Hank's Oyster Bar

Nothing ministers to a jilted heart better than cheddar Goldfish and chocolate. Thanks, Hank, for understanding. The mythical Hank drew me to his culinary bosom (sorry for mixed gender metaphors) and proffered a culinary balm on a chilly evening, comfort food to soothe a weathered romantic soul, and a really nice waitress who gave me a cheat sheet on oysters. Tonight, I turned to culinary delights to make the pain of heartache go away, and it worked!

There is really no significant heartache here (and certainly none that will be elucidated clearly in my Dear All diary), but sometimes privation--of the culinary, romantic, and professional sort--drives one to satisfyingly rip crustaceans from their cloistered shells.

In short, I went to Hank's Oyster Bar, another local joint three blocks away, tonight. I knew I was in trouble when I ordered Rogue Dead Guy Ale. So much for a happy hour.


It's really a nice, happy, tie-dyed looking beer that's scary like plastic vampire teeth are scary instead of scary like dead-Confederate-soldiers-are-wandering-around-your-hallways-at-night kind of scary. Plus, I got cheddar Goldfish for free. Clever.

Then my waitress came back. She really was quite lovely and let me order at the pace I felt comfortable with. Hank's has an oyster happy hour, so she left open the possibility that perhaps I would order 28 one dollar oysters instead of diversifying my meal into one $12 chunk and investments in Rappahannocks and Island Creeks. I didn't order 28 oysters (I'm not sure if I've had that special for-oysters Hepatitis shot in a while). But my waitress didn't know what me, a crazy, Blackberry-flashing, hoodied diner would do.

But, I did in fact order four oysters. After I got my oysters, she left me alone to decide what I was going to do next.


From the top left, you'll see one fine specimen of a Dragon Creek oyster, then two Rappahannocks, then a sole Island Creek (I remember because my waitress gave me a slip of paper with their names and order). They were fabulous. So fabulous in fact, I couldn't apply that remarkable blend of horseradish and cocktail sauce I usually slather crustaceans with. It seemed criminal, like putting Butter Buds on lobster tail. Each was so delicious, in fact, I would first drink the oyster juice from the half shell, then pull the oyster off its foot.

I'd like to address something separately that reader(s) has probably noticed. My photography is miserable. The pictures are out of focus, blurry, and look like those up-close photos of dog's noses where the lens looks curved. I can't help this. I live in secret fear that managers will ask me to leave because I am photographing their food, that table neighbors might give me sideways glances the rest of their meals fearing to be indicted by stray photo shots, or that I might have to explain I am an amateur food writer who habitually and furtively photographs her food. So I do it steathily, but not well. Once I make it big, I'll focus. And pose with grateful co-diners who know my work.

So I was deciding between ceviche and an oyster po' boy, both of which would have been unique options for a seafood place. So I get the mussels, my subject of two blogs ago. I could be unoriginal and re-gush about how I love to swirl bread around the bottom of the mussel pit and oversoak it. Or how mussels are glossy. I won't (too much), but I will confess that from that meal at Belga Cafe and this one, I've decided mussels are one of my favorite foods.


You can't see the steam, but these mussels were sultry. And after one whiff, I lustily envisioned mussel-stuffed garlic (rather than the other way around). Most of the white in this picture--if it's not mussel gloss--is chopped garlic. Everywhere.

These mussels also featured chopped tomatoes, green stuff (of negligible flavor) and white wine. This was some serious broth. If really pressured, this broth would never say it's translucent. It'd insist on its opaqueness until its evaporation.


I could blame this photo on my poor photography skills, but it'd be more correct to say I was impatient to take a break and photograph when there were so many delicious mussels left.

I ate all of them. I ate almost all the bread. I'd hazard to say the broth rivaled the mussels in taste; this was no backdrop, sideshow broth.

I was exhausted, satisfied. Pleased with my choice, happy to have dramatically consoled my troubled soul with the fruits of the ocean. However, Hank's unnecessary but much-appreciated oblation was a small glass bowl of broken-up chocolate chunks. How did Hank know?