Tag: restaurant

Good Eats in DC – Scion Restaurant

Last weekend we made a completely unscheduled overnight trip up to DC. Bayley’s two weeks working at Woodward had come to an end, and both of her options for a ride home fell through, so early Saturday afternoon we hopped in the car and headed up to DC to get her. We decided to take our dog Indy with us, so before leaving Jen did a quick search to see if she could find a restaurant in the area that was dog-friendly (the search was literally “dog friendly restaurants in Washington DC“). The first hit in the results took her to BringFido, which led her to Scion Restaurant in the Dupont Circle area. It wasn’t all that close to our hotel, but we liked what we saw on the menu and decided to stop there for dinner as soon as we got to the city, so on the way up I used OpenTable to make a reservation for 7:45pm, noting that we had a dog with us.

When we arrived, parking was a bit of a hassle, but after hunting a bit we finally located a space on the street a few blocks away and walked over to the restaurant. When we got there, I stayed outside with Indy while Jen went to check in. While they had our reservation, the note that I put in OpenTable about having a dog with us apparently didn’t get transmitted to them, and as a result they weren’t quite ready to seat anyone with a dog since the end sections of the patio where they allow dogs weren’t set up. No matter, with a very friendly attitude they jumped right on it and set up the corner that had an awning over it and seated us quickly. Definitely a good start to the evening!

After being seated, we ordered our food and drinks. I decided to try something on draft, and chose the Sun King Wee Mac Scottish-style ale. I’m not a huge beer guy, so I don’t often call out what I drink, but this was one of the best beers I’ve had in quite a while. For my dinner, I ordered the Scion burger (sans onions and pickles) and Jen got the LBJ Mac and Cheese. I should also mention that when they brought our water out, they brought a plastic bowl full of water out for Indy, too, and kept it refilled while we were there. Nice touch!

While waiting on our food, it started raining pretty good, so we ended up switching tables in that same little corner area to avoid water runoff. I think due to water running in on the ground, Indy got a little wet (but not a big deal), but we stayed dry the whole time, even with the downpour it turned in to. Once the food arrived, we dug in. My burger was excellent, as were the garlic fries, which were some of the best garlic fries I’ve had. Jen’s mac and cheese was really good too, although she realized something we already knew from past experiences, that she’s not really a fan of lobster meat. Oops 🙂

WP_20150627_20_30_09_Pro WP_20150627_20_33_29_Pro WP_20150627_20_41_30_Pro WP_20150627_20_53_04_Pro WP_20150627_20_53_14_Pro WP_20150627_21_00_19_Pro WP_20150627_21_03_47_Pro

Overall we really liked everything we had, and the service was outstanding the entire time. Our experience that night led us to come back for brunch the next day with Bayley and her boyfriend. Thankfully it wasn’t raining this time, but the food and service were just as good. It was noticeably busier, but they had space for us in the opposite corner of the patio, so even at noon, we were seated right away. While I was tempted to get the Scion burger again, I ended up going with the cinnamon vanilla french toast. In a word: wow. It was absolutely delicious, and one of the only times that I’ve eaten french toast without any syrup. The vanilla drizzle was more than enough to top it, and I enjoyed every bite. Jen got the New Orleans Benedict (See the above ‘brunch’ link for a description), and while she enjoyed most of it, she wasn’t a big fan of the Cajun Hollandaise sauce that was on it. Bayley went with a side of mac and cheese and breakfast potatoes, both of which were delicious, and her boyfriend had the Scion burger.

WP_20150628_12_33_45_Pro WP_20150628_12_34_11_Pro WP_20150628_12_54_37_Pro WP_20150628_12_58_52_Pro WP_20150628_13_03_55_Pro WP_20150628_13_26_22_Pro

As mentioned throughout this post, both meals were absolutely delicious, and the service was outstanding. The Dupont Circle neighborhood that the restaurant is in is pretty cool, even if it was a pain to find parking (all parking garages we found were closed both times). We wish we could have spent more time in the area, but being on a compressed schedule that had us arriving in DC around 8pm Saturday and leaving right after brunch on Sunday, we simply didn’t have any time. Hopefully we’ll get some time to drive back up late in the summer before Bayley goes back to college. If we do, we’ll definitely be stopping at Scion again!

