Emily S.
Yelp
The issue this place has is its inconsistency, as evidenced by reviews that are all over the map. I experienced this inconsistency myself across visits but also across the course of a single meal. I have been a few times for drinks and apps after work and it was nice enough - cocktails are a little pricey but good, and service was maybe a little haphazard but we were at the bar and it was busy. I would recommend this for happy hour because the ambiance is great and the location is super convenient for people coming from a lot of different areas and the food and drink *can* be quite solid. For instance, I had the brussels small plate during a happy hour visit that was tasty and also very ample. Likewise, the parmesan fries.
Also, the lunch menu is not just vegetarian friendly but vegetarian-exciting because they incorporate impossible meat by default into several of their dishes, including a tortilla soup and a baked pasta.
But then I had what was not one of the worst but one of the *weirdest* lunches I have ever had in a restaurant and after that I just cannot recommend this place for a sit down meal, particularly having read other people's similar experiences and knowing that even after enjoying myself at happy hour I still had caveats.
We arrived at the tail end of a weekday lunch service. The hostess was honestly pointless. We came in through the exterior door on Connecticut but she was stationed at the hotel entrance so we walked over and she thanked us for coming because she thought we were exiting. Lady, you've never seen us before. So then we asked for a table for two and she put us at a 4-seat high top in a hallway even though much better tables were available that were for two, so we politely asked for a better table.
Our server started off pleasant and attentive - quickly taking our drink orders and returning with them - and he remained *pleasant* throughout the meal but attentiveness tapered off to a point that we had to repeatedly ask for refills. Bussers walked by our table repeatedly without clearing empty plates and we had to ask to have dishes taken away.
We got the $14 corn elote dip and the portion was absolutely pathetic (see pic), which is totally inconsistent with my past Brussels sprouts orders, which were quite large. And it wasn't a fluke because the dish it came in was super tiny.
And then there were our entree salads. My fiance ordered a basic house salad and added chicken and he said it was a perfectly adequate salad, other than having much too much dressing.
Mine however is where it got weird. On the menu there was a crispy pepper shrimp salad. Thing is, it came with carrots and strawberries and a chipotle ranch dressing. Looking at the menu it just seemed strange but I really wanted those shrimp and it was between this and an impossible burger, which I can get anywhere, so I went against my gut and got the shrimp salad.
Well. There's a reason that salad isn't available anywhere else.
It was like 3 salads all fighting for dominance. The shrimp was Asian. The dressing was Mexican. The greens and strawberries wanted to be a field salad. None of it went. Which is unfortunate because each element was delicious on its own and they just didn't work together. Plus the greens were absolutely slathered in the dressing so it wasn't possible to find any kind of delicate balance in what I was eating. Strawberries. Chipotle ranch. Sweet and spicy shrimp. This was truly awful. And I was still hungry after and ate a whole tuna baguette from Pret.
But the weirdness does not end with that bizarre salad. I guess we came late because, while there were plenty of other diners when we arrived, they had all gone by the time we finished and we realized...no music. And the staff wasn't talking to each other. It suddenly felt like a funeral. Every glass being put down on the other side of the large restaurant was completely audible. We could hear the metro rumbling beneath us. It was so quiet that we found ourselves talking in hushed voices without intending to get quiet, it just kind of happened, and then at a certain point I found myself watching my fiance eat his salad in complete silence. It was truly uncomfortable and bizarre.
I just...no. I want to like this place. It has so much potential. But it's like people pretending to run a restaurant rather than actually running a restaurant.