Liberty Tree

lovin' me some H street. i've given you guys my posts of both Sticky Rice and dr. granville moore's which are both absolutely delicious places. i have some a few more h street locations to "hip" you guys to (my dad's word, not mine) so that you too become just as obsessed with the up and coming h street corridor as i am.

i won't do the whole h street corridor # 1 up and coming neighborhood DC blurb like usual, just know that if you have not gotten up here, liberty tree is another reason to do so. liberty tree opened as a restaurant featuring traditional new england seafood flavors and brick oven pizza. really? did heaven just come to h street? seafood and pizza? all I really needed was them to have some mac & cheese on their menu and i really might have become the hostess there.

buddy of BOOF, lm and I decided to get out of the house one evening and head to liberty tree for dinner. I usually order in their brick oven pizza and walk the 3 minutes around the corner to pick it up but we decided to eat in there which was definitely a benefit to BOOF. liberty tree is located between 10th and 11th on H street and it boasts definitely a very new england feel inside of the restaurant with sea blues on on the walls and table clothes and dark brown furniture. the head chef, graig glufing, at liberty tree is no stranger to the DC food scene as he was formerly the exec chef at matchbox. 'nough said.

for an appetizer, we ordered the fried calamari which was good. after the calamari I had at Il Canale , I was definitely expecting a little bit more flavor and a little bit more of a kick but they were fried well; however, il canale definitely wins in the fried calamari department.

for dinner, LM ordered the atlas burger which is a 8oz Grilled Angus beef, gorgonzola, caramelized red onions. she really enjoyed the burger and said it was cooked very well. with all the new burger joints opening around the city, liberty tree offers a very classic but yet flavorful burger that does what it is meant to do, be a burger.

departing from my usual brick oven pizza (and I recommend any pizza at liberty tree), i ordered the grilled eggplant lasagna. it has been a while since this vegetarian has enjoyed some eggplant lasagna or lasagna at all for that matter, and it was a nice and well done entree. It featured marinated eggplant, fresh mozzarella, basil, mushrooms, and tomato sauce. my biggest complaint about the dish is that it had too much tomato sauce. rather than just having a touch of tomato sauce throughout the lasagna, it was drowned in a soup of tomato sauce which definitely took away from a lot of the flavor of the eggplant, mozzarella, and mushrooms.

after a few other trips to liberty tree, I am also well aware that they boast a very nice wine and beer list, so you can always enjoy one of those with your meals. and again, i definitely recommend the pizza.

my biggest drawback about liberty tree is that in this summer heat, they can't seem to be able to get their AC under control. on the evening that i went with LM, it was so hot in that restaurant that by the time we were finished with our meal, we were running out of the restaurant because it definitely appeared to be cooler outside then inside and outside it was 95 degrees. it is not a good thing when you can feel the sweat droplets forming on your forehead during dinner, gross. I thought that this may have just been a one time broken AC problem but after another recent trip to liberty tree, it was still pretty warm inside that restaurant. it was definitely cooler outside than inside and although the heat was not as uncomfortable as the first trip, when we got our red wine, the room temperature was definitely a little too warm for a red. liberty tree, i appease you to please get this fixed as we definitely have not seen the worst of summer and i really want to come back for some clams, scallops and peppadew peppers.

if you want a nice trip to new england, liberty tree is definitely your place as I am pretty certain that it is the only place in dc that is uniquely new england cuisine.

Overall Grade: B (really, the AC docked it from a B+)

Things to do: hang out with me. I would also definitely recommend taking a trip next door (!) to Rita's for some nice water ice and custard for dessert. YUM.