Grace's Mandarin

Grace's Mandarin
188 Waterfront St. National Harbor, MD. 20745
http://www.gracesrestaurants.com/mandarin.html

So during the horrible ordeal with Cadillac Ranch I ventured off to find a subsitute restaurant because our entire party was still very hungry. I saw Grace's and assumed it wouldn't be too crowded since it was something different and most people shy away from different. After struggling to open the huge door, I was greated by two very nice hostesses. I asked one if they could accomidate a party of 12 and she told me a large party had just left and if i waited 10 minutes they could set up a table for our party. YES!!! So within 10 minutes our entire party was seated at a lovely table and the waiter was there to take our orders.

The decor in the restaurant was lovely and went well with the Mandarin theme. Along with the oriental decor were large flatscreen tv's so those of us who cared could still catch the final four games that were on. The bathrooms were even decked out with small flat screens and a feng shui vibe. It was a very relaxed comfortable environment after the hecktic time at cadillac ranch. Some perks even include hooks under our table to hang our purses on.

Now for the food!!! We began with a few alcoholic drinks. They offer a half and half, for those of you in baltimore that means lemonade and sweet tea...add some alcohol and it was hitting! We also sampled a white chocolate rasberry and truffle martini that was delicious.

Next were appetizers. We had an arrangement of sushi rolls that were all excellent. The rolls were pretty big so keep that in mind if you are ordering them as a starter. I also tried the Miso soup which i had never tasted, and I must say it was pretty tastey. Next the main courses arrived. Some hits were the Catfish nuggets and the Jumbo Prawns.

Service was excellent for it to be 11pm. Promt, friendly and great quality food. The prices were good for the amount of food we got and the service. This restaurant was a good end to a bad night.

Highlights: Decor, atmosphere, friendly service from the hostess to the waiter. Fresh tasty, exotic foods.

Grace's Mandarin will be added to our LOVE LIST.

With 4 hearts!

Damn That Cadillac Ranch!!

Cadillac Ranch
186 Fleet Street National Harbor • Oxon Hill, MD 20745
http://cadillacranchgroup.com/index.html

So it’s so very interesting that our first review gets to be a very lively account of our ordeal with an establishment this weekend. Let’s start with a little background. We were going to this place for a birthday. We have been to Cadillac Ranches in other states and had a great time riding the bull and eating good food. So when they opened a location in the National Harbor we were super excited to go. Sent out the e vite, had a party of about 13. The folks at the ranch told us they don’t do reservations, but if we get there early we can put our name on the list. “No Problem” we said.

We get to the place around 8, put our name on the list and they give us a wait time of 90 minutes. Cool beans we say. We head over to the Gaylord hotel for drinks while we wait. So as 9:30 creeps around we never get a call or anything about our table. So we take our party of about 10 at this point and head back over to the ranch to see about our table. We were greeted by 3 bouncers that wanted to charge us $7 dollars to come in. We tried to explain to them we were here for dinner and have had our name on the list for more than and hour, so why do we have to pay a charge. These heathens in an especially rude manner tell us they don’t care, pay or go home. I ask to speak to a manger and this big bald headed Cojak character steps up (later we found out he was not really a manager, which I knew as soon as he walked up, but didn’t want to get belligerent and call him a liar). We explain what’s going on, he says no problem stay put I’ll check on the list and you don’t have to worry about the cover. Problem solved right…Wrong?

20 minutes later we are still standing at the door of the ranch wondering what’s going on with our table. One person tells us “we’re putting the table together” another person tells us “we only have booths left so there are no tables to accommodate a party your size” another says “the owner is here I’ll go get him so you can talk to him”. Another 20 minutes later, still nothing. So we send out a recon crew to find an alternate location. While all this time we still have the guests of our party standing outside damn near being blown away by the wind. Not to mention that while all this is going on the fire alarm in the building keeps going off…

The owner finally comes down to speak with us. He pretty much says that he can seat us, but the hoods in their kitchen are not working so they cannot serve anymore food, but he would be glad to give us drinks. This might have sufficed if we had not been waiting for 2 hours and 15 minutes and if we hadn’t been completely starving and in dire need of food. In trying to negotiate alternate options he got fed up with us, threw up his hands, and walked away. In a 2nd attenpt to speak with the manager/owner JASON he informed us that he basically did not care about our situation because he had other things to take care of. That he was going to have to close down the kitchen because the equipment was malfunctioning and that was why the fire alarms kept going off, and he had other things to worry about then us getting a table or getting back the $7 cover that some in our party had already paid. Leaving us frustrated, cold, and hungry. All 10 of us (some had left by this point, understandably) ended up going to another restaurant at the harbor called Grace’s.

Oh yeah, about an hour after we were sat at the new place, we get a call from the ranch staying our table was ready!!!!!

Complete and total lack of good management and good customer service. BTW we weren’t the only ones stiffed with the cover charge or the inability to seat parties that had left their names hours earlier.

Overall this restaurant has certainly made it to our BLACK LIST
With a review of:
Will we ever give them a try again? As of today no, but maybe in the future we might give them a chance to redeem themselves (Of course depending upon the response we get after we write detailed complaints to their corporate office)