The Oceanaire Seafood Room (DC - Downtown)

This is one restaurant that should not participate in Restaurant Week.

We have dined at Oceanaire dozens of times and never had a bad experience but Saturday night we were met with an obnoxious waiter and table scraps cuisine.

Oceanaire ran their normal menu, with a tiny block of 8-point font in the lower right hand corner denoting the Restaurant Week selections as follows:

Starters
- Caesar salad
- Mixed greens salad
- New England clam chowder

Entrees
- Grilled salmon in raspberry vinaigrette
- Dover sole in herb butter
- Grilled scallops

Desserts
- Chocolate bread pudding
- Seasonal berries in zabaglione
- Peach melba

The starters looked paltry, the entrees fair and the desserts seemed relatively promising. Between the five of us, we sampled all of it. We also added side orders of hash browns and sautéed spinach.

As we were perusing the menu, one of our party asked the waiter, "how are the scallops?" He exhaled sharply and replied, "its Restaurant Week," as if to say, "do you really think we would put anything halfway decent on THAT menu?"

Forget for a moment, the collective net worth of the people seated at our table, the tens of thousands of dollars of corporate entertaining our party does (or, should I say, used to do) at Oceanairre each year, or even the hundreds of dollars of wine we consumed that evening. You should never, ever make anyone in you dining room feel like anything less than the most honored guest.

Whether they are dropping a few grand on a blowout celebratory dinner or whether they saved up for months to be able to afford the $30.05 Restaurant Week menu, every guest should be treated equally well. As she said in Pretty Woman, "Big Mistake. Huge."

The meal went downhill from there.

The Caesar salad was limp (made ahead of time) and despite asking if I would like anchovies, they neglected to bring them out. The clam chowder was actually pretty good, but what the hell are they doing serving it in Washington, DC in August?

The salmon was clearly the ass-end of the filet, weighing in at nearly one centimeter in thickness; it was obvious that the choicest cuts went to the patrons who opted for the regular menu. The raspberry vinaigrette was too tart and really a distraction from the fish. The sole was also a let down, as one of our party suggested, "I sure would like some fish with this butter." The scallops seemed fine, even if they might have been punches. The hash browns and spinach were good, but I'm not going to give them much credit for that.

Dessert was a relative high point (or perhaps the wine and the good company had turned the mood around). The chocolate bread pudding was great - though about as in tune with the season as the clam chowder. The fresh berries in zabligione were refreshing - even if they looked silly served in an escargot dish. I didn't sample the peach melba, but the presentation was grand - in a tall glass dish - and there were no complaints.

It is unfair for diners to judge a restaurant by Restaurant Week alone, but it is equally unfair for a restaurant to judge its patrons by Restaurant Week alone.

Oceanaire ought to know better.

It is a shame we won't be dining or entertaining our corporate clients there ever again.