Two Penn Quarter Restaurants: Oceanaire & Modena
A DC Cuisine Review
Over the Palm Sunday weekend, I made it to two restaurants in Penn Quarter: The Oceanaire Seafood Room and the Italian restaurant Modena. The Oceanaire Seafood Room is located on F Street between 13th and 12th. It holds high online ratings including a 4.4/5 on Google and a 3.5 on Yelp. The Oceanaire is a small chain with ten restaurants in the United States. The atmosphere is sleek and modern, albeit in a mid-2000s sense. My group sat in a booth but there was a decent mix of booths and tables as well as a bar. I can imagine the place feeling a little cramped during busy hours, especially with dim lighting in the dining room. However, my experience was very pleasant.
For an appetizer, I got two oysters: a Chesapeake from Maryland and a Kumamoto from Washington State. They were quite different from each other with the Chesapeake large and the Kumamoto small. I enjoyed both oysters but the Chesapeake was the clear winner. The Kumamoto oyster was a little too crunchy with pieces of shell and there simply wasn’t much to it. The Chesapeake was perfectly briny, flavorful, and meaty. For my entree, I ordered one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes– a Chesapeake Bay Style Crab Cake. You can order one crab cake under the appetizer menu or two cakes as an entree. I went with the appetizer portion because I was not feeling extremely hungry. One was filling for me but two is probably best for most. I say that not only because of portion size but also because the dish is great. I have had many crab cakes and the one at Oceanaire may be the best.
Some crab cakes are dry while the Oceanaire cake melts in your mouth with a creamy texture. It is a real delight. The group I was with also ordered a side of sauteed spinach, which was appropriately garlicky. The night ended with the Dark Chocolate Flourless Torte. It looks like a large slice of chocolate fudge cake. The texture was like a really dense Cosmic Brownie and the taste was akin to a dark chocolate truffle (with a creaminess cutting through the darkness of the cocoa). My table is big into chocolate and the dessert hit the spot. Personally, I liked the slice but would want to try something else if I ever went back. That is not a ding against the cake but it is not quite good enough to be the only dessert I’d ever want to try there.
The next day, the same group and I returned to Penn Quarter to try the high-end Italian restaurant Modena. The restaurant is located on the corner of H and New York Avenue. The atmosphere is financial district-style business-oriented modern. It is attractive but less showy than the online images make it out to be. This is a fine enough place for a meeting. Their dinner menu seems to emphasize their meats and cheeses. My group did not partake in that so look for another review on the topic. My table did get an appetizer: the Burrata di Bufala which was suitably creamy and refreshing. It comes with a piece of grilled focaccia which is great for dipping. For my entree, I wanted to go for a pasta dish and settled on the Egg Yolk Fettuccini al Tartufo. It comes with shaved bianchetti truffle, beurre de baratte butter, and Bianco Modonese Parmesan. The server warned those who ordered pasta that the portions were small so we may want more food. Truthfully, as someone who spent a semester in Italy, the portions are authentic. By this I mean, do not go in expecting Italian-American family-style portions. Personally, my dish was small but it filled me up perfectly. To me, the portions were perfect. Afterwards, the waiter tried to sell us on dessert (dolce) but we opted to grab gelato at the nearby Dolcezza (a DC staple!) in CityCenter.
I would highly recommend both restaurants, especially for a special occasion. Penn Quarter remains one of the nicest areas in downtown DC, which is impressive considering it is next to the declining Gallery Place/Chinatown area. If you are looking for a high-end restaurant in downtown DC, The Oceanaire Seafood Room and Modena are great places to go.