▣ Location: 1600 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314

▣ Tel: 703-894-3440

▣ American, Belgian

▣ Yelp Rating: ★★★★☆ (as of December 23, 2012) – Click for more info!

Literally two blocks from work, this small restaurant called Brabo Tasting Room is attracting a lot of people who visit Old Town, Alexandria, VA. Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of this place until my friend mentioned it the other day. It is right next to BRABO by Robert Wiedmaier, which is supposed to be another great dining option. We weren’t really properly dressed that night so we went for this rather “casual” option at Brabo Tasting Room. When you walk into this “old” building, their modern looking kitchen with the brick oven welcomes you.

So, what do they offer? Their menu isn’t that complicated. We got “Boston Bibb Lettuce” salad, “Local Tomato Bisque” and “Classic” mussels. One great thing about this place is that it’s really “share-friendly” 😉 As you’ve noticed, some people just LOVE to order a bunch of different dishes and share everything. That’s me! Anyway, we were going to share all the dishes and didn’t really say that to our waiter but when they brought out the salad, they nicely plated it on two separte plates for us! That’s called some great service!

Every bite on the plate tasted so fresh! Not to mention the perfectly cooked beets, even the lettuce itself tasted so delicioius. It was tossed with perfect amount of their mustard vinaigrette.

Tomato bisque was incredible! To me, most soups here in the States are a little too salty. However, this one was perfectly seasoned with great basil aroma and a nice taste of Crème fraîche.

Mussels! Where do I even start? As a big fan of all kinds of seafood, I don’t even need sauce or seasoning for mussels usually. I sometimes just boil them in water with a couple piece of jalapenos. This dish was prepared in white wine, garlic and shallots. Mussels were fantabulous but the leftover broth…. O.M.G. But for all the other people in the restaurant, I would’ve just drunk the broth and licked the bowl and this ain’t joke! When they brought out empty bowls for us (because we were going to share), they were nicely heated so our mussels didn’t get cold!

That was another thing about this place. Even though it kind of looked like a small, quite casual place, they offered a top notch service. This is the kind of restaurant where you feel very well-fed and perfectly-treated when you walk out. I even liked their bathroom! 🙂

They don’t take reservations so show up when you feel like it!

P.S. I forgot to mention but their beers are known to be very good too. Belgian beer, duh! I am not much of a drinker so I didn’t drink anything but it’s worth the trip for that too!