Jay B.
Yelp
This place sucks. It sucks so hard that I don't even feel like reviewing it. But in order to explain to you all why I struggled to even give this place 2 stars, I must first carefully articulate the gradual let down we experienced.
From the moment you walk in, you get your hopes up. That is, if you're an average customer just looking for a place to eat. But nothing screams "desperation" like a nice little sticker on your front door that says, "Yelp loves us!". Yup. THAT happened. *poker face*
It seems like this place has everything going for it. And maybe only MY experience sucked the big one and I'm just a cranky elitist who was previously in a pissed off mood because our original plans got botched. But I think once I describe what the food and service were like, you may be inclined to agree. How does a restaurant's hype get you sooooo high...and then let you down sooooo low? And I'm not talking like, comparing Which Wich to Chu-- uh...Subway's; I'm talking like...walking into the place, seeing the prices and expecting to taste Cattleman's...and then walking out of the place realizing you just tasted Applebee's.
The biggest problem I have with this place is the fact that they charge far too much for what they have to offer. But in order to give you a better idea, I'll need to break this down dish by dish. Are ya ready for this? Are you sure? Cuz....I'm not even sure *I* am. Okay. Here we go!
Drinks: you might be thinking, "how does a place screw up drinks?" They didn't. It's just that they took ages to get to the table; much like everything else. And that seems to have been the on-going theme of tonight's service, but...more on that later.
Appetizer crab cakes: burnt on the outside, bland as f*ck on the inside. Though not technically totally terrible, they were exactly the type of thing I expected from a place like this; dubious and, more importantly, not the kind of crab cakes that would ever be able to stand the test of taste buds alone. And so they come with a remolaude sauce of sorts; which is typical whenever you serve overseared crab cakes. These would easily rank a 5 out of 10 with the sauce; 3 out of 10 without.
Entreés: wife got the seafood pasta; I got the ribeye steak with mac n' cheese because...why the hell not, right?
Steak: bland as shit! Over four passes of table salt and still tasted like an anemic imitation of grilled beef. I realize this place is basically a cross between Great American Land & Cattle and Wafflehouse but...for f*ck's sake!! Cooking steak shouldn't be so painful!
The highlight of the evening, believe it or not, was the seafood pasta. Unfortunately, it still needed seasoning itself. But the chipotle cream sauce was actually quite delicious on its own, all things considering. Too bad the crab meat was all but non-existent and the shrimp, stoically placed into the pasta.
I also had a Caesar salad before my meal. Yeah...it was bland and forgettable. 'Nuff said.
But what's REALLY strange about G2 is its decorum. Right when you sit down in this place, you start to think you're maybe going to enjoy a romantic dinner with the usual low lighting and candlelit tables. Sadly, that's counteracted with the noisy atmosphere, combined with the bizarre choice to feature an open kitchen facing the patrons, grease spoon diner style. Basically, this place can't decide whether they're fine dining or short order. Me personally? I'd vote for the latter.
If I wasn't an introvert who would rather just pay and get out as opposed to making a scene over pretentiously priced ribeye that barely ranks above the family grill up the street from my house, I'd have sent everything minus the pasta back. Still, to sum up..
1.) The food here is pretentiously overpriced.
2.) Under seasoning (or rather...NO seasoning) the food seems to be a reoccurring theme here.
3.) Their location sucks, too. It's way under lit at night and inexplicably located on a subsidiary street next to the main one: North Mesa. Also, the parking lot is smaller than Rhode Island on a U.S. map.
4.) The service here is anemic at best. I'd even go as far as to say it's phoned in. The guy serving us acted like he couldn't be bothered, rarely checked back on us (aside from when it was time to get the check), and didn't even bother asking how the food was. Truthfully, the pasta could have saved this place a second star in my book. But there were way too many things wrong which would make that enough. G2 gets 1 anemically seasoned cornucopia of food out of 5.
Oh yeah...my food died waiting at the hot pass, so that probably affected the temperature and authenticity.