Dan "WastedBrains" M.'s Profile

We went for a dinner not a bunch, and I guess they are more known for the bunch. It was good, but nothing was outstanding. Everyone liked their dinner, everyone liked their drinks, but I don't think anyone at the table had a real standout. Erin thought the oysters were pretty top notch, but I don't think anyone really noted much else. The other thing is all the tables are really crowded together, tight space that felt a bit cramped.

Anyways, good times I guess, but costs a pretty penny for not being the memorable.

No major complains, but likely won't do dinner there again, might try brunch there sometime.

Eola was amazing, quite a treat. Really Erin and I couldn't remember being as surprised and happy at a new restaurant in a long time. Sure we have some old favorite's that we return to and often enjoy, but when trying new places they frequently are good but don't really stand out. Eola stood right out and we took notice.

The chef's tasting to start off the meal are fun little samples of interesting dishes. I like the pre fixe setup, which works out pretty well. Honestly I would probably skip the soup/salad and dessert courses to save a bit of cash if I could, but it isn't a big deal. I think we enjoyed every single thing put in front of us, it was well paces and the portioning was as perfect as you could get.

So the ambience was great, the sound levels perfect, lovely and romantic for a couple to chat away the evening with some cocktails or wine.

The short and sweet I will be back.

A great location with awesome outdoor seating. A creek runs by giving it a nice sound, and it is amazing for people watch as it is right near the Boulder outdoor market on weekends. This is one of the best places to relax and meet friends for brunch, if you have the time to really relax and enjoy a long lunch with friends here this place is hard to beat. The actual building and story behind it is pretty great as well.

Some of the best mexican food you can find. I miss this place even more since moving away from CO. You can barely find any decent mexican food in DC, but often when I am town I head back to La Pasadita in because they can make a great chile relleno, and the huevos rancheros always brings a smile to my face. I miss this place something fierce right now. They don't accept credit card so make sure to have cash (you can hit the ATM at the nearby grocery store), the staff is friendly the food is great and cheap, what more could you want.

This was great delivery food we were impressed with everything we got. Definitely delicious. Not as huge of portions as I was counting on as we were trying to get two full left over lunches out of it, which we often do from delivery... but perhaps it was just so good we ate to much of it.

I will definitely order from here again... Recommended.

Completely burnt out on this sushi fast food fried everything... Fun for awhile, but you really can't do this that often... I liked it, I loved it, now I get sad even thinking about having to eat there... The last three times I have been there have just gotten more and more disappointing...

Giving it a 2 now a 4 before, so really it is worth a 3... This is and always should be a avg 3.

Eruo dance music pumps as I sit on comfortable couches at the enterence of Vapiano. The well lit almost to modern setting makes me feel like I am on some set, not out for pizza. Then again who can complain about getting such a fun vibe for 10 bucks a plate. I was definitely dancing in the isles on more than one occasion...

I like the bar, this place is great to meet up with a large group of friends and the pay per card model makes splitting tabs AWESOME! Fancy with out being crazy expensive... Honestly I can't think of a better between fine dinning and fast food... They have a perfect balance and end up destroying competition in a similar price range (olive garden, BLAHHH). Get some friends and make this your first stop for dinner and drinks before a night out, it will work out well.

I prefer the pasta over the pizza, but most seem to go for the pizza, just a quick note if you were wondering...

Who loves Vapiano? ME! The only problem is that my spell check tries to auto spellcheck correct Vapiano as 'vagina', but I find that hilarious and that makes the first sentence of this paragraph way funnier with the imagined replacement... BOOM!

So Erin and I went to Cafe Atlantico to celebrate her birthday (AKA's Erin's "recatpure my youth tour", a week (or two) long celebration). We had to been to other restaurants that are part of the ThinkFoodGroup collection, and I think this is my favorite so far. We went on a tuesday night which was great as there wasn't really any crowd to compete with.

The drinks are fun and unique, the food is unique and delicious, the atmosphere is fun and exciting. I really like the layout of a main level with tables and bar, the second level is the open kitchen, and the 3rd floor is more table dinning space. If you are eating here, I recommend trying to get a table upstairs (it's quieter and a bit more relaxed). Really I enjoyed pretty much every aspect of this dinning experience.

We decided to make our own tasting menu ordering 6 total little dishes / dessert. I think that was a great way to go more of the soup/salads/appetizers interested us, opposed to the main entrees. I don't know why but this experience was just leaps an bounds above how I felt leaving Oyamel (see my review there).  

