I would try and book seats for the dinner at the Demo Kitchen at Society Fair in Old Town. It's a lot of fun and a different way to do dinner. Lots of places to choose from after that for drinks.

Well why dont you go to Gallery Place. You could do dinner at Zaytinya and then do drinks at Zengo and Acadiana or dinner at Acadiana (really good) and vice versa. That area has tons.

I love zaytinya and its Jose Andres restaurant (I saw you liked Mini BAr).

Why don't you pick a neighborhood that's walkable & get car service for drop off & pick-up? You could do cocktails at PS7, dinner at Rasika, post-dinner at the Passenger. Both bars do craft cocktails, and Rasika is definitely worth a visit if you've never been.

City Zen is a pretty good idea. Restaurant Eve is another possibility, and the bar there is one of the best in town (you could go to PX before/after as well).

City Zen? Rasika?

Why don't you just take cabs to and from your destination and even around town if you need to? Much cheaper, unless you want the nicer feel of a town car. I love the Taxi Magic App on my iPhone!

a friend and I are treating our husbands to a big birthday dinner night out in March. We haven't done the DC bar/restaurant scene in a while.. we want to splurge a little. Ideas? We've done Citronelle, Mini Bar.. something along those lines... looking for restaurant ideas.. plus 1 or two cool bars to hit before and after (upscale places for a drink.. not clubs.)

Also, we're thinking about hiring a driver.. what's the most inexpensive way to do that? I feel like I once looked into it and a standard car and driver for a night was around $400. Considering we're spluring on dinner, that's not in the budget. We don't need fancy, we just need someone to drive us around so we don't have to worry about drinking.

Thanks!