After our afternoon at the winery, we were all looking forward to some seafood for dinner. A quick Google search for seafood in Washington, DC will no doubt give you Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place as a top option. It might not be on lots of the lists you might find for best seafood in DC, but we weren’t necessarily looking for a place that served $80 entrees. Tony and Joe’s Seafood is located at the Washington Harbour in Georgetown. It is right across the river from our place in Rosslyn. This meant it was a really easy trip to make with a toddler who already missed her nap. Plus she had to spend the previous six hours in a car seat and quietly playing at a winery.
Tony and Joe’s boasts floor to ceiling windows with great views of the Potomac River, Washington Island, the Kennedy Center, and the Rosslyn skyline. It’s also located just a few hundred meters from mile 0 on the C&O canal so it has plenty of foot traffic along the walkways that follow the Potomac.
The menu is a simple one pager that offers salads, a few tacos, some sandwiches, and then the seafood you’d expect at, well, a seafood place. They have a raw bar, plenty of seafood starters, and entrees like crab cakes, crab legs, a low country steam pot, and shrimp and grits. They also have an impressive drink menu with nearly 60 wines.
The dining room is fairly large with some pretty typical fish décor, fishing nets, lots of mirrors and white table cloths. We made reservations to be on the safe side and arrived at 5pm and the dining room was only about a quarter full.
Appetizers
We ordered a dozen oysters and split the dozen between some freshwater Virginia and saltwater Maryland oysters. I’m still not very smart on the different types of oysters, but whatever kinds we ordered were very delicious. (I’ve yet to have to have an oyster I didn’t like, fyi. Here’s another post about oysters). We also ordered an order of Rhode Island calamari to split. It was a pretty generous sized portion and was served with a chipotle aioli. We made easy work of the dozen and calamari and were looking forward to the entrees.
Entrées
My mom ordered some Chesapeake style crab cakes, Mel ordered an open faced shrimp salad sandwich and my Dad and I both ordered a low country steam pot. The food was just a little bit slow to come out, but we thankfully didn’t have to wait too long. Thankfully we had Cocomelon playing on the iPhone and had an ample supply of goldfish crackers to keep Naomi going.
The entrees were all tasty and the portion sizes were what I would expect for the price. I wouldn’t call them overly generous, but enough to feel satisfied. My Mom was very satisfied with the crab cakes (she likes to try out crab cakes when visiting the Mid-Atlantic). SHRIMP SALAD. Our low country steam pots had shrimp, mussels, clams, sweet corn, tomato, red potato, andouille sausage and was steamed in an Old Bay broth. The pot they served it in was just a little bit on the small side. This means it was tough to get everything mixed around. And also tough to get to the broth until about half way through the meal. It would have been nice to have a small loaf of crunchy bread to go with the steam pot to soak up a lot of that broth. In lieu of bread, I made sure I filled up each mussel shell with broth before eating.
Overall I’d recommend Tony and Joe’s Seafood to anyone looking for an accessible and affordable seafood place in Georgetown. If you are looking for fine dining, excellent table service, and the best seafood you can find in the area, this isn’t your place. But for our needs, it absolutely hit the spot.
