Restaurant Detox: Granville Moore's Moules Bleu

It's pretty safe to say that eating is the center of my day. I love food. Breakfast - good. Lunch - good. Dinner- what I live for. I take dinner seriously, and trying a new restaurant is one of my very favorite activities. One activity that trumps trying a new restaurant? Having mussels and beers at Granville Moore's. That wins. Hands down. 

Granville Moore's is a staple in D.C. It's on H Street, which is one of my favorite areas to have a great time.  You can pretend to be British at the Queen Vic (order the bone marrow!), participate in a drunk spelling bee at the Rock and Roll Hotel (8 p.m. every Friday!), eat giant bowls of amazing ramen noodles at Toki Underground (don't miss the pork belly bourbon cocktail!), and hang out at the Star and Shamrock, a place that's half Jewish deli, half Irish pub. Yes, thank you, I will have some latkes with my Guinness. Okay....I digress. 

With all that awesomeness Granville Moore's is still my first choice on H Street. They serve a million kinds of Belgian beer (clearly I never engage in hyperbole), and they have the best mussels. 

If you come to D.C. for a visit, you MUST check out H Street. If you live here, like me, a trip to H Street can become an expensive habit. Because it's an up-and-coming area it doesn't have great metro access, so getting out there is generally a taxi ride. Then I can never visit just one of the bars there, so it ends up being a pretty expensive night. 

However, Grandville Moore's Chef Teddy Folkman was kind enough to do provide a video recipe with instuctions on how to make their famous Moules Bleu. SO SO good. 

My boyfriend is the mussels cook in this apartment, and they turn out almost exactly like Granville Moore's! The upside? it's MUCH MUCH less expensive than a trip to H Street. 

Yummmmmmmm

The breakdown: 

(We had spinach and cooking oils in the apartment already). 

Mussels: 3.99 a pound at Whole Foods (3.99 a pound!)

White Wine: 8.99 (plus most of the bottle left for drinking!) 

Bacon: 5.00  (plus leftovers for breakfast) 

Bleu Cheese: 5.00 (also with leftovers for other meals)

Crusty Bread: 1.99 (must have for dipping up broth) 

Total: 12.4 Dollars/ Person 

So you know I'm not a dirty liar... 

That INCLUDES 2 glasses of wine each and leftover ingredients. At a restaurant, you couldn't get two glasses of wine for 12 dollars. 

Compare with a night for 2 on H Street 

Taxi ride (both ways): 25.00

Pit stop at the Queen Vic: 15.00

Dinner at Granville Moore's: approx 50.00 for mussels/beer/service (still its not horrible for dinner out!)

My insistence that we continue to galavant on H Street: 30.00 

Total: 60.00 per person 

So clearly it saves to cook! Plus, cooking is fun! (It's also fun to blog while watching boyfriend cook). 

I will absolutely continue to support Granville Moore's by eating in the restaurant, as a treat or when friends come into town. This is a great option for saving some money and still having a great dinner in! 

P.S. I do in fact realize that my 12.40/person dinner falls pathetically short of the money-saving meals that are out there. This is a blog about being responsiblish. ISH is the key word, or ...suffix? fake suffix? 

Whatever it is, it's about the progress! (Plus, I'm pretty sure those 99 cent meals do not include wine. If you can include two glasses of wine per person for 99 cents... well that is just clearly impossible...challenge not accepted.)