Friday, October 10, 2008

Ashburn Restaurant Reviews

Bonefish has been our favorite restaurant in Ashburn ever since it opened.

One time, we went to the Bonefish down in the Chantilly / Fair Oaks neck of the woods for a friend's birthday. It was right after I got off work and I was still wearing my uniform. When it came time to pay the bill, the waitress came to our table and said, "That guy over at that table is the owner of the restaurant [points in one direction], and that guy over at that table is the regional manager [points in the other direction], and they instructed me to tell you thank you for serving our country and that your dinner is on the house." WOW. Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Two thumbs up for Bonefish!

Now, even if that hadn't happened, Bonefish would still be our favorite restaurant in the Ashburn area. The service is always top notch, the food is always to die for, our kids like the food (which is always a challenge, especially at a nice, semi-fancy restaurant), and they have the cool butcher paper on the table and crayons for you to color on the table. Unfortunately, we can't afford to eat there more than for birthday and anniversary-type special occasions.


Now, shifting to the "affordable but good" category, I think we may have another favorite restaurant in Ashburn.

When we left Ashburn for Hawaii about 15 months ago, there was a Mexican restaurant in the corner of the Broadlands shopping plaza. I only got to eat there once before we left, but I liked it. Too bad. It's gone now.

In it's place, there is a new place called Bluz Brothers BBQ.


We decided to give Bluz Brothers a shot on our second night in town. Much to our surprise, the place was empty...


The hostess explained to us that they JUST opened. They didn't have any sort of a grand opening and did a "soft" opening to allow business to slowly build up and let them iron out any kinks and adjust to the workload.

The waiter brought us a plate of some of their home made potato chips with samples of their four kinds of barbecue sauce to try. The potato chips were really good, and I'm not a big fan of potato chips.

The service was prompt, attentive, and friendly. Then again they had enough staff there to serve all the tables and we were like one of two occupied tables in the restaurant that night.

The food was really good. I had the beef briscuit & chopped pork combo with hush puppies and sweet potato fries. The hush puppies were a little blah, but the rest was really good. We were all really excited about the sweet potato fries because (a) the boys like them, and (b) it's the only time LW can come close to getting the boys to eat an orange vegetable.

Their signature drink is something like a "Bluz Tea" which is iced tea mixed with pink lemonade. (Arnold Palmer?) I thought it was pretty good.

The boys liked it so much that they asked to go back a couple of times since then. Then, this week when the truck delivering my car arrived and agreed to meet us at the Broadlands Shopping Center parking lot after I got off work, the boys said they wanted Bluz Brothers for dinner, so we gave in because it was close and easy. So now after two visits, I can say that I still like Bluz Brothers (and there were a few more customers besides us in the restaurant this time).

My one complaint is that the American flag hanging on the wall behind the bar is hanging backwards (the blue field with the stars is supposed to be on the left, not on the right). I pointed it out to our waiter the first night we went, and he went and told someone about it, but it was still hanging the wrong way when we went back this time.

So if you read this and you go to Bluz Brothers, make sure to comment on their flag hanging backwards!

Incidentally, in the process of searching to see if Bluz Brothers had a website, I happened upon this blog of Ashburn Restaurant Reviews. I'm going to have to check it out and compare notes.

No comments: