Crystal City gets a tune-up

Despite being the dreary home of defense contractors and chain restaurants, Crystal City has one awesome thing going for it. Wait -- it's not made of beautiful, priceless crystals? Oh. Well, at least it now has a cool place for people to drown their sorrows when they arrive and find it doesn't look like the Fortress of Solitude, thanks to Melody Tavern.

Just opened by the former owner of shuttered waterfront club Zanzibar, Melody serves good ole-fashioned American fare amidst ole-fashioned Greek limestone columns, plus there's a removable stage for music, an 80-seat patio, and a restaurant-spanning, wraparound espresso bar. After learning that an espresso bar is just a surface to put drinks on, and not, in fact, a delicious, pre-packaged protein snack with espresso, you'll want to hit entrees that run from the expected, like a grilled lamb shank with mushroom risotto and sauteed spinach, to the "hey, I didn't expect that!", like a red snapper escabeche w/ capers and Holland peppers. There's also 12 drafts, including Flying Dog's Doggie Style pale ale, Sam seasonal, and New Belgium's Fat Tire, which has a flavor they describe as “biscuit-like”, also a function Humpty Hump wishes Facebook had when perusing pics of girl's butts.

They're also planning on hosting jazz brunches, and promise that weekend dinners will see full blues sets, as, unlike the duplicitous Crystal City, Melody would never use their name to imply something they don't actually have.