Harborside

Reviews 3

EI

Eileen Stelzner

We arrived around 6:45pm. As we pulled up, I was amazed at the transformation since my last visit or drive through the area. Beautiful exterior, well manicured grounds, well maintained building, clean little lake beach, plenty of easy parking, wonderful arrival impression. As soon as you walk in, the atmosphere is warm & friendly & everything smells fantastic! We were greeted with phenomenal enthusiasm & promptly seated in a booth by a window (see photo of view), awesome. We were then greeted by our terrific server, Lesli. Poor thing, had to deal with my husbands sometimes awkward (okay, always) humor, and she took it in great stride, always laughing & not fake laughing, unless shes the greatest laugh actress ever (?). She took our drink orders & quickly returned with our water, we didnt want to fill up on beverages, we came to eat. As we looked over the menu, I already had an appetizer in my head from previewing the menu & to my delight, my husband wanted the same one. Sea skins and Lesli told us "great choice, I love those", to my husbands delight. These sea skins are the most unique appetizer either of us has had before (maybe just in a long time), they are potato skins topped with shrimp, crab, bacon, scallions & cheese, magnificent! For our meals, our last dinner out my husband had horrible ribs (at another location, you can see it in my reviews), so he wanted a mulligan on them. Well, let me tell you, he started squealing (exaggeration) with excitement when he was able to pull the ribs apart with zero effort, yay, another big win for Harborside. He said they were awesome too. I ordered one of my faves, snow crab. Now, Im a weirdo, I dont do many spices (IBS issues & I have the palate of a 6 year old), so I asked for no Old Bay seasoning & Lesli was happy to have them alter it. My snow crab was perfectly steamed & at no point was I frustrated with the meat not pulling out of the shells, in fact, each time I cracked, the meat pulled out in whole pieces with ease. The crab meat was tender & delicious. There was so much meat, I had to ask for additional butter & lemon & of course Lesli was quick to deliver. Im very diligent when it comes to eating every bite of my snow crab, because well, if you eat crab or pay for anyone who does, you know its not cheap & Im not wasting it or taking it home (it will stink up the fridge & 70% of food that enters our fridge, dies there). So, it took me much longer to finish my meal compared to my husband. I forgot to mention how large the portions are here, I doubt anyone leaves anything less than stuffed. With our meals came a delicious house salad which Lesli mixed up table side. Im a salad snob a lot of the time because most house salads & dressings are gross, not here, their salad was fantastic & the bread too. During our time, I think when I ordered my meal or after we finished our sea skins, Lesli told us about a lunch only menu item, I believe it was a shrimp & lobster quesadilla, well, her description alone, made us both decide well definitely return for lunch. When I finished my dinner, my husband was ready