[c#] Best way to call a JSON WebService from a .NET Console

I am hosting a web service in ASP.Net MVC3 which returns a Json string. What is the best way to call the webservice from a c# console application, and parse the return into a .NET object?

Should I reference MVC3 in my console app?

Json.Net has some nice methods for serializing and deserializing .NET objects, but I don't see that it has ways for POSTing and GETing values from a webservice.

Or should I just create my own helper method for POSTing and GETing to the web service? How would I serialize my .net object to key value pairs?

Although the existing answers are valid approaches , they are antiquated . HttpClient is a modern interface for working with RESTful web services . Check the examples section of the page in the link , it has a very straightforward use case for an asynchronous HTTP GET .

using (var client = new System.Net.Http.HttpClient())
{
    return await client.GetStringAsync("https://reqres.in/api/users/3"); //uri
}

WebClient to fetch the contents from the remote url and JavaScriptSerializer or Json.NET to deserialize the JSON into a .NET object. For example you define a model class which will reflect the JSON structure and then:

using (var client = new WebClient())
{
    var json = client.DownloadString("http://example.com/json");
    var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
    SomeModel model = serializer.Deserialize<SomeModel>(json);
    // TODO: do something with the model
}

There are also some REST client frameworks you may checkout such as RestSharp.