Liberty Tavern

Right next to the Clarendon Ballroom is a "bar."  I'm told at night it's very lively.  I've never really hung out in Clarendon though, so I don't know this first hand.  I don't typically go to bars for food.  There are a few exceptions.  So when Monica suggested Sunday Brunch at Liberty Tavern, it fell under the category of "I've never been there so okay."  And what a nice surprise.  First... ambiance.  The place was hopping on a Sunday morning.  Light, airy, warm feeling, with a good layout despite having to negotiate a staircase after loading up from the buffet.  We took a 6 top in the corner in front of floor to ceiling windows on a bustling city street. DeDe, Samantha and Brenda were already there.  The music was fantastic for a Sunday morning - albeit all over the place.  But brunch music that can go from the calm romance of EBTG to tribal dance and back over the course of a meal and still keep my interest helps intertwine the background into the odyssey.  Next -- food.  We showed up at 1130, which is the "I don't go to church and didn't go out last night" appointed brunch time.   The problem with an 1130 brunch is that you really can't eat anything beforehand.  A 1:30 brunch -- I've either eaten pizza at 3am after the club and slept till noon, or I got up, read the paper over coffee and grits.  Either way, I'm probably not starving.  So here we are, 1130, and I am starving.  Now I didn't do my research on this place since I was being taken, so I didn't know it was a buffet.  And the buffet is upstairs so it wasn't obvious.  All I had heard about was the cheese grits and shrimp making me drool for the Fish House brunches of Pensacola.  I'm scanning the menu and DeDe announces she's going for the buffet.  I drop the menu and bolt upstairs -- heading straight for the meat section in the back of a buffet... Restaurants always put the expensive stuff in the back... Salad and bread up front is not accidental.  I skip through the line and pile up on carved turkey, ham, bacon and sausage links... load up on the cheese grits with unfortunate slabs of pork instead of shrimp... some french toast and a slice of veggie frittata.  Now meat isn't hard to screw up... but I applaud the choices.  The grits were fantastic, said the southern boy who speaks with grit authority.  The french toast and frittata were both dry and unpalatable, but didn't ruin the meal.  I tasted DeDe's parsnips, which I wish I were paying attention to the fillers in the front.  Root veggies seem all the rage now.  Desert -- there was a chocolate cake option, but I don't do chocolate.  And mini-pecan pies, which I love some pie -- but the little ones are hard.  Yet for a place that doesn't have an ice cream bar, there was every sort of candy topping you could want.  I went for the dots -- my favorite movie indulgence.  The buffet was adequate yet forgettable.  What was not forgettable though were the spicey $4 bloody marys that come with a beer chaser.  I had 2.  They must use oyster juice in their recipe.  Not everybody does.  I like the added flavor from the juice which is the real discriminator for those who just can't stand a bloody mary.  And to celebrate the inauguration, our waiter served us complimentary tequila shots.  So was this a bar or brunch?  Either way -- the service and ambiance will earn a repeat performance.  I can't say I'll add this place to my menu I call DC -- where I just crave that one dish that they only serve at that one place -- but overall a good experience.