So will I be returning? Yes, sir! Just going to wait for a menu change so I can try more delicious and unique latin american inspired food.

We had received a gift card to any one of the restaurants by this chef.  We checked Yelp and we were pretty excited to check out Oyamel. Overall, it was nice and delicious. But it stopped short of being a 5 star place.  I can't quite explain my problem, I think I just wasn't in in the right mood. Everything seemed fake and wasteful. I was clamoring for the 20 pesos quesadilla I had in Puerto Vallarta a few weeks ago. It depressed me thinking that all these people are visiting this top rated 'cocina mexicana' restaurant in DC -- spending nearly 50 per person on food and drinks, just to try to get the taste and feel of quality Mexican food. That thought just wouldn't leave me and it made me kind of sad. Then it really just made me crave some more time to travel. Is this just the trade off well-to-do people make in cities, they can't afford the time to travel because they work too much, so we try to import other cultures, paying hand over fist for a tiny experience from somewhere else in the 2-3 hour chunk of time that we can fit into our lives. Perhaps, that is a fair trade -- 10 dollar drinks, great food and ambiance, that can be a tiny bit of time as a micro vacation in itself. Maybe that is all fine dinning ever has ever been, an attempt to fast forward some culture into our lives at an expensive price.

So now moving on -- how was the overall experience? Honestly it was a great place. If I had been in the mood to just sit back and enjoy the ride like I am so many other nights, I would have loved it. There were so many things on the menu; Erin could barely stand to pick things to order. I was very pleasantly surprised with all of the vegetarian options that they had. Erin and I also thought they had the best mole sauce we had ever tasted. Each of use had at least 2 dishes that we found amazing, more surprisingly they were 2 different dishes for each of us. That is part of the fun of a place like this. It serves tapas-style food and you get to try many things. We had 6 small plates in total between us, and we got to try a little of so many different things, that it was a continually stimulating experience for our taste buds. The beans were good and reminded Erin and I of the beans we had eaten regularly in Honduras. There are still dishes we want to try like the grasshopper tacos.  They were out of grasshopper tacos the night we were there and were going to be out of them for the next several nights.  I could definitely see myself returning for another experience.

The drinks are great and fun, they might be costly, but are very unique. Where else do you get margaritas with salt foam and mojitos   infused with cotton candy? The drinks weren't that strong, but that is OK because you are there to enjoy trying new things, right?

If you don't have reservations, you will be there for awhile, but it is a really pleasing and pleasant atmosphere, so that is part of the fun. There is honestly so much going on in this space that you will be seeing and finding new pieces all the time. When you walk in, the 'rooftop' of the 'hall' by the bar is decorated with fresh flowers hung from the ceiling, which I thought was really cool. By the bar in a corner you will see a pyramid of candles that have been melting down wax over themselves in a ever growing and always alive and changing pile (some wax is even caked on the floor below). The walls are adorned with Mexican themed art and colors, many  Día de los Muertos inspired skeletons. They have little dioramas featuring Mexican art and little pictures of Frida in the men's bathroom. When you think you have notice all there is to notice, you will see the fresh ceviche bar in the corner, which has old Mexican films being silently projected onto the wall above it. It is so blended into the surroundings, colors, and other things I didn't notice it until after I had been at Oyamel's for over an hour. Definitely a great vibe and feeling is instilled from this location, and you can tell  that they have spent time thinking about the decor.

So there you have it -- my awkward review that might have started off on a whole different topic, but really tries to reflect that this is a great restaurant worth trying. I think you won't be disappointed and in the end the cost of the food is quite reasonable (6-12 per tapa plate).  The drinks are crazy expensive, but they are also the kind of thing that is hard to make at home and you don't get to try at every restaurant -- salt foam margaritas (of course the salt should be a foam on top of the margarita), cotton candy mojitos, etc. I plan on coming back, if nothing else, to try to have a bit of a better memory associated with such a great place, rather than a feeling that I am missing out on life by not traveling enough.

I like Urbana, it has a nice cool atmosphere and is a great place to meet a few people for appetizers and drinks. The pizza is good, and other appetizers are fun and worth trying. They have unique and fun cocktails as well, which is always a good time. Overall it is really pleasant and nice, so I would recommend checking it out if you haven't.

My complaints, it is a bit to loud, it is always a little loud here and hard to hear others... My other complaint is that it is a bit pricey for what you get, every time I go here I am a bit surprised by my bill.

Beside those little issues, overall it is a great experience, and definitely worth at try.

I will be back again I am sure.