10. Hank's Oyster Bar

BAD NEWS, EVERYBODY: Someone, a disgusting soul sent by the devil himself, stole Richard's moleskin. In that moleskin was all of our notes for restaurants, including all of our individual scores. We're gonna try to make due, but RIP 2008-2009 moleskin.

We've come to another Ahmed pick this time. Ahmed decided instead of the "try to get a low score" route, he'd go the "didn't even know that place was there" route with Hank's Oyster Bar! As it turned out, John had been here before and was excited to be there again.

Richard and Ahmed fully expected a hole in the wall type restaurant, but it was much bigger than expected. It looked super hip and there was an awesome bar. We couldn't get a good picture of the decor without bothering other people, but here's a little taste of this establishment:

We got our menus and before we got a chance to really look at it, the waitress returned with quite a surprise.

Free Goldfish! We all decided this was at least one additional point at the end of the night. We were asked if we wanted to try out some oysters, and here was the dilemma presented to us: John loves oysters, Richard hates oysters, and Ahmed has never had oysters. So we did what anybody else in our situation would do... we ordered 1 of each oyster they had, six in total.

We accidentally ate some before taking a picture.

Since Richard hated oysters, we needed a picture of this experience. Pre-oyster Richard:

Unhappy, saddened about the journey he's about to embark on. Post-oyster Richard:

Oh yeah... that's the stuff right there... Despite the unhappy appearance of the picture, Richard liked his oyster! So much so that he ate 2 of them. Ahmed wasn't as pleased, so he stuck with only 1. John ate 3 of them, all of which were deemed "delicious." Then it was dinnertime!

Ahmed: Pan roasted bluefish

John: Oyster Po' Boy

Richard: Mac n cheese, bucket of shrimp and scallops.

Oh my God, you guys. All around perfection. Richard's mac n cheese was served in some weird, unknown way and made everyone else eat it. It's some mystery flavor that made it soooo good. The bluefish was served with spinach and it was superb. John's Po' Boy, and this is something that I definitely remember happened, left him speechless. This is definitely one of the best seafood places in Old Town. Prices are slightly steep, but my goodness it's worth it.

No idea what the individual scores were, so let's make them up!

John: 9
Richard: 8.5
Ahmed: 8.5
TOTAL: 26

If you aren't going to Hank's Oytser Bar, you are severely missing out. It's the Pizza Pan of seafood. Go now, it's at 1026 King Street.

09. Jack's Place

!!!!FIRST ALERT!!!!

This is our first morning meal, yaaaaaaay! With guidance from John, Richard made a choice to visit Jack's Place.

Jack's is a little hole in the wall place that serves what John described as "the best breakfast and lunch." They don't do dinner, which is why we aren't eating dinner here. We also needed our food fast, because we were gonna go see Gran Torino immediately after our meal. So we called ahead and were on our way!

We got to the little shop and noticed it was just like going to visit a bed and breakfast in Colorado.

Here is one of the walls, decorated with family pictures. Pictures of someone else's family that you don't necessarily care about, yet appreciate because they all look so happy and there's so many of them that you can't think but help "hey, this is a really close, camera-friendly family" and then you smile to yourself. We ended up eating right next to this wall, and there isn't a single awkward photo up there. There's also a Washington Capitals flag there in support of local hockey, but don't let that fool you!

Here's the Colorado part! Jack's Place is the #1 breakfast/lunch restaurant in Virginia fan of the Denver Broncos! And Denver is in Colorado! So if you hate the Broncos, don't come here. If you like the Broncos or do not have feeling towards this, or any, sports team then you will still like it here.

Order's up!

Ahmed: Sausage and scrambled eggs.

Richard & John: Lee St. Sandwich.

Technically, Richard & John are breaking the "don't order the same thing" rule, but as you can see here:

Richard does not care because he's hungry and everyone was in a hurry for Gran Torino. John and Richard both agreed that the sandwiches were awesome. Ahmed wasn't a total fan of the eggs, but he did love the sausage, which in turn made him love the eggs.

We left and oh man, we saw Gran Torino!

