Asylum

Used to hang around here all the time back in ’99 (basement) Loved it. Went back for the first time since 2003 recently and nothing had really changed. Favorite bar in DC. Wish Boston had a few places like this.
Heard rumors that this place may be closed or remodeled. For the love of God, no. This place is perfect as is and an AdMo institution.

I make no secret of the fact that I’m not much of an AdMo fan. If you ask me, most of the bars lack personality and if I were to be blindfolded and led into one without seeing the sign I’d be hard pressed to tell you where I am.
Asylum could be an exception, based on two factors. One is the décor; it’s decorated to look like a dungeon… or something. I can appreciate the effort put forth to fit a theme but really the place just looks like the kind of haunted house you take your kids to at a young age around Halloween. Everything looks plastic and half-​assed and the license plates surrounding the bar were sort of out of place. They give off an Applebee’s or TGIFriday’s vibe.
The second distinguishing factor was the overwhelming pork stench. Apparently this smell was seeping in from a restaurant next door. Now, I am a man that loves his barbecue; I’ll take a good pulled pork sandwich over almost anything any day of the week. The smell wafting in though was not one of good barbecue. It was stale and incredibly distracting.
Right off the bat Asylum was losing points based on ambiance. The service didn’t redeem it. It was a Saturday night but the bar wasn’t particularly packed so my friends and I lined up to order a round of shots and waited in seats at the bar for about 10 minutes before getting any sort of attention. I recall the music being kind of heavy, which is fine for the feel they seem to be trying to establish, but it’s not my scene.
I’d love to give a recommendation for another bar on 18^th Street to visit in lieu of Asylum, but I’m falling flat. Just hit up Amsterdam Falafel and then get a cab to another part of town to enjoy your evening.

I had ‘brunch’ there today and it was the worst dining experience I’ve had in a couple of years. They opened late and the bartender looked really hung over.
My sister and I ordered the vegan french toast. I have rarely had french toast I didn’t like but this was horrendous. While haplessly attempting to saw through her french toast with a butter knife, she kept spilling her coffee. It was no great loss, however, because the coffee was served lukewarm at best. She requested a steak knife and was finally able to parcel the rock-​hard toast into bite-​sized pieces. When I first bit into the bread, I thought it was frozen, but quickly realized it was just stale.
The staff was friendly, but slow. We got there right as it opened and they just seemed completely unprepared. Maybe someone forgot to order bread this week, but I can’t get over how awful that french toast was.
On the bright side, the bacon was delicious and the potatoes were not too bad, and I really enjoyed Black Sabbath with Sunday brunch.
Get your act together people!!!

My friend and I wanted brunch on a late Sunday morning so we ventured into this place and was totally thrown off. Gothic, sexy, dark vampirish and thought that maybe we shouldve visited the night before; nonetheless, the food was great, the service was attentive and were entertained by the decoratives.
There might be a wait to get seated, but its worth it.

RIP Asylum
the saturday drink deal is no more. this was the only reason to go to adams morgan anymore. whatever they are doing to the upstairs is a travesty, but don’t mess with the basement. enjoy you’re tapas and over priced beer. good riddance.

I came here for vegan brunch last Sunday. I really liked the vibe of this place, it’s not as pretentious or crunchy as a lot of places with vegan food options. However, the waitress who took our order was pretty unfriendly. After informing us that they were out of tempeh, vegan gravy, soysage, and guacamole (ingredients that were in half the items on the menu) I decided on the vegan huevos rancheros, a bloody mary, and split an order of raspberry pancakes with a friend. The huevos rancheros were great, no complaints there. The pancakes were tough and bland and my bloody mary never arrived. Although I appreciate a place to get vegan brunch, I probably won’t come back here often.

[UPDATE: Closing soon for renovations]
Dimly lit and skulls decorating the walls… have I entered some dark lord’s lair? No, just Asylum. I’ve been there several times, mostly to see friends’ bands play. I’ve ordered food, and it’s bar food, what do you expect? I was surprised they even have a kitchen. Full bar which is A-​OK in my books and there is a good happy hour with discounted prices for domestic beers and wells. It’s a pretty intimate spot and good for drinks and listening to music. Although, I would have to suggest investigating who you’re going to listen to before hand because I’ve had my share of «no thank you» moments where I had to get up and leave.

