stopped in here for dinner on a monday in june.
the hostess station is outside on their patio (aka the sidewalk). when we approached it there was no one there. a couple of minutes later a hostess showed up. apparently, she was getting herself a fresh drink. probably not the best timing on her part considering she works at a restaurant and dinner rush was beginning. we were seated right away at one of the last available indoor tables (way too hot and humid outside that day).
they offer a variety of shellfish to eat by the pound. the shellfish is cooked in steam bags with your choice of seasonings and heat level. you can choose from raw oysters, dungeness crab, blue crab, king crab, snow crab legs, lobster, clams, mussels, shrimp, and crawfish. selection on some items varies with the season.
i opted for the crawfish with their signature "hot n juicy" seasoning and a heat level of medium. shortly after ordering the waitress returned to the table to tell me they were out of fresh/live crawfish and only had frozen. not cool. not cool at all. your restaurant's name is ""hot 'n juicy crawfish!" how in the heck do you run out of crawfish and why would i pay the same price for frozen seafood?! really disappointing.
i changed my order to mussels and shrimp with the same seasoning and heat level. the mussels were awesome. unfortunately, i had quite a few in my bag that didn't open while cooking and had to be discarded. in a pound of mussels i expect 1 or 2 like that, but this pound had 6 or 7. shrimp was very good too (served in the shell with head and legs still attached). i can't get too excited about shrimp as it's so commonplace it's become the "chicken tenders" of the seafood world. corn was good. i didn't really get nay of their sides as you get plenty of shellfish to eat.
service was real spotty. the wait staff were all very friendly when you had their attention, but getting their attention was a real challenge. getting our drinks and placing our order went smoothly enough, but then our waitress was nowhere to be found. waving down one of the other wait staff proved to be a genuine challenge as they were all doing that thing where they walk super quickly through the dining room avoiding eye contact with any customers. i don't know why wait staff does this. they're not fooling anyone. hate to break it to them, but a decent chunk of their customers have, at some point, also worked food service. so, we're all aware of the tricks used to avoid work and avoid customers. next time i'll just stick my foot out and trip them. that will get their attention.
restaurant was clean (as clean as any restaurant that serves gobs of wet and dripping seafood in steam bags can be). i thought it was a bit hot and stuffy inside. that just seems to be a problem with most of the restaurants in woodley park. they're all crammed into these tiny urban units and their a/c just cannot keep up with the heat from the kitchen, from the outside, and from all the customers.
steam bags full of tasty shellfish is where this place shines. unfortunately, everything else about the place is either average or below.