Red Apron, Neighborhood Restaurant Group's Butcher and Charcuterie in Several Area Locations

[Rhone1998]

The Red Apron burger is pretty good, but try to go during an off time - there's not a tremendous amount of seating available, and even less in the way of 'normal' drink options.

The Union Market location is now offering the burger every day.

[Eddiebosox]

The only thing I would take exception to, at least in regards to their Union market location, is their beers. In my opinion, they are wildly overpriced. They have a decent selection, but the glassware they use is a 12 ounce pour (or smaller for higher ABV beers).  For around 8 dollars, its excessive (even for DC) since they aren't exactly selling rare finds like a Granville Moore's or Church key does. 

[JBag57]

Finding myself near Merrifield this past Monday, I decided to stop in at B Side, the new restaurant neighboring the Mosaic Red Apron.  I read somewhere this past week that the vibe was hipsterish, but I felt that it was only slightly so.  It sort of has the look, but the patrons cut across a pretty wide cross-section of ages, etc., although skewing quite a bit younger than me.

The charcuterie menu works something like the menus at sushi places, which you mark up with a provided golf course pencil noting the items you wish to order.  The choices were so plentiful that I decided not to try to navigate the menu this time around, even though the various items are grouped in various categories (spicy and smoky were two of them, I believe), not unlike Greg Engert's beer categories used at most of the NRG establishments.

Instead, I had the Italian Beef Burger, which is, I believe, the Red Apron two-patty burger, with fontina cheese, and a bottom layer of Italian Beef (appropriately thinly sliced) and giardiniera instead of lettuce, tomatos, pickles or whatever. The bottom half of the bun was dipped in the au jus from the Italian beef, which ultimately led to mounting a valiant effort to eat this thing like a normal hamburger.  (I experienced the same difficulty eating Italian beef sandwiches in Chicago, so not a big surprise)    The burger was very beefy and tasty, but I am not sure that the Italian beef itself added much, although the au jus and giardiniera certainly did (I have never had the basic Red Apron burger to compare beef taste).  At $12 with no sides, it seemed at first a little pricey, but it was very filling.  My backup plan was to order one item off of the charcuterie menu if the burger did not fill me up, but that was not necessary.  The menu did have a few sides that could be ordered a la carte, but the fries would have been way too much on top of the burger, and I was not in the mood for the veggie, which I think was steamed broccoli.

Their mixed drink program is something they seem to be focusing on, but that is not my bag, so I went with a beer (BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon Chien Grand Cru), which, at $13 for a 10-ounce pour, seems a little expensive, but is not really much of a markup over the equally expensive retail price for this line of beers.  They have, I believe, 12 taps, which skew toward the more expensive offerings in the several styles.  They present a pretty extensive bottled beer list, as well.  The one sort of gripe that I have about that is, based on seeing a few people order bottled beers (I had a seat at the bar), I think that not many, if any, are kept chilled, and they use some sort of chiller once the beer is ordered.  To their credit (might as well own up to it), they let those patrons know that the beer was not chilled, and that it would take about five minutes to get them their beer.  I surmise that the bottle list matches the inventory list from Red Apron next door, and that when a beer is ordered, they go next door (internally) and grab it off the shelf, and put it in one of those bottle chillers.

I will be going back to explore the charcuterie offerings, if I can resist ordering the Italian Beef burger, that is.  The pork belly pupusa on the appetizer menu will be ordered sometime soon as well.

P.S., sitting near me at the bar was none other than Tom Sietsema, who apparently was checking out the mixed drink program that evening.

[Rovers2000]

So I'm thinking of picking up some charcuterie for thanksgiving (to just add to the gluttony) - however, I can't for the life of me find out what their offerings look like.

I was planning on going to the Merrifield location on Tuesday (I'd imagine Wed during the day might be a mad house) - but wanted to get a sense of what the offerings are, specifically:

- is it just sliced meats that you can pick up to take away?

- do they have chicken liver mouse?

- would it make sense to just call in an order to say "I'm looking for enough charcuterie for 4" and have them just put something together?

I only have experience devouring some of their sandwiches at union market but figured I'd see if anyone with experience at the Merrifield location could weigh in.

Thanks!

EDIT: I love NRG restaurnts, but hate their websites - I found the google docs order form on the RAB site.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Rovers2000

[goodeats]

- do they have chicken liver mouse?

Oh, goodness. I hope that is not on the menu.... ;-)

For anyone who needs their Thanksgiving order form, here it is.

[DonRocks]

So I'm thinking of picking up some charcuterie for thanksgiving (to just add to the gluttony) - however, I can't for the life of me find out what their offerings look like.

I was planning on going to the Merrifield location on Tuesday (I'd imagine Wed during the day might be a mad house) - but wanted to get a sense of what the offerings are, specifically:

- is it just sliced meats that you can pick up to take away?

- do they have chicken liver mouse?

- would it make sense to just call in an order to say "I'm looking for enough charcuterie for 4" and have them just put something together?

