O'Sullivan's Irish Pub, Arlington, Va.

Where did all the Irish people in Arlington come from? Everywhere one turns, there is an Irish pub. Go two blocks on either side of my office and there's an Irish pub and restaurant. Go a subway stop either side of ours and there's at least one Irish place at each stop. They're everywhere!

We ventured west for lunch today to O'Sullivan's Irish Pub. When we walked in, I wasn't sure if they were open for lunch or not, as the surprisingly small dining room was completely empty, and it was only about 1:30. People emerged from the back, though, and gave us our choice of tables.

They had a nice menu selection with bar/restaurant standards and a bunch of Irish dishes. Ryan got a chicken sandwich with Irish bacon and cheddar cheese on a Kaiser roll, accompanied by some cole slaw and a big plateful of nice looking "chips" or potato fries. I had the traditional shepherd's pie, sort of an Irish beef stew topped with mashed potatoes and then broiled until the potatoes were golden. It was fine, as far as shepherd's pies go.

For dessert, we split a Bailey's Irish chocolate cake. It was a three layer chocolate cake scented with Bailey's Irish cream and frosted in chocolate icing, then garnished with whipped cream. Ryan had them bring some vanilla ice cream, too. So much for his diet.

We enjoyed our waitress. She had an Irish accent. We seemed to get good menu advice from her, too. I imagine we'll be back to O'Sullivan's.

M Street Grill, Washington, D.C.

Reviewing my blog after making the last post, I noticed I didn't ever write about Sunday's dinner experience. It, too, was sorely lacking in accommodating service, a noticeable lapse in a usually better-run restaurant.

Ryan and I had been at our friend Max's place for cocktails and, on our walk home, stopped at the M Street Grill in the Hotel St. Gregory. Now, I've only been to the M Street Grill for brunches before, but the service then was always fine. I guess they had different waitstaff for dinner.

We weren't terribly hungry, so we just ordered entrees with no preliminaries. Ryan ordered the pan-roasted chicken with sweet potato pecan puree and broiled macaroni and cheese that looked quite delicious, and all of which got eaten. It also came with a green vegetable they called "broccolini" that I thought looked rather like broccoli rabe rather than normal broccoli. I got the steak and potatoes. Several tender steak medallions were on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and topped with a brown gravy scented with sage. I was also supposed to have had "broccolini," but was served sauteed spinach instead. I thought the food was all pretty good.

For dessert, Ryan got an apple crisp with ice cream and I got the dulce de leche cheesecake. The delivering waiter brought two spoons and didn't pick up on my comment to Ryan about "Do you still have a fork leftover?" (we'd each been brought two napkin-packs of flatware).

The problem with the service? It was extremely slow and we seemed at various times to have three different waiters. At the end of the main courses, the waitress brought the check and didn't inquire about dessert, coffee, or anything else. At least at M Street Grill, we had the impression that everyone in restaurant was the victim of slowness.

Must be Sunday night malaise.

Whitlow's on Wilson, Arlington, Va.

Yesterday, Ryan and I walked down the street to lunch at Whitlow's on Wilson, a usually reliable diner-type place in Clarendon. The food was quite tolerable for what we ordered, but the service? Eh. Twas abominable. That was very disappointing, given the usual tolerable service of the place on previous visits.

Monday is half-price burger day, so that's what we ordered, Ryan a "Smokehouse Burger" with barbecue sauce, jack cheese, bacon, and added grilled onions, and I the standard cheeseburger with cheddar. He had a big bowl of cole slaw and I had their tasty battered fries. Ryan loved the cole slaw, reporting that it reminded him of the slaw at Kentucky Fried Chicken (which from Ryan is high praise).

But the problems? Well, first, it took a long time to get the waitress to come to the table to take our orders. When she finally arrived bearing glasses of water, she took our drink and food orders. The drinks—iced tea and a Diet Coke—never arrived. Ryan also ordered a cup of bacon and potato soup as an appetizer, and it, too, never arrived. Our burgers did come hot from the kitchen, but that's because Whitlow's uses expediters to deliver food and doesn't rely on waiters/waitresses to deliver things to their tables.

No one came back to the table to check on our food. The waitress, who'd been running back and forth past our table a lot had refilled our water glasses once before the food arrived, but otherwise ignored us. When we were both clearly done and our plates had been removed by the busboy, she finally came back to offer the check, but Ryan wanted dessert. He also asked her, "Are you our waitress?" Then he mentioned the lack of soup and drinks, so she apologized and brought us free drinks. He ordered the peach cobbler à la mode for us to split, and it came fairly promptly. If I'd been her, though, I'd have comped the cobbler, too.

The cobbler was okay. It had an oatmeal crumb topping that I wasn't expecting and wasn't my favorite, but it was very standard for things like apple crisp. It also had both ice cream and whipped cream, which I always think a bit of overkill.

Once dessert was finished, once again, we sat there a long time looking for our waitress just to get a check. I don't know why she was so inattentive, because she didn't appear to have that many tables, and other wait staff in other sections appeared to serve their tables much more efficiently. What's more, we had to spend an hour and a quarter just in the restaurant, which is quite unusual in this area of multiple big office buildings and a large clientele of workers wanting to get in and out and back to their offices in less than an hour.

Needless to say, the gratuity suffered. Ryan rounded up to the nearest dollar and left her a 28¢ tip.