My worlds have collided, and I think I like it.
Dive bar meets rock n roll meets vegan cuisine. Whaaat?
Really, this place is awesome. They have a pretty decent beer selection, and of course all of your favorite hipster numbers like pbr and natty bo.
They mark ‘em down nice and good for happy hour, but are fairly cheap normally.
The atmosphere is special. It’s nice and grundgy, yet not gross, in the spirit of a good dive bar. The staff is all fun, and are fun to talk to while you are swigging back your favorite brew.
Good rock n roll is usually piping out of the speakers, either from a DJ or from the juke box.
But food is really what draws me to Asylum.
I tend to start my dinner off with their vegan bbq wings. These are great! They are a little pricey comparatively, but its worth it for the flavor and texture. Great consistency, great sauce. Amazing!
It is rare to find such a fun place to go to, that has a good selection of vegetarian/​vegan/​meat food, especially at a grundgy bar.
I’ve had a lot of it but let’s see, their vegan philly steak sandwich is great, as is their grilled tofu wrap, asylum veggie burger with veggie chili, just to name a few.
The waffle fries they serve are always a must too, so be sure to order some up.
You can veganize almost anything on the menu for an additional fee, which is always a fun option.
Brunch is also great, as they have two menus: a vegan one and a regular one. If you go, get the vegan breakfast bowl, it is killer. Vegan tofu scramble, with vegan biscuits, cheese and veggies gets me through almost any hangover!
If after reading this you are not convinced to go to Asylum, an actual asylum is where you belong!

I’m writing you to inform you about an incident my fiancé and I experienced at Asylum. I want to start out, however, by saying that we’ve been going to Asylum for about 6 years, mainly for brunch and always with friends. We’ve enjoyed the vegan offerings and have often spread the word, on the day of the unfortunate incident we even brought two friends who’d never been there before.
There were four of us at brunch that morning at around noon, we all ordered vegan entrees and had gotten about half way through with our meal when my fiancé felt something unusual in her mouth. What she pulled out was an inch long, old, rusty, flat head screw. Not only was this disgusting but it was also dangerous and very serious. We immediately tried to think of reasonable explanations of how a screw could end up in her meal and only became more and more appalled.
I took her plate to the back of the bar where the wait staff was hanging around and our server saw me coming. She approached me knowing something must be wrong. Without saying a word, I pulled the screw from the food and showed her why I was there. Through nervous laughter she quickly said sorry and brought the plate to the bartender who said «well… we’ll obviously comp this…» Our server came back and said, «do you want something else?» But at this point we were too disgusted.
Finding a screw was appalling but, the staff’s nonchalance compounded our frustration with the situation. While we appreciate that our meals were comped, we don’t think that the this was handled appropriately. Overall we feel like it was dismissed as just an accident and not a more serious matter to investigate. This was a VERY dangerous situation. That screw could have been swallowed or caused other harm!
We’ll probably never go back to Asylum, that’s a given, but we thought it was important that you know about this too.

I made it back for brunch! I agree with a previous review that the crowd here can be a little intimidating… my tramp stamp and loc’d hair did not make me hip enough, not even close
The waitress kinda acted like she was only here because she just couldn’t stand to go to one more totally awesome party with her friends as she strutted her mean Naomi Campbell strut. Oh trust, I am not hating, it was all entertainment.
I dove in to the Breakfast Biscuit Bowl and all else faded away. Me an my brunch (mimosas x 2) were one. Everything was so yummy!
I will be back!

One of the best vegetarian /​vegan brunches around besides Soul Veg. I’ve been going here for many years. Sure, sometimes the tofu scramble can be a little runny, and the service lackadaisical, but the food tastes good and it’s reasonably priced. Do you think Ben’s chili cheese fries are good? Asylum’s chili-​cheese waffle fries blow them out of the water. They have different vegan pancakes every weekend, the chili-​cheese tofu scramble is always a hit with me.
So for those complaining about the décor or the tattooed attitude (hey, it’s a biker bar), have fun waiting in line at the Diner and paying $ 8 for a grilled cheese.
I actually want to rate this place lower so people will stay away and I won’t have to wait for a seat.

Absolutely horrible experience with trying to use a restaurant-​dot-​com coupon here, which is funny to me because now the business is advertising on Asylum’s Unilocal page. While the certificate said nothing about using the coupon for «food only», Asylum denied us from using the coupon for drinks. Mind you, the certificate was for $ 100 off when you spend $ 200… To reach $ 200 for food items only, you would have to basically buy food for everyone in the bar and some passers-​by as well.
The coupon had all kinds of limitations on it, but specifying it was for «Food only» was definitely not one of them. When we pointed this out to our server (and we were a group of five), he wanted nothing to do with it, nor would the manager. Completely bogus, and what a waste of money the restaurant-​com coupon was! Don’t bother.