Absolutely fantastic movie. Both hilarious and poignant. Clint Eastwood sings in it and acts just like we imagine Clint Eastwood does on a day to day basis. If he doesn't live next to Asian people now, it's evident he has in the past (and hates them) (or does he...?). Go see Gran Torino, and by that I mean buy it on DVD cuz it's way out of theatres now.

SCORES:
John: 7.5
Richard: 7.5
Ahmed: 7
TOTAL: 22

GRAN TORINO SCORES:
John: 10
Richard: 10
Ahmed: 10
TOTAL: 30

08. Royal Restaurant

Against all odds, only 8 restaurants in and John chose a restaurant that Ahmed was about to choose! Crazy! We ended up in Royal Restaurant! Not seen: neon signs when you pass by that advertise their SEAFOOD and SPAGHETTI. Will we order their advertised, therefore superb, seafood and spaghetti?

They voted, probably for Cynthia McKinney.

Off the bat, Ahmed explained how he's eaten here before and doesn't like it, and originally wanted to choose it to try to beat the low scoring Tiffany Tavern for "worst place we've been to." However, John wanted to eat here based on a very favorable review from his brother. Richard was stuck in the middle, like a child with divorcing parents.

Inside: the decor inside was very middle of the road, but we liked it. It seemed like a cool hangout spot for a college town, and thought it was unfortunate that no colleges were nearby. However, Pizza Pan is nearby so we decided to try to found a college specifically for Pizza Pan and Royal.

The waitress was something else. Her accent was weird. Not in a foreign way, but in a "she's obviously faking that" way. Richard figured out that she was an actress in acting school and her coach told her to be a character all day, even at work. She went for the Audrey Hepburn in the first half of "My Fair Lady," but ended up more like Ralph Hepburn in the 1933 Indy 500 race! (You see, he's a race car driver so I'm assuming he's a terrible actor. Like she was that night. Zing.)

Our drinks! Ahmed ordered a coke, John got a Michelob Ultra despite his desire to get a Michelob (they ran out), and Richard got... wait a minute...

No, Richard didn't take any of his drink. He ordered an alcoholic beverage (a fancy one, the name didn't get written down), and he got it served in half a glass. We did not like the lack of fancy alcohol cups, the place was half a bar!

WE'RE HUNGRY FIRST: We got the appetizer platter! Because if a place has a platter of some of their appetizers, it's a good taste of how well the food will be. Three of each appetizer, so one for each of us! The mozzarella sticks we loved, the chicken tenders were meh, and the wings... the wings weren't terrible, but John and Ahmed were underwhelmed. What did Richard think?

Richard took a brilliant picture of this lone wing that he couldn't eat. Yes, couldn't. It was absolutely burnt and uneatable. It was as hard as rock. At least we got some art out of it.

But then the food came out!

Ahmed: Meat loaf and cabbage

John: Chicken Fried Chicken

Richard: Bacon Cheeseburger (another art picture. For future reference, if it's a terrible picture it's taken by Ahmed, if it's a great picture it's taken by Richard)

Not pictured: Free bread and butter! And the butter was garlic butter, a definite plus for us. Also not pictured is the seafood and spaghetti, because none of us ended up ordering those items.

John highly enjoyed his chicken fried chicken, especially how moist it was.
Richard enjoyed his burger, also.
Ahmed enjoyed his meat loaf, mostly because last time he ordered meatloaf at Royal it was cold. It was not cold this time.

After a bit of a mixed bag experience, we decided the scores:

Ahmed: 5
Richard: 5
John: 5.5
TOTAL: 15.5

This place seemed more like a breakfast/brunch type place, why is it even open for dinner? If you want a decent dinner or presumably a really good morning meal, visit Royal Restaurant at 734 N Saint Asaph St

07. Esmeralda's

A review is coming soon, but here are the scores!

John - 3
Richard - 5
Ahmed - 5.5
TOTAL: 13.5

06. Pizzeria Venti

PIZZERIA VENTI
301 John Carlyle St
Alexandria, VA 22314

As you can see the surroundings are either frightening or oddly spooky. More than likely because of this Parking is a breeze!

The simple storefront led us into expecting a simple pizza place, we would soon learn the truth.

We headed inside to find a layout we have not come across in the months of We're Hungry. There are a lot of tables set up almost in a Deutschland Cafeteria. Lots of tables in a square shaped area. YOU DO NOT SIT DOWN FIRST! You walk up to the counter and order what you want right then and there then grab a seat and wait.