I only have experience devouring some of their sandwiches at union market but figured I'd see if anyone with experience at the Merrifield location could weigh in.

Thanks!

EDIT: I love NRG restaurnts, but hate their websites - I found the google docs order form on the RAB site.

I can't remember if they have chicken liver mousse or not, but I've had four of their sandwiches, and I can honestly say they are my least favorite sandwich shop in the city (I'm sure I can find *somewhere* that I like less, but I'd even prefer Potbelly. The meats are good, but the sandwiches are sloppy, gloppy, greasy messes. Both my son and I told ourselves if we ever ate there again, we'd just get plain meat on bread - the last time we went was two nights ago. So far, I've had a muffaletta, a cubano, a roast beef with homemade cheese whiz, and a porkstrami - all four were unmitigated disasters that weren't even worth finishing. When a hungry seventeen-year-old says something is gross, you *know* it's gross.

Do you remember the time I said I was going to go nuclear in one of my reviews? This is what triggered it. I wasn't going to go nuclear about Red Apron, but the lack of criticism in this city, and the fact there is no way for people to even know how bad this place is unless I were to step up and say something. I'm not going to dwell on it because the meats themselves are good, and of course the gourmet foodstuffs are fine too, but the sandwiches? Stay away. In their defense, a whole chicken was pretty good - thoroughly brined, and perhaps too salty (even the breast meat), but still a better rotisserie chicken then you'll find most anywhere. We both really enjoyed the fries, too.

Yes, this is why I stopped writing reviews on dcdining.com, at least temporarily. I knew if I said what needed to be said, it would be ugly, people would be angry, and I just didn't want to write it. Again, it was primarily going to be an essay about the lack of critical information in this city; not just a slam on Red Apron.

[Rovers2000]

Oh, goodness. I hope that is not on the menu.... ;-)

For anyone who needs their Thanksgiving order form, here it is.

Touche

I had one of their sandwiches - I think the meatball sub (which I liked) at Union Market.

This was more, my family loves to have little snacks leading up to the big meal and I have had positive experiences with their sliced meats in the past.  I went with their Charcuterie board and a pound of scrapple (b/c I don't care what its made of, I love it) which will be delicious with hash and poached eggs the next day while I put up the Christmas tree.

[reedm]

I've eaten at the Union Market location, the Partisan location, and the Mosaic location on multiple locations. For whatever reason, the Union Market sandwiches have never failed me, and the same goes for the Partisan/downtown spot. Unfortunately, the Mosaic sandwiches have not met the mark on more than one occasion.

I will also add that their bread, while great at Union Market, was stale when ordered as a to go item at Union Market and Mosaic.

Their burger grind is the best I've found, but their burgers are average. Not sure how that is possible.

[Josh]

The meats are good, but the sandwiches are sloppy, gloppy, greasy messes. Both my son and I told ourselves if we ever ate there again, we'd just get plain meat on bread - the last time we went was two nights ago. So far, I've had a muffaletta, a cubano, a roast beef with homemade cheese whiz, and a porkstrami - all four were unmitigated disasters that weren't even worth finishing. When a hungry seventeen-year-old says something is gross, you *know* it's gross.

I've had each of these sandwiches multiple times at the Union Market location.  I'm not going to go on record saying they are revelatory, but they sure aren't worse than Potbelly.  What went wrong that these were unfinshable "unmitigated disasters?" Was the bread made of acid or something?

[DonRocks]

I've had each of these sandwiches multiple times at the Union Market location.  I'm not going to go on record saying they are revelatory, but they sure aren't worse than Potbelly.  What went wrong that these were unfinshable "unmitigated disasters?" Was the bread made of acid or something?

Saucing to the point of bread saturation and oozing out the sides, sometimes at refrigerator temperature - it wasn't the bread or the meat, and the problems are very fixable.

[dinoue]

It's hard for me to imagine a place less economical than Urban Butcher.  Their success as an ongoing business concern always surprises me.  Have you tried Red Apron / B side for dine in?  The vibe is a little different but child friendly and much cheaper than Urban Butcher, and I think the food is better than UB.

On 7/24/2017 at 5:19 PM, Rhone1998 said:

So bummed by this news.  With the caveat that my comparison set is basically Red Apron and Stachowski's, I think that SS&B has offered the best charcuterie in the city for several years now.  Really sad to see them go.

We have been to Red Apron once. One definite advantage of having a five year old who loves pate is that the restaurants love it and give him extras of everything so we basically were given a two person portion for the price of one. Union Market's just a little too much out of the way for us in most cases, especially if we just want to get a dinner close to home which Urban Butcher fits the bill.

[eatruneat]

On 3/27/2020 at 4:22 PM, Ericandblueboy said:

Thought it might give each other ideas based on where and what you're ordering for take-out or delivery.  

Walked down to the Partisan / Red Apron to pick up one of their Italian sandwiches. We split a sandwich and each had a bag of chips. Sandwich was very good, chips were okay. Also picked up some whiskey, wine, and beer while there "to support local business."