I wanted to love this place because they have a vegan lunch menu. I’m a vegetarian and was excited to try the tofu there. Well I ordered the tofu rancheros and it wasn’t that great. It needed a ton of salt and to be mixed in with all the other things on my plate. It just didn’t have any flavor.
I make scrambled tofu for breakfast everyday so I feel I’m a bit of an expert on preparing tofu. Theirs honestly seemed like the only spice they added was tumeric which is more of a food coloring than a flavor. The soy cheese was quite good and the beans were pretty spicy.
They gave us separate checks which was nice. It’s a small place so by noon it was packed. Most people were in their 20s/​30s and lots of tattoos. The jukebox played punk music.
The tiny bathroom has graffiti on the walls and the outside of the door is so dirty, it’s no longer white, but sandy brown, it needs a fresh coat of paint pronto.
The food portions are large. The service was fine, I was asked on 3 separate occassions if I wanted to order a drink — «still no».

This place looks like Anton LaVey’s mom’s basement.
I would say that I could easily imagine him and his mid 30s friends rolling a D20 at one of the tables, but that would be an uncalled for insult to D&D players everywhere.
If you like getting drunk in a Twilight fan’s wet dream, this is your kind of place. For the rest of us, a meager beer selection and average prices make it a place to steer well clear of.
On the plus side, if you know any obese, black lipsticked, suburban wiccan girls, you’re probably pretty much guaranteed to get in their pants if you bring them to Asylum.

A vegan biker bar… just what I needed! Went for Sunday brunch and was able to snag a table right away. I loved having a whole vegan menu to choose from! I got the vegan french toast, my date got the vegan heuvos rancheros and both were delicious.
The serving of fruit that accompanied both was stingy (one skinny slice of cantaloupe) but the waffle fries made up for that. Who needs fruit when you have fries… right?
The only thing I didn’t love was that our server was less than enthused to be… well…serving us. She was annoyed when we weren’t ready to order immediately, didn’t refill our drinks (ever) and cleared semi-​full plates without checking if we were done.
I’d go back because its tough to find good vegan brunch, but they need some better wait staff.

I have to be honest, the first time someone told me to come to Asylum for brunch, I laughed in their face. I had been to the bar once on a thursday for HH and the biker crowd downstairs didn’t exactly have me thinking: «I bet they have great eggs and waffle fries…»
But guess what? They do. Not only that, but an entire VEGAN menu. I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian, but the fact that they offer it is amazing. Ive been into Asylum many times and the food can sometimes be up and down, but overall, its pretty good for the type of place you are in.
I always get the chili cheese omelet with a side of waffle fries. So delicious. They offer a vegan chili as well, though I haven’t had it. The bloody mary’s are also quite good and they have surprisingly good coffee, considering i dont really like hot coffee.
All in all, this place has good, cheap brunch. I would highly recommend it.

Nothing says brunch quite like portraits of nude suicide girls, red velvet draperies, black walls and antique chandeliers.
Nothing says vegan brunch quite like flavorless liquidy tofu «eggs» with too much turmeric and bland buckwheat strawberry and banana pancakes that even a heavy drenching of syrup can’t help. If this is what vegans consider a delicious brunch spot, I never want to be vegan. Nice try, but it’s not working.
And it’s not just that I’m a biased meat eater. I’ve had excellent scrambled tofu «eggs,» flavorful vegan meals and delicious mock meats. Just not here.
Service can also be slow, but it’s no wonder when there are only two people working all of the packed tables.

I’ve spent a lot of time here. Can’t beat $ 1 tacos and happy hour pricing. Cool garage door that opens up at the end of the dining area. At night it picks up and the atmosphere is good. The multiple levels are nice and the bathrooms aren’t scary.
Good vegetarian option.

I’d been looking forward to coming here for brunch for ages and finally got here last Saturday. Our waitress was friendly and service was good. I had the breakfast wrap, which was delicious and HUGE. Definitely two meals! I also had a side of their soysage (veggie sausage) and will try the tempeh bacon on my next trip! My friend et the steak and eggs, which looked great and he enjoyed, tho he did mention the steak was a little fatty (which most people probably wouldn’t mind?) Next time I come I’ll try the tofu scramble! I saw other people getting plates of their waffle fries and other items, like the french toast, and they looked marvelous (and very large portions) as well! Oh, the irish coffee and mimosas were also tasty and well-​worth the reasonable $ 5 price. Great place for vegetarians and non-​veggies alike!

This place rules! The vegan brunch menu has a ton of options and the tofu scramble is unlike any other kind ive had in any other restaurant. I think they use a softer tofu… delicious none-​the-​less.
So vegan brunch… go get it. They dont open till 11… fyi.
p. s. good music playing