carlyle club - Alexandria

Not great. For Valentine's Day. I thought the conversation was jazz, but it was acoustic guitar and not jazz. The lady wasn't good. Kept talking instead of entertaining and making many mistakes. Unprofessional. Not sure why you always invite her every Valentine's Day. The server was inexperienced and raw. The food took too long to turn around, even we thought of the time. The decor is remarkably fake or cheap. The only decent one was the food. But that's just decent. Drinks are also sucked. Very expensive for the occasion. I need to do better.

We had a very incompetent server. I went almost without payment. The waiting time for each service was too long.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a nice girl and brought to our seats. The ambience was beautiful. Then our waiter asked what we want to drink and what appetizer... we ordered, then our waiter asked if we liked our appetizers and drinks together or one before the other (huh? We said it was no matter what he thought... our appetizers and drinks came together and both were great. THEN, an hour and 15 minutes later our main dishes came out. The steak was very bad, about 1/4 inch thick, chewing and really fat. The crab cakes were not cooked all the way and had no large pieces of crabs. It was more like chewing cookies. Our sidepiece was smeared red potatoes and they were just horrible...can be in the night before and served cold. 1/2 way through our main dish we ordered another drink, and the drinks finally came to the desert... very disappointing. Also, our waiter never asked our dirty dishes between courses and not even if something tastes ok. When we asked the girl who served us the food, the dirty dishes she grabs 'I WILL, give me a minute!' It was such a bad experience. We won't be back.

Overall, our experience at the Carlyle Club was very good. The food was excellent, we sat on time and our food came out quickly and was well prepared. The band played a very beautiful jazz music and the sound level was not too high. Overall a great place for a romantic dinner with a special person. The only complaint was the server. While very nice he was quite forgetful, I never received a refill of my waterglass, although I asked twice and served desert without cutlery, so we had to stare it for a while before we could eat it.

Had an excellent meal and enjoyed live music. Very much like an old nightclub experience. Nothing like it in the DC area. Will definitely come back.