Rich and I have long had a love/hate relationship with one of our local watering holes, Busboys and Poets, located down in Shirlington (they also have restaurants in DC).
Things we love: location, location and location as well as price affordability for ok fare.
Things we like, the shop that sells fair trade gift item and books, free wi-fi available. Also, the fact that the place is named after a poet (Langston Hughes) and offers things like open mic poetry nights.
Things we are nuetral about: place's overall lefty bent can feel a little dated and simplistic at times.
Things we dislike. Atmosphere can be noisy and crowded. B&P does not use a pager system for handling those waiting for tables and does not accept reservations; so on crowded days like today, unless you regularly remind the front desk that you are there you can miss out on a seating opportunity. Back room is louder than others, and feels more crowded and claustrophobic on account of lack of windows.
Also, the menu does not change - ever - at least that we have seen and the restaurant rarely, if ever, offers specials to reflect changing seasons or other factors. This makes eating there get to feel a bit like a culinary version of the movie 'Groundhog Day' and this drives home the reality that some of the dishes are just not worth repeating.
An example of one of the better ones for a Sunday afternoon is a cup of their well made cappuccino and a half of their peanut butter and banana sandwiches. This has become a regular thing for Rich and I on Sundays and we do about every other week. But of course we don't like falling into a rut so we decided to switch out the PB and Banana today for the Fiji Apple and Gorgonzola Sandwich - a mistake we won't make again.
The Fiji Apple and Gorgonzola sandwich appears to offer a nice clash of flavors between two slices of bread. The sweet crispness of the thinly sliced apple could play off well against the salty bite of the Gorgonzola blue cheese and offer someone a good mix of salty and sweet. But in reality, putting the sandwich between pieces of raisin bread smeared with a fig compote and reducing the Gorganzola to a a mere hint of its needed glory wound up delivering a sandwich that was so sweet it could have effectively stood in for dessert. The veneer of Gorgonzola on the bottom slice of bread was simply not enough to stand up to the explosions of sweetness from the apples, fig compote and raisin bread. In order to reach its full potential, this sandwich needs more Gorgonzola and to lose either the fig compote or the raisin bread. Both Rich and I thought the sandwich could have been pretty good on a nice sourdough or even a soft wheat bread.
So, like I said, a love/hate relationship with the place and I am putting it into the Eat Here and Don't Eat Here categories. We recommend the restaurant vary its menu more often or start offering daily specials and put a pager system into place for the times when when a lot of people are waiting for tables.