After we ordered we noticed the other part of the restaurant, The Bar/ Lounge Area. Off to the side from the main eating hall was this basement style chillax area. Large leather couches and big comfy chairs await you in this area as well as a Vizio LCD Televsion, showing a Cat Trade Show! We all found this fascinating, especially John.

Here is the bar area, no one was sitting here and it didn't seem to get much use. We greatly appreciated the effort as it gave the place a very comfortable basement vibe which we are all accustomed to.
THE MEAL!

MEATBALLS! Richard should've just ordered these because they are whopping in size! Taste wise I would have to say they were very authentic and held they shape as they were bitten into! +1!

John got this! We think its Lasagna!

Ahmed got this! Some kind of Breaded Sauce!

SAUSAGE AND PEPPERONI PIZZA! These reeked of FCPS style pizza. I mean look at the shape! Clearly the chef went to Lake Braddock and just felt the need to improve upon the pizza he had eaten for 12 straight years. One would normally think this was a criticism of the pizza but that couldn't be farther from the truth, we all loved the FCPS Pizza!

LADIES NIGHT! This place had a higher concentration of women than any other restaurant we've been to! All MILFs by the way. John thought they were more than likely a Lesbian Group who met at Pizzeria Venti every week to discuss lesbain things.

John drowned his bread and made a guy taking a sauce bath. Notice the bread arms and head sticking out screaming for help, or enjoying the relaxation. You decide!

Final Notes:
Pros: Ahmed said the place was 'good'
Ahmed loves the basement vibe but suggests a table be added to the mix so you can eat in the lounge, he also gave the meatballs an A+.
John was underwhelmed.
We all loved the bathroom except John who seemed to have had an unpleasant time in there, he gave us no details on what went down.

!!!SWEATER ADVISORY!!! It's drafty in this place!

We realized at the end of the meal that we should've taken the cannolis. Damn.

RATINGS
Ahmed- 7
John - 7.5
Richard 7.5 (+.5 for the bathroom sink!)

Total: 22

Special Note

In hindsight we all felt that Pines of Florence was the far better restaurant even though it received a lower score. We will try to keep this from happening again.

05. Red Mei

We've eaten at so many places since Pizza Pan! We are just terrible updaters. Hopefully we'll catch up soon, yaaaaaaaaay!

We went to Red Mei! It was John's choice, and he decided he wanted Asian food that was cheap.

PRE-MEAL:
Parking for John and Ahmed was easy. Richard got there a little late, and parking for him was easy, too! Parking rules!

Can you even tell that that's a restaurant in the picture below? I dunno man, I can't take a decent picture ever.

We went inside, and it was basically all red and orange colors everywhere!


See! It's a small environment, but we liked it. It was cozy! And all tables come with chopsticks, which freaks you out if you can't use chopsticks (all of us). Luckily, we found where the forks and knives were so we wouldn't make fools out of ourselves.

John and Richard decided to whet their appetites with an appetizer! Because that's what it's there for. Above is a picture of shrimp summer rolls, which look gross. It looks like shrimp and lettuce wrapped in plastic wrap or jellyfish or something. Anyway, they hated it. Then we got our real food.

Ahmed: Beef fried rice. Had unadvertised mushrooms, which Ahmed did not appreciate.

Richard: Chicken dish of some sort

John: Brown/orange thing. There's a lime in there... ummm... egg bits?

OK, we apologize for this mess. This is the only time we haven't written down what we ordered, and Ahmed only remembered what he got because it's basically what he orders any time he goes out to eat Asian food.

+: VERY very VERY ultra fast service, we can't stress that enough. They make the food in front of you, too, which is nice. It's also super cheap for some good food.
-: We didn't like the music. Also the previously mentioned unadvertised food in our food!

SCORES:
Richard: 6 (who doesn't like Asian food, so don't even try it Asians!)
Ahmed: 7
John: 7

Total: 20

The general consensus was that this was a great find. Everyone go there sometime! It's at 602 King St, right across the street from the Chipotle on King.

We also made a new We're Hungry logo out of the Shrimp Summer Roll that was left uneaten due to grossness: