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Blues Alley, Georgetown


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Any upgrade in the menu would drive this place to Blue's Alley prices, a development that probably would not sit well with their target audiences. It's already a fairly expensive night there.

I suppose I'm just begging for a new thread to be created :( , but I'm headed to a show at Blues Alley in a couple of weeks and was wondering if the food there has improved since my last visit many years ago. At the time I recall it being overpriced and not very good. I suspect the $10 minimum is better spent on drinks than on food, but it's an 8 PM show and we will need to be getting dinner somewhere.

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I suppose I'm just begging for a new thread to be created :( , but I'm headed to a show at Blues Alley in a couple of weeks and was wondering if the food there has improved since my last visit many years ago. At the time I recall it being overpriced and not very good. I suspect the $10 minimum is better spent on drinks than on food, but it's an 8 PM show and we will need to be getting dinner somewhere.

I do not think they have changed the menu in the last 25 years. I've been w/in the last 12 months, and the food tastes the same as it always does. It is not bad, per se, it's just unremarkable in most cases. You expect a little better at those price points. When we go to an 8pm show, we always eat there because we show up between 6 and 6:30 to make sure we get a good table (not that there are any really bad seats there). When you go to the 10pm show you spend that time outside standing in line. I'd rather have martini or two and eat. This food is good enough for that.

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I do not think they have changed the menu in the last 25 years. I've been w/in the last 12 months, and the food tastes the same as it always does. It is not bad, per se, it's just unremarkable in most cases. You expect a little better at those price points. When we go to an 8pm show, we always eat there because we show up between 6 and 6:30 to make sure we get a good table (not that there are any really bad seats there). When you go to the 10pm show you spend that time outside standing in line. I'd rather have martini or two and eat. This food is good enough for that.

Thanks for the Blues Alley information. I'll create a new thread after the show and this can be moved into it. I was figuring we'd have to be there fairly early to get the best table, so it's either getting appetizers there and a meal afterwards or eating dinner there.

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Continuing from The Birchmere discussion here, my husband and I had dinner at Blues Alley before the David Sanborn show last night.

Highlights: The show was wonderful and we had a good table. We wouldn't have gotten that table if we hadn't arrived early and had our dinner there. The broccoli that came with my meal was very good.

The rest: The food was about as I remembered it. Each of our main courses was okay but damaged by a one-note overpowering flavor. In the case of my order of Tony Bennett’s Shrimp and Artichoke Hearts Sauteed in lemon, butter, and parsley, served over rice, the shrimp and artichoke hearts were decent, as was the lemon butter (though I didn't notice parsley). The lemon flavor, however, soaked into the rice and destroyed it. I could only take a few bites, as it was unpleasantly over-saturated with lemon. I picked around and found a few spots with unaffected rice, but the minefield of lemon was too much and I gave up. I'm not quite sure how the lemon deluge happened, unless additional lemon was added to the entire plate after the sauteeing.

My husband got Joe Williams’ Jambalaya Chicken, ham and andouille sausage stewed in a rich creole tomato sauce served over rice with vegetable of the day. He found it overly spicy but said the spiciness came in pockets, so some bites weren't that hot. The bit I tried was very spicy (and I like heat more than he does), but that seemed due to the andouille. Again, I'm not sure what caused the overpowering heat, but it dominated everything else, except where it didn't. I can't remember the last time I went out to dinner with my husband when he didn't eat everything on his plate. There was a considerable amount left, especially for him. Since I loved my broccoli vegetable of the day, I took his uneaten broccoli. It tasted like it had been dressed with margarine, which was odd, as mine seemed unadorned. (If it wasn't margarine, it was something that tasted like it.)

We started with Arturo Sandoval Jalapeno Poppers Filled with cheddar cheese, served with homemade salsa, which were meh. They seemed to be stuffed with cream cheese (or least partially so) rather than cheddar.

David Sanborn is there through Sunday (8 and 10 PM shows every night). I'd go back if the tickets weren't so expensive :(. Spending your minimum on drinks is probably the best bet, unless you have the kind of situation we did.

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I enjoyed a low-key, healthy (I think), and relatively inexpensive dinner ($12 tea meal - soup, 3 veg and a main) at Ching Ching Cha before a show at Blues Alley last night. No alcohol - but, as Pat said, you have a minimum to spend at Blues Alley anyway, may as well just use it for drinks.

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