The Oval Room

My friends and I dined at The Oval Room Saturday evening; I’ve had the reservations for months and have been looking forward to our reservation. The Oval Room is #16 out of the top 100 restaurants in Washington DC. All I can say is EXCELLENT!

We arrived a little earlier than our reservation and were served drinks while we waited. The staff was very accommodating, friendly, and professional. We had early reservations so we could order from of the Pre-Theatre menu.

If you don't know what that is....think of it this way...you are in DC or NY and have theatre tickets. You want to eat before the show. A lot of the high end restaurants have a pre-theatre (pre-fixe) menu which consists of a 3 course meal for about $35. The menu items are limited to a small selection and you must have your order in to the kitchen between 5:30 - 6:30pm. You can easily spend $100+ on a 3 course meal, so we do the pre-theatre! It's a win-win for us.

Because we arrived so early, the restaurant was not busy and I was allowed to wonder around and take pictures. The funny part for me was that one of the staff approached me and announced I had really cool hair. He loved it and said hair with streaks either works or is horrible and mine worked. Then he said “not a lot of people can pull that off but yours works and looks great on you!”. I love it when men give me compliments:)

We were eventually seated in a far corner but I loved that location. We could see everyone and everything; some restaurants crowd the tables together but we had plenty of room and we didn’t feel crushed. Our waiter was very knowledgeable about the menu and made fabulous recommendations.

We ordered the following:

Appetizers:
Tuna Tartar, Avocado, Roasted Pineapple, Chipotle
Butternut Squash Soup, Asian pear & Beech Mushrooms
Peekytoe Crab Cake, Green Papaya Remoulade, Tamarind & Cilantro
Baby Beets, Passion Fruit, Horseradish & Icewine Dressing

Main course:
Crispy Skate (stingray), Red curry, Ragout of Root Vegetable & Pea Shoots (2 of us)
Herb Bucatini, Fava, Ramp & Asparagus (2 of us)
Roasted Petite Filet, Roasted Eggplant, Red Onion Jam & Summer Squash

Desert:
Key Lime Tart with Meringue
Citrus Vanilla Cheesecake
Chocolate Cherry Bomb Crumble

I cannot speak for my friends but I sampled their meals and the Bucatini was really good.

My meal was wonderful! The Peekytoe Crab Cake was very good but it was the Crispy Skate in Red Curry that had my taste buds jumping; AMAZING. I was a bit concerned about ordering Stingray but the waiter assured me it wasn’t oily or rubbery (he was so right).

If there hadn’t been a crowd, I probably would have licked the bowl clean but I kept to my manners!!

I'm determined to dine at the majority of the top 100 restaurants. I'm not a fan of French cuisine, so I won't be dining at those restaurants and of course the top 4 are out of my price range. Even some of the top 20 are out my price range; I'd have to save up for months in order to afford them!