Jackson 20

06/20/11

AWFUL

by DLynnK at Citysearch

This was the worst waste of money and most terrible service I havef ever had. The food was terrible. No flavor. The service was awful: we got a guy who mumbled and looked as if he could care less if he was there. It was a nightmare. Never again will I go here. Don't waste your money.

01/15/11

Best Brunch EVER!

by amandapanda44 at Citysearch

This place is great! The food very creative, fun and delicious! We couldn't decide which entree to eat for brunch so we had the crab cake eggs Benedict as a breakfast appetizer. Great food and wonderful service!

02/01/10

Headline

by SK Singla at Citysearch

Details

• Pros: Pros
• Cons: Cons

12/01/09

Really friendly in a wonderful neighborhood

by rl727 at Citysearch

Really solicitous staff in a dining room located in the middle of Old Town, Alexandria. The food was really good, the staff was solicitous, and all of the customers in the place, including us, were pleased, and at ease. The dining room is an adjunct to the Monaca Hotel, which is funky. We have become used to the Kimpton chain, and we thought this experience was high end and reasonably priced as well.

• Pros: Great food, friendly all the way around

11/20/09

AMAZING EXPERIENCE!!

by Galt79 at Citysearch

We were promptly seated and met by our waitress who believed herself to be pretty smart in congratulating us on our 1 year anniversary. A couple of glasses of complimentary celebratory champagne. Big fun. Ordered one of the wines off of the $20 list. Good enough for $20. We ordered the fried green tomatoes with arugula salad, blue crab buttermilk dressing as an appetizer ($12). Spectacular. Great mix of hot and cold, perfectly cooked crunchy southern fried food. Soon after we'd finished, the waitress brought over an appetizer order of the jumbo lump crab cake with seasonal slaw and mustard aioli--The-Chef-wanted-you-to-try-this-happyannive rsary ($15). Living around here, as you can imagine, one eats some crab cakes. These were exceptional. Hint of something unusual. Cinnamon? The slaw was fresh and asparagus-y. Just wonderful. I ordered the rockfish served with red quinoa, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, with butter sauce ($26), and my wife ordered the brook trout that came with crawfish etoufée, and smothered okra ($22). She's one to pick the one with the okra side every time. We ordered an extra side of braised collard greens with smoked bacon and caramelized onions to share ($6). The waitress returned in a couple of minutes to pour wine and let us know that they were out of the rockfish, and I switched over to the grilled veal meat loaf, roasted red potatoes, green beans, with house made ketchup ($19). The meals were presented beautifully. I'm pretty sure that our waitress went off by then. Someone else brought the plates. Some host guy stops by to chat, ask if everything's ok. Then chat some more. I mean, he was nice enough, pleasant (manager? hotel concierge? hanger-on? don't know.). Yeah, everything was ok. Onto the meat. Literally, figuratively. My veal meatloaf was superb. The housemade ketchup was a little sour, but it imparted a wonderful counterpoint to the grill flavor. The green beans were perfect. The potatoes, surprisingly underdone. Everything on the plate was so perfect, I kept trying to reconcile how that could be, but yeah. underdone. The veal was so good, I kept my standard veal joke to myself because I know it always embarrasses my wife (How's your dinner sir? I couldn't be enjoying it more had I tortured the calf myself). But I digress. This was seriously good. Different. Unusual. Special. Major. Also? A portion for two. The leftover veal was dinner again another night.

The collard greens were ordinary. Fine.

My girlfriend completely and utterly endorsed her plate, said everything on it was really good, really worked.

We had something of a wait to get our server back to take an order for coffee ($2.50) and bring the dessert menu. The coffee was drinkable. We ordered some sort of chocolate pot de crème to share for dessert which was excellent, and delivered with the wonderful "and-of-course-this-is-on-us-happy-anniversary." To sum up--exceptional food, serious pricing for Old Town (yet, we got about $50 in free food--apps, champagne, dessert--just kind of because we asked), and fawning and somewhat misguided service. But this seemed like a real restaurant. Serving food that you don't get in the 40 other adjacent restaurants. This was really, really good, but we wanted it to be just a tiny bit better. But it was really, really, REALLY good. I wouldn't hesitate to go back again. And again. Great. Heartily recommended. We had a terrific meal here. Better than almost any I've had in that neighborhood in the time I've lived around here.

• Pros: Great service, Great food
• Cons: None