DC restaurants are awesome!

On the heels of Restaurant Week, I thought I'd share a few more DC restaurant adventures that I've been wanting to blog about for a while.  DC has so many cool and unique restaurants that offer amazing food rivaling any other American culinary cities and one of my goals in life to experience as many of them as I can.

Last summer hubby and I decided to take a long weekend in DC.  We're so close to DC but we rarely get there and are able to hang out long enough to really enjoy the city and all it has to offer.  So why not get a hotel and stay the weekend?

M St Bar and Grill inside St. Gregory Hotel

Now I have to warn you...I wasn't a food blogger at the time so I didn't get as many pictures as I would've liked.  It just wasn't on my mind to take pictures of all my food back then! Anyway...We stayed at the St. Gregory Hotel and Suites, located at 2033 M Street just outside Georgetown.  It was very nice and looked way more expensive than it was.Complete with a statue of Marilyn Monroe in the lobby and the M Street Bar and Grill downstairs providing room service.

St. Gregory Hotel lobby with Marilyn Monroe

Our first night was a Thursday and we attended Brew at the Zoo, a charity/foodie event at the National Zoo where the proceeds benefit the animals and research there.  The next day, Friday we went to 3 different places: Urbana, Sushi Taro, and Hank's Oyster Bar.

Urbana (http://www.urbanadc.com/) is located in the bottom of  Hotel Palomar near Dupont Circle. Urbana is actually a hip urban wine bar but they happen to serve a great breakfast as well. Hubby had eggs, sunny-side-up, with rustic potatoes and applewood smoked bacon.  I had the challah french toast with fresh strawberry compote, which was huge! The bread was huge, the strawberries were huge and so sweet! It was an awesome way to spend our first morning in DC.

late night snack...brownie sundae at M St Grill

After a little shopping in Georgetown, we had lunch at a little place called Sushi Taro (http://www.sushitaro.com/).  This ended up being one of hubby's faves this weekend. If you like sushi, this is the place to go in DC. The inside has that very neat precise Asian minimalist flair.  The sushi was probably the best we've ever had.  We ordered some kind of sampler sashimi platter to share.  And then we ordered a couple pieces of toro a la carte. Toro is the fatty underbelly of a tuna...it is amazing! Especially when fresh and prepared correctly. This was my first time trying it and I couldn't believe how soft and savory it was. It just melted on my tongue!  The other sushi we had there was really good too. You could tell it was super fresh and top quality fish. Among the sushi platter was this humongous raw oyster! I've never seen an oyster that big! It was big enough we were able to cut it up into 3 or 4 pieces for us to share.

sushi platter at Sushi Taro (see the huge oyster on the left in its shiny shell?)

After that we needed a nap! A brief snooze geared us up for a dinner at Hank's Oyster Bar (which I just discovered there's one in Alexandria too). (http://www.hanksdc.com/menu.html) This place has a very casual and fun atmosphere.  Not very big so it can get crowded fast. When you are seated, instead of bringing you a bread basket like every other restaurant, they bring you a small bowl of goldfish crackers! I love that unique little touch!  Here we ordered some small plates...ceviche with lime and jalepeno, fried oysters, and old bay fries.  I discovered after this weekend that I'm not a fan of oysters, either raw or fried, and they're not a fan of me either. However, I gave them a good college try (hubby loved them!).  Everything was great though! All in all a fun food-filled day in DC!

late night snack...sushi tempura at M St Grill

More of our past DC weekend coming up!