chunks of the cake on my plate. I looked over, and Jen had done the exact same thing.

I knew I liked this girl for a reason.

The menu here changes seasonally as fruits and vegetables become available, speaking to the freshness of the ingredients, and the creativity of the kitchen. While the entire meal kept its promise of being gluten, dairy, and meat free, it does not fall short on flavor or quality of many of the upscale restaurants in the District.

We were constantly doted on by a number of people including the owner, Elizabeth Petty, herself. The service, however, is a mixed bag. Plates are cleared and accommodations are made, but there was considerable confusion with having all the wine glasses for the wine pairing brought out at the same time; Jen had two wineglasses “refilled” with water, which we had to send back on two separate occasions. Having numerous attentive is something of a nice luxury, but the hustle and bustle of them darting around as fast as they can seem a bit madding. Overall, I’d say it’s very good here, with an opportunity for a bit of refinement. It probably doesn’t help to the fact that dinners are only served once a week, but that makes each meal here at Elizabeth’s Gone Raw that much more special.

Wine pairings are available at each dinner, which are organic, biodynamic, and delicious. That’s right, I called wine delicious, like a six year old calls a glass of grape juice. Deal with it, fancy wine drinkers.

See Elizabeth’s Gone Raw on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Raw Vegan Rhondas
• Hemp Growin’ Harriets
• Organic Only Olivias
• Meeting New People

Not Recommended For:

• Raptors
• Buffet Line Barons
• Frugalistas
• Quiet, Romantic Dinners

*Okay, I had a ton of beef jerky before we left for the restaurant. I may or may have not  stored several chunks of jerky in my cheeks. What? Don’t judge me. You never know.

Jen and I have been trying to get a table at Birch & Barley for months. That’s not to say that they don’t take walk-ins and put your name on a list, but it takes a bit of foresight and putting in reservations at least a week in advance to get a table here without milling about near the front door for an hour and a half, staring at the floor, wondering when was the last time you’ve shined your shoes or painted your toes.

Jen and I have been dissuaded from eating here numerous times after conversations with the hostess would go like this.

Me: Hi! We’ve really been looking forward to eating here. Can you tell me how long the wait is?

Hostess: Sure! It’s going to be a 90 minute wait.

Me: Really? A 90 minute wait?

Hostess: Yep! 90 minutes.

Me:

So we finally made it in for a Sunday Brunch after putting reservations a week in advance, mostly on my part to try their Luther sandwich after reading about it here on the Washington Post. A sammich so secret, it’s not listed on the menu. A slab of fried chicken topped with strips of bacon, served in between a maple donut? I didn’t actually think stuff that delicious existed in real life without the aid of half a bottle of absinthe and trading in your soul to the Devil. But it does exist, and I was determined to have it. Mine. All mine.

That is, until I saw the menu.

Birch & Barley’s boasts a wide selection of mouth watering plates, so amazing that I decided I was better off ordering what was on the menu than the quasi-imaginary dishes that were not.

With fried chickum on my mind, I didn’t hesitate to order the Fried Chicken & Waffles. Large chunks of moist, tender chicken, battered and fried, served with belgian waffles lightly dusted with powdered sugar, buttered pecans, and a maple-chicken jus to bring it all together. Wow. This dish was damn good.

But why stop there? I mean, if I’m not going to be eating paleo for a meal, I might as well burn it to the ground, right?

So I did just that. A side of a Warm Sticky Brioche Bun, topped with Brown Sugar Caramel, Pecans, and secretly containing a Cream Cheese center. I figured, if I’m not ordering the Luther sammich, I might as well order the equivalent of a deconstructed version. An amazing accomplice to the Chicken & Waffles, I was forced to eat this myself after Jen regretfully declined the opportunity to send insulin levels skyrocketing.

Suit yourself! I wish there were words to properly describe how this Brioche Bun makes you feel. It’s like…it’s like…

Yeah, it’s a bit like that.

Just to be sure that I had enough to eat, I also put in another side order of 2 fried duck eggs, served with tiny hash brown squares and enough greens to liven up the plate, but not much more than that.  I did appreciate the fact that the yolks were given the proper treatment, a gentle flick of fat/oil on top of each, but the egg whites were a bit too rubbery for my liking.

If you’re going to cheat on your diet, make sure you cheat with your entire heart.