Dining at Disney

This year we decided to do Thanksgiving in the Orlando area. With Bayley only having the 4 day weekend, a longer trip was out of the question, and hanging out in Florida for a few days seemed like fun. As part of that, we had to decide where to eat for Thanksgiving, and after some discussion, decided to dine at one of the Disney resorts. We’d been going back and forth on exactly where that would be, but in the end decided (pretty much at the last minute) that we’d have a couple of meals at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. We were spending a little more than we wanted to, but with no plans to visit any of the parks, figured we’d enjoy the meals.

Dinner #1 came Wednesday night, a few hours after we got to Orlando, at the Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show. My mom and step dad were here for this one too, as they’d been in St Pete for a few days visiting Bayley at Eckerd, and drove up to Orlando with her and stayed with us overnight (they flew home Thursday). My wife had been constantly searching the Disney Dining site in the days leading up to the trip, and saw a table open up for ths show, so we grabbed it. Turns out that table was in the very back of the theater (upper floor 2 section), so we were a ways away from the stage. No biggie, we could see just fine. The food was good, at least the ribs and chicken I had. My wife enjoyed the pulled pork, too. The dessert, a warm pineapple bread pudding with caramel sauce, was delicious too. We got a little bonus food, too, as one of the guys at the table next to us knew the executive chef, who brought him over a large plate of steak and shrimp from ‘Ohana, and they shared it with us, too. Delicious, and a nice little bonus on the night. Huge thank you to him and his friends for that!

On the not so good side is just about everything else. The service was not up to Disney standards, as our server was really struggling to keep up. Other sections around us were already on to the main course by the time we got our drinks. At one point another server had to step in and help get things caught up in our section with main courses. Our dessert didn’t arrive until after all of the other servers had completed their service for the main part of the show. All in all just not the service experience people typically expect out of Disney. The show itself was a bit cheesy, too. We all really liked the fire dancing portion, but the rest of the show really seemed geared towards little kids, a fact that was very evident early on when they performed their own version of the Hawaii Five-O theme song (not really “traditional” ;)). All of the young kids seemed to be enjoying it, and really the only way I could recommend the show is to those who have young kids. For those who do go, one tip: Go to the late show (8:15pm). It gets out right as the fireworks at Disney are starting, and you can easily see them from just outside of the stage area. My pic of it below is pretty bad, but only because I took it with a phone camera in low light 🙂

BayleyDinnerFireworksStage

Dinner #2 was the following evening on Thanksgiving. This one was also at the Polynesian, this time at ‘Ohana. This had been our target restaurant for Thanksgiving from the start, and it took quite a bit of checking on the Disney Dining site to find an opening for Thursday. We’d eaten here once before, a long time ago, and were looking forward to the food, and it did not disappoint. The steak was delicious, as was the pork. Now I’m not sure what was up, maybe it was just us, but our service here was basically a mirror of the night before. Sections around us getting great service, while once again our server was struggling to keep up. I’ve worked in food service and understand that there are off nights, but two nights in a row at a place that prides itself on service seemed very out of character. Regardless, it certainly wasn’t anything to ruin the night, we left full and happy :).

Other restaurants we’ve hit during this trip (which doesn’t end until tomorrow morning):

Mia Pizza, near the condo we rented. Good pizza, which I finished off for breakfast this morning. We got a couple of larges since there were 5 of us, along with some garlic bread, which was also yummy.

A N.Y. Pizza House, which we ate at for lunch on Friday while we were in Cocoa Beach. I had two slices, one regular crust and one Sicilian slice, both with pepperoni. The slices were delicious, and huge. Had I known how big they were I’d have skipped some of the cheese fries we had as an appetizer (also delicious). My wife and daughter both had pasta, (baked ziti and fettuccine Alfredo) and neither really liked them all that much. They did agree that my pizza was delicious, tho :).

That about covers it for the food. Other meals were either at chains or here at the condo, and all we have left tonight is Hard Rock before a show, so I’ll skip the rest of it as I’m not big on reviewing chains.

%d bloggers like this: