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DCist Reader Nicole writes in:
I wanted to ask you if you had any great recommendations for relatively cheap, hands on seafood restaurants around DC. My sister is coming to town for her 16th birthday, and since she lived in Salt Lake City, there is really no delicious seafood there to speak of (besides brine shrimp). Anyways, any help you or your readers could offer would be lovely.
Delicious seafood is a tricky business in any town. If you're going for the finest, it has a tendency to get expensive very quickly.
The most obvious answer to Nicole's question would be to go to Phillip's on the SE Waterfront, for their all-you-can-eat buffet. It's not necessarily the best seafood in town, but will give eaters an easy and relatively affordable hands-on experience.
For a unique taste of D.C., you can head to the Maine Avenue Seafood Market. There you will meet folks from all walks of life and the price is right, but spots like Captain White's Seafood City are pretty much standing room only. If you're okay with eating at home, you can swing by and pick up some freshly cooked crabs, shrimp, and fish.
If fried seafood is your game, you can head over to TackleBox for some sustainable fried mollusks and fish. The atmosphere is stripped down, and you can't go wrong with one of their fried plates followed up by pastry chef Heather Chittum's delicious pie.
Slightly further afield is Sea Side Crab House in Eden Center. You'll find a huge array of seafood that you can attack with your hands, and find yourself in the area's major Vietnamese enclave.
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Save your time, ignore all the other suggestions in the post, and go to either BlackSalt or Kinkeads.
Realtively cheap is Old Ebbiit Grill's happy hour - half price raw bar from 3-6 (I think Mon-Thur).
I never knew you could eat brine shrimp. All of those as a kid with Sea Monkeys. I wish I had known then!
So, uh, does anyone know where I can get some crabs for cheap? Anyone?
Hello? Is this mic on?
Black Salt ain't "relatively cheap" and is more "fancified" seafood, i.e. weirder stuff (skate wing, fish roe, etc...) that might not go over well. I hate to pigeonhole people from SLC, but I'd go for something with more standard dishes like Oceannaire, which still is not that cheap.
I don't know what I was thinking with that recommendation, Oceannaire is good but if you're visiting DC/Baltimore it's crabcakes or fried fish as the specialty. In addition to all the aforemetioned reccomends I'd add the Market Lunch (in Eastern Market) for their crabcake platter or sandwich. Haven't tried their fried fish.
Its not in DC, but close. Jerry's Seafood in Lanham, MD is amazing. Try the Crab Bomb.
Everything there is fresh, and the portions are huge. I would give it $$$ out of $$$$ for price.
Here's one that's good and not car dependent: Bethesda Crab Shack. Easily within walking distance from the Bethesda Metro (red line, though consult a map if you're not familiar with Bethesda, it's set back from the main drag by about a block), it's got crabs year-round, as well as shrimp, clams, and other forms of smashable, peelable seafood. Reasonably priced, brown paper tableclothes, basic sides, cold beer. Good times for all.
Road trip it out to Annapolis for Cantler's Riverside Inn. Great experience and talk about unique! www.cantlers.com
It might not be the best, but I like The Quarterdeck in Arlington. Plastic tablecloths, wooden hammers, wreaks of Old Bay and butter, and old salty farts bellied up to the bar. It has the makings of a good night. Their website has a PDF of their menu.
http://www.qdrest.com
http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-quarterdeck-arlington
My friend got some crabs on 14th Street.
C'mon the definitive DC seafood experience (IMHO) is a fish sandwich from Horace & Dickie's. They keep it real and still fry with lard, awww yeah.
the waterfront and phillips is in SW not SE .
Horace & Dickies 4 piece fried fish sandwich, drowned in hot sauce, $5.A little more upscale, you've got Eammon's Dublin Chipper in Old Town, and the raw bar at The Wharf does some good happy hour deals, and their oysters don't taste like iodine. Union Street Public House also does decent raw deals. Old Ebbitt does a good raw bar, but it's lousy with tourists.
The local landmark is Jerry's Seafood in Seabrook, home of the obscene Crab Bomb. If you want to kill yourself with backfin and no filler, that's the way to go. RT's does a respectable oyster and shrimp po boy, almost as good as Hank's Oyster Bar but not as expensive. Johnny's Half Shell near Union Station used to do $1 oysters for happy hour, but don'tknow if they still do. Their lunch po boys are also tasty and not too expensive.
As for the real-deal fried fish, you need to get your a$$ to Faidley's in Baltimore where they still practice the art according to doctrine, minus frying in pure lard.
yeah, tackle box is pretty awesome.
The Crab Claw up in Tenleytown used to be a decent place to get your basic seafood, but I haven't been there since they moved to their new location.
Sea Catch in Georgetown is wonderful for visiting tourists.
Maine avenue is not worth it even though it's funky.
Had to register to point this out.
Salt Lake City has amazing seafood, and here's why.
Delta Airlines is the main shipper for many of the best fisheries all along the pacific, on up to Alaska. Delta's main hub is the Salt Lake City International Airport, so all the the seafood gets pushed through there on it's way out. So there's a number of great places in Salt Lake who have contracts with Delta to get access to some pretty damn good seafood. The Gastronomy group (Market Street Grill, Market Street Broiler, etc.) have a number of very nice places to get good seafood. She should try the Atlantic type fare while she's out here, but when she gets back home, there's plenty of options there too.
Don't stop at Cantler's. Keep going across the bridge and up the eastern shore to Waterman's Crab House in Rock Hall. Better view, better crabs, and live music! It's worth the extra hour drive.
If you're going to go that far, you might as well keep driving until you get to Smith Island and throw your own crab pot in the bay. Of course, you'll have to learn "Ocracoke Brogue" in order to communicate with the inbred locals, but that's the price of freshness. Although, you'd better be off the island by sundown, because the place turns into a cross between "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and "The Wicker Man."
PS: The Smith Island Cake ROCKS! The secret to it's moistness is condensed milk and human pineal glands.
I think you should wait until you get back to Salt Lake City to get some seafood. That way you can visit with old friends and eat some brine shrimp with them. But I would have to say that there were a couple of places in MD that were great, I'm not so sure about the cheap part though.