Spork and Knife

It’s inevitable in Washington, D.C.

If you live here long enough you will go to quite a few good-bye dinners. People flock to the nation’s capitol with visions of saving the world and one by one they leave the city for grad school, a higher paying-less hours job or they are fueled by dreams of owning a place that is bigger than 500 square feet (or simply just owning a place).

There are a select few who come and never leave and then there’s the ever-elusive born and bred “Washingtonian”. Where I will end up among this group is up for debate, but that’s beside the point.

Since 701 had flown under the radar to our farewell group of 5, we decided to make it the spot to bid adieu. The restaurant’s website claimed to have “the warmth and charm of a private club”, live jazz and “contemporary continental cuisine”. All appealing attributes for a group looking to please all tastes and linger while we laughed about old times and caught up on current ones.

I walked in to find E and the girls chatting it up with the bartender at the impressively well stocked and very “clubby” bar. A quick scan of the larger dining room showed a decor that was far from “clubby” and more like an almost trendy hotel. Bright colors, an open space, but an element that pulled the look together was missing.

The girls gathered their drinks and we were escorted to our table by an overly eager waiter. Let me preface the rest of my comments with this knowledge: I am a chatty and friendly person that appreciates personal touches from wait staff, more so than most. I even laughed when”Mr. Friendly” announced to our group that he knew he wanted to talk to me because he noticed my height when I walked in. I wore the high heels that night, so I’ll chalk this one up to - I was asking for it! After-all, if you’ve got it, flaunt it. That’s my motto.

Well it must have been Mr. Friendly’s first night on the job because after a roughly 10 minute intro that after 2 minutes was slightly painful he managed to… (let’s make a list because they’re efficient and fun)

• Declare his hatred for beets and salmon claiming that one tasted like dirt and the other was soo cliche and rudimentary (Not exact wording, but you get the gist).
• After declaring a disdain for Salmon proceed to up-sell it.
• Forget a drink order.
• Serve 3 salads to the incorrect person.
• Forget another drink order in a separate round.
• Serve 4 entrees to the incorrect person.
• Allow our desserts to sit on a tray next to our table for 10 (I’m not kidding you) minutes.

Service issues aside there were some highlights:

The drinks were flawless. Some people may think this is a minor detail when eating out, but if I’m paying $10 for a cocktail it better be made right, and every single person commented on the quality of the mixed drinks. GOLD STAR for mixed beverages and wine selection.

The Food

Our salads (ranging from $9-$15):
Baby Lettuces
with navel oranges, spiced pine nuts, apple-balsamic vinaigrette

Red Wine Poached Pear Salad
endive, goat cheese, candied walnuts, walnut vinaigrette

Beet Salad (exact description is fuzzy, but it was fairly traditional)

All of the salads were good, not great. I ordered the baby lettuces and loved the spiced pine nuts, but found the rest of the dish to be unsurprising and not worth my $9.

Our entrees (ranging from $24-$30):

Rock Shrimp-Crusted Striped Bass
sauteed spinach, chanterelles, carrot veloute

Roasted Chilean Sea Bass
flagiolet and artichoke barigoule, manila clams, lemon veloute

Dry-Aged Prime NY Steak
with an ancho-soy glaze, gingered shiitakes, salsify, crushed truffled potatoes

I ordered the Rock Shrimp-Crusted Striped Bass and to simplify, the bass was lightly fried with a carrot butter sauce resting over a bed of spinach and mushrooms, that to me were an afterthought. Overall, the dish was satisfying, but nothing blew me away. I was happy with the striped bass, even though it was much heavier than I expected. Not knowing that veloute stood for butter sauce really hurt me here. (Note to self: next time ask what strange French words mean. It’s ok to not know EVERYTHING.)

The others seemed to have similar impressions of their dishes. Good, but overall not worth the price. There was one exception to this feeling, and that was the dry-aged prime NY steak. Comment here was that the steak was flavorless and for lack of a better word - dry. Not worthy of ordering again, much less finishing the portion at hand.

The desserts were a highlight of the evening. An extremely chocolaty cake, an almond flavored ? and a flaky strawberry pastry. (Please forgive the lack of description here. We were so thrilled to finally have our desserts that they were polished off in a plate passing haze.)

Service issues aside, would I return if the prices were $15-$24 for entrees? Yes.

At their current prices, No.

Final Thoughts:

Good service means your wait staff anticipates needs and blends into the whole restaurant experience. We all appreciate a congenial attitude, but in the end, we just want to catch up with the ones we came with. A quick conversation is wonderful and much proffered to a sulking waiter or waitress, but don’t linger.

The combination of “over staying the welcome”, musical plates episodes, late service and forgotten drinks earned 701 a C- in the service area. (I’m being kind. After all, Mr. Friendly was very…friendly.)

The food was good (again, not great), but not worth the prices. Why don’t restaurants in this town understand that you may get us to pay $30 for a sub-par steak the first time, but you better believe that I’m taking my $ to one of the hundreds of other restaurants in this city next time around.

I would go back to 701 for two things. Drinks & desserts. But next time, I’m sitting at the bar.

701 Restaurant

701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Washington, D.C. 20004

202-393-0701

Something to note: 701 belongs to a restaurant group that owns a few other places in the city. (The Bombay Club, The Oval Room, Rasika, Ardeo & Bardeo) As my S & K readers know, I count Rasika as one of my favorite spots. The service is top notch and the food is wonderful and inventive, so I don’t have a bias against the group as a whole.