Or stomach.

Jen, ever the source of reason, rational thinking, and alcoholic tendencies (I kid, I kid), ordered the Whiskey French Toast. Giant, inch high slabs of toast, served with local gala apples, candied walnuts, a dollop of mascarpone cream cheese and bacon, which she asked to have removed from her plate in favor for extra apples.

A girl who turns down bacon at any given opportunity, and I still love her. I think that speaks volumes.

The service here is on par with the food. Unpretentious and top notch, I’d easily make my way back here for another meal. With such good food, service, and atmosphere, it’s not hard to see why Birch & Barley won the 2010 RAMMY award for best restaurant, or why we’ll be coming back again soon.

See Birch & Barley on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Brunch
• Vegetarians
• First Dates
• Horrendous Hangovers

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters
• Fancy Nancys
• Prom Dinner

There’s an old Irish recipe for stew, that goes like this:

Get some meat, some potatoes and a lot of Guinness Stout. Drink all of the stout. Forget about the stew.

That’s not quite the scene at Againn, the favorite drinking tub for leprechauns and gingers within the District. With a wide array of beers, scotches, and even the option to rent your own scotch locker, who wouldn’t want to drown their sorrows or celebrate their…celebrations…here?

Maybe me, with the whole alcohol dehydrogenase thing.

So to set the focus, yes, Againn has a fine selection of alcohol here, and according to a connoisseur of fine, obscure alcohols, “the 2nd best tasting Guiness I’ve had in this country”.  But my love of food is what brought me here, and that’s the story I have to tell.

First of all, this is no place for a vegetarian. Unless you have an unhealthy fascination for potatoes, you’re going to be set with a very, very slim set of pickin’s.

On the bright side, meat in all and every form is in abundance here.  The daring are especially rewarded, with savory flavors, decadent textures, and pub food at it’s finest offering.

The golden tripe here is, as one can expect, tripey, and a delight to your stomach.

The corned beef tongue is ridiculously awesome. Tender and brine cured, served with a peppery arugula, and served with fingerling potatoes and olive oil, I highly recommend this dish. This appetizer is high on substance and presentation, and the corned beef tongue complements the tender fingerling potatoes perfectly.

The sides don’t come up short with flavor either, but beware, even the most paleo-friendly looking ones can bite you inadvertently. My friend ordered the Welsh Rarebit, which as he mentioned as being as true to his childhood as he could remember, and I ordered the Sauteed Kale, prepared with ham, carrot, and to my surprise, breadcrumbs. Ordering a side here is crucial here, as the main course might serve up a bit smaller than you’d like, or as I did.

My friend’s main course orderd the Heritage Pork Belly and Cracklin’. Pork belly, white grits, mustard greens, roasted turnips and strips of pork cracklin’ as fried as Snoop Dogg headlining at a show, this is a pork lover’s wet dream, and not for the faint of heart. What could possibly make this dish better?  You know the answer to that.

Image Credit: Caanan

My main course, the Creekstone Farms Hanger Steak with Maitre’d Butter, Watercress Salad and Chips, was as every bit as good as I had hoped. Steak and butter and a bit of roughage, with a pass on the fries, cooked to a medium rare perfection.

If you’re out to impress a group of serious drinkers for a night out, you can’t do much better than Againn.* The prices are a bit steep for pub food, but the quality of the food is high, maybe just not as high as to justify the price.

Minus a small debacle with the bill, the service is fairly good on a busy night. With a reservation, there is no wait for your seats, and the atmosphere is vibrant, despite the decision of the owners to keep the lighting bill to a minimum. Noise is energetic, but not so loud that you have to scream across the table. And with as much scotch, wine, and beer there is to choose from, maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

Let me know if you get around to trying out their stew. I hear it’s delicious.

See Againn on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• Zone Dieters
• Captains of Industry
• Watching the match. “Awright, ‘arry? See that ludicrous display last night? ‘Fing about Arsenal is, they always try an’ walk it in.”

Not Recommended For:

• Vegetarians
• Vegans
• Frugalistas
• Nyctophobics

* One thing to note is to double check the damage, both when you first get it, and after your server’s run your card. I’m sure it’s entirely possible to accidentally add in a random lemonade that pads your total by a few dollars in between after handing in a Groupon, but I sure as hell haven’t ever had that happen before.