Restaurant week means 3-course meals for $35.09.  Some restaurants offer a very limited menu, but Bistro Bis offered almost their full menu (with a small upcharge for some of the more expensive menu items).  Bistro Bis is a french bistro style restaurant in the Capitol Hill area of DC.  Ross and I took advantage of our metro-accessible location and took the metro to Bistro Bis.

Starters:

I stared with the caramelized pear, endive, blue cheese salad.  I would say the salad was okay – not enough blue cheese or pears for my tastes — and I learned that I don’t really care for endive.

Ross started with the mussel and liguica appetizer, in a sweet tomato broth.  The serving size was huge — almost a whole meal in itself.  He really enjoyed the mussels, the sausage and broth.

My monster appetizer which had a ton of mussels

Main Course:

I had the sea scallops served over a cauliflower mousse.  The scallops were huge and perfectly done – so yummy!

Ross has the pork belly served over polenta with a corn and butter bean salsa.  He really enjoyed the pork belly.

Dessert:

Ross and I were in such a hurry to eat our yummy desserts that we forgot to take pictures.  I had a lemon sponge cake with lemon mousse served with a blueberry sauce. Light and summery.  Ross had an apple tarte Normandie – traditional French apple tarte — also very yummy.

Because it was restaurant week, and the restaurant was full of people who wouldn’t normally splurge on such a fancy restaurant — Ross and I decided to play tourist and take pictures of ourselves and the food.  Hopefully we didn’t make too huge fools out of ourselves.

As we were finishing our main course, we ran into some of our friends at Bistro Bis — totally by coincidence.  Ross’ friend Aaron and his girlfriend Jenni  were seated  next to us — they had also made reservations for Bistro Bis that night for restaurant week.  It was fun running into them!  Although, later Aaron texted Ross saying they got a free 1/2 bottle of wine…we were a bit jealous.  Wonder how they managed that one.

Ross and I had a great time at restaurant week and will partake in it again in January.

Going to Kinkeads was a breeze since all we had to do is walk out of our apartment and jump on the metro and just ride the orange line down a few stops. Once we got off at the Foggy Bottom stop we just needed to walk a few blocks to the restaurant. It was a good thing it was only a couple of blocks since we were in the middle of a heat wave and it was hot and muggy out. When we got near the restaurant we found that Kinkeads was in a shopping plaza that was a row of old row houses that had been renovated and converted. When we got inside it was very nice and the bar area was fairly crowded especially considering it was a tuesday night. The layout of the place is a little odd but thats just an artifact of restaurant being inside a series of old row homes.

We were seated in a very nice and large booth off to the side from the entrance. We could see out the windows and still see along Pennsylvania ave which was nice. Once we were seated we were given only the wine menu which I thought was a little odd but Nicole dove into it. The wine menu was very intimidating as there were so many things to choose from. For the longest time we couldn’t decide if we wanted to just get wine by the glass or just get the bottle. Normally getting a bottle isn’t an option for us because I always had to drive home which meant no more than a glass and there was no way nicole could drink the rest of a bottle. But since we had taken the metro to Kinkeands we decided to get the whole bottle since we could both drink freely. I forget what we got exactly but nicole picked a pinot grigio of some kind.

When our waiter came to greet our table he brought with him the regular dinner menus. Once we had the dinner menus we had our work cut out for us. There were so many things on the menu that sounded yummy that actually picking something was going to be a challenge. Since it was a special occasion we decided that instead of splitting an appetizer like we normally do that we would each get one. Nicole ended up ordering a crab and corn soup for her appetizer and broiled sea scallops for her entree. I selected a 6 oyster chef selection for my appetizer and the Atlantic Cod with crab imperial. Our appetizers came out very quickly and saying they were fantastic was an understatement.  Nicole was scrapping the dregs of her soup bowl and I quickly polished off all the oysters. When our entrees arrived they were also amazing to eat. If we wouldn’t have felt so out of place we would have taken pictures of our dinners. I really enjoyed my fish and what blew me away was all the sides that came with my dish were also really yummy. Normally I don’t always enjoy all the sides but the whipped sweet potatoes, garlic spinning, and some kind of bread thing were amazing and I ended up completely cleaning my plate.

In all we really enjoyed our experience at kinkeads. The service was top notch and the food was fantastic and they more than justified the price. We’ll definitely want to be making a return trip at some point and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a seafood place. Although based on how busy they were on a tuesday reservations are a must and prob have to be done more than a week in advance for a weekend night.

www.kinkeads.com

Nicole outside kinkeads

Ross outside kinkead’s

Getting to the restaurant was a bit of the zoo but we had my trust GPS navigation thing that nicole got me for our anniversary. I managed to over shoot the valet line for the restaurant but just kinda pulled over anyway and made the valet guy come to me. Valet parking is absolutely necessary for us if we’re going to drive into the city. Mostly because I don’t want to go through the hassle of trying to find a spot when I don’t know the area.

The decor was very modern and everything was all white from the table to the chairs and even the wall. They had this really cool fireplace which we got seated next to. The only downside with the atmosphere was that for some reason there was a draft on one side of the table. In fact one of the waiters commented to the couple next to us that the lady always takes the inside seat and by the time they leave they make their dates swap seats with them. Overall though the atmosphere was fantastic and nicole and I really liked the place.

The cool fireplace that was next to us.

For dinner we opted to go with their prefix menu and add some extra rolls and sushi to our order. The sushi options weren’t the traditional japanese choices but were modern/American rolls. Most of the appetizers on menu you could see they started with a Japanese dish and then gave it a french twist. For the entree’s it was the opposite where they took a french dish and added an asian twist to it. For the most part all the food we ordered was fantastic. Some of the things we got we probably wouldn’t order again but that wasn’t the fault of the chef we just didn’t care for the flavor.

Throughout the night the service at the place was fantastic further reminding us it pays to go to a nicer resturant. The meal ended up being one of the most expensive we’ve ever had but figured that was just a result of going down into DC. Still we really enjoyed ourseleves and hope to go back there again at some point.

Nicole with one of the cocktails we ordered that night.

Sweet Potato Tempura Roll.

Nicole’s Goat Cheese Timbale which was very rich.

Spicy Crunchy Salmon, Tuna Avocado which was amazing

Our appetizers were a little out of control.

Chilean Sea Bass miso | edamame | beurre monté | stuffed pepper. I was amazed how huge the piece was. Very flavorful and tender.

Scallops pad thai noodles | hen-of-woods mushrooms | truffle jus

chocolate mousse | hazelnut biscuit | strawberries

Us as we were leaving Oya after such a fantastic meal.