It takes a lot for me to go out to dinner and order a steak. DC is over-populated by steakhouses and the snobbery that goes along with it. If I wanted to wear a tie to dinner I would start crashing weddings or bring back those bolo things. This is part of the reason that I absolutely love Ray's The Steaks and one of the reasons I loved my recent trip to Lost Society over at 14th and U.
The scene here is pretty classy while maintaining a laid-back comfortable feel. The second-floor dining room (the first floor is a Subway...easily the WORST "restaurant" in the nation) is almost entirely hardwood and exposed, an underground feel despite being upstairs. Another thing that I immediately liked about the place was the eclectic mix of people...old white dudes, hipsters, bro bruhs, and everything in between. Is there anything more boring than going out or eating at a place where everyone looks like you? Barf. Ok, now the food.
The menu here is pretty straight forward, but they do have a few interesting takes on fish dishes and some different apps. We decided to try a couple different appetizers to start out with. She wanted the crispy pork belly and I wanted to try the bone marrow because I had never had it. Honestly, the pork belly was pretty hard to eat. I took a steak knife to that thing and was still strugglin' to get through the fried pork skin on the outside. However, the struggle was worth it. It was salty enough, but still had a little bit of sweetness to it along with being extremely tender. The serving size for this 10 dollar app was about the size of a filet. Pretty legit. The bone marrow was fantastic. This was easily the best bone marrow I had ever tasted lol. It is served with kosher salt, grilled slices of baguette, and two large pieces of bone that you spoon out onto the bread (http://www.parlafood.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/marrow.jpg). This was such a rich little snack and may have been my favorite dish there. Next time I may get super gluttonous and just spread this stuff all over my steak. Speaking of steak, this is what this place hangs their hat on. This is a steakhouse that doesn't scream at the top of its lungs that it's a steakhouse. For her entree she ordered the roasted grouper served with succotash, brown butter, smoked bacon, and chili aioli. I had a bite or two of this and I love grouper so it was pretty solid. The chili sauce had a little spice, but wasn't overwhelming. Spice on fish is always a plus in my opinion. I went with the extremely large 14oz bone-in new york strip. This was topped with maytag blue-cheese and served with a side of mushroom cognac sauce. Blue cheese on a steak can be risky. I've had it some places where it ruined the steak, but Lost Society prepared it perfectly and the cognac sauce was a great counter to the strength of the blue cheese. The steak went well with the glass of red that our waitress suggested based on the fact that I know zilch about vino. I couldn't believe it, but we actually ordered dessert after all of that along with a couple glasses of wine. Ruth almost fell out of her chair when I said I had never had nutella so we went with the Nutella Smore. This thing was straight up badass. I don't know how they torched the entire thing to get it melted & still served it chilled, but it was deeelicious. Haha, I still don't know which part of that thing was the nutella, but I'll get on board.
Lost Society has a certain feel to it... like you are behind an an invisible velvet rope (to steal a certain company's lingo). You feel like you are in your favorite neighborhood bar and they happen to serve some fantastic dinner options. This is something DC needs more of; casual eateries with great food. Thanks a lot to Chatty Cathy Savage for turning me on to this place.
Overall: A/A+
Highlights: Bone Marrow, Smores
Lowlights: Our waitress was super nervous and made it a tad uncomfortable for everyone lol.
