Last Friday, me and the missus decided to dine in Old Town. We were craving Irish food; after our jaunt up in Maine a few weeks back and hitting several New England pubs we were feeling nostalgic for our Ireland walkabout back in 2005 and wanted to try getting back to that setting. Yes, yes, this is Virginia after all, but no harm in trying, right?

I’d read some reviews on O’Connell’s a while back and since it boasted itself as “a modern Irish restaurant in an ancient Irish setting” (from their website), we decided to give it a whirl.

We arrived right at 5 p.m., before the dinner crush on a typical spring weekend evening on King Street. After doing a quick check of the menu out front, we followed the pleasant and cheery hostess upstairs to the third floor. (As an aside, I love it when restaurants post their menus out front – saves me a heap of time of going in, scanning the menu and then bailing because I can’t find anything on it that waters my mouth.)

Seated in a corner along the long banister “corridor” connecting two of the older bars upstairs, the busboy was prompt in getting us water. So we dove into the menu and after some discussion, decided what to eat.

And then waited for our server.

And waited.

And waited.

We saw plenty of busboy activity at the wait station opposite us. I even heard one of the ‘busgirls’ ask if any of them knew who was helping us. She said it quietly and shrugged in our direction; considering we were the only table seated up there, it was kind of obvious we were the subject of inquiry.

Still we waited.

And then my darling wife, after 15 minutes of chit-chat and water-drinking, looked at me and asked if we should just leave since we were clearly forgotten. Of course, I smiled and said no; “I think I just found the restaurant for my next unasked review.”

I hesitated for a moment as a server came up the stairs….and passed us. Then I headed for the nearest bar. Spotting a clearly-dressed manager-type, I calmly asked if a 15 minute wait for a server was common and if this was typical to service. (I mean, it might be – I just need to know so I can adjust my annoyance meter.) He apologized and set out to make it right.

And so he did! We had a server within two minutes. (Unfortunately, I forgot to catch her name.) The manager even stopped by to check on our disposition and even comped our starters, which he didn’t need to do.

After that little hiccup at the start, dinner was fabulous.

I had a wonderful warm spinach salad – just the right plate portion – followed up with an incredibly tasty shepherd’s pie. It was comperable to the shepherd’s pies I’d thoroughly enjoyed on our Irish trip. My wife had a crisp house salad followed by a plate of chicken tenders, which were incredibly tasty, surprisingly so.

Dessert was average – then again, we’ve become dessert snobs and expect a lot, so what didn’t work for us may work for others. The apple crisp pie was a bit soggy and my raspberry creme brulee a tad runny, but we’ve definitely had worse elsewhere. The coffee, however, was excellent.

So despite the false start, O’Connell’s more than made up for it with some excellent – and moderately priced – pub fare, along with some seriously excellent service (once they knew we existed). The setting is just gorgeous as well and the atmosphere quite pleasant. Hopefully when we return, we’ll be able to sit on the second-floor patio.

Daniel O’Connell’s can be found at 112 King St. Phone is 703.739.1124, but if you arrive before 6 p.m. there shouldn’t be much of a wait.

Attention, all you Ye Old Towne Alexandria tourists: the King Street Trolley is coming. Announced on the city’s website, the trolley will be running in 15 minute intervals from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on the weekends, motoring between the King Street Metrorail and the waterfront. It will stop at all signed stops along King Street, which are about 2 blocks apart.

Oh, and it will ring a very annoying brass bell for as many times as the driver sees fit.

Here’s the rub, though: it’s not on rails (thank heaven). It’s not tied to an electric wire above. So…is it really a “trolley”? According to the press release, “the trolley sports a black and red exterior, rubber tires for a smooth ride, and adjustable paned windows.”

Don’t know about you folks, but from where I come from, that’s called a BUS.

Which is quite appropriate, actually, as the trolley will replace the DASH bus service that ran free on the weekends. The last DASH run will be discontinued after this Sunday’s service.

So let me get this straight….the city council approved and funded a trolley service for a route that’s sort of covered by an existing bus service, but with more frequent runs in a vehicle that isn’t really a trolley but more like a bus?

The service was approved as part of the city’s National Harbor Initiative and will complement the water taxi service offered from the National Harbor Development across the Mighty P. (That service, incidentally, also begins on April 1.) The City Council is hoping / expecting hundreds of new tourists visiting Old Town from these services and, I suspect, try to make it easier for DC residents to cross the river and dine on the Virginia side of the river. Which isn’t a bad thing, really. The shops and restaurants along King Street and the harbor are actually very nice and present excellent food (if a tad pricey).

We’re taking some friends from NYC down there over the next weekend (they’re here for the obvious DC event, the blossoms), so hopefully I can not only get a few photos of these beasties but maybe see if they do indeed alleviate traffic and cart more people down, as the Council hopes.

As long as that clanging bell doesn’t annoy me, that is…

Ode to Cartier Bresson, courtesy of Thomas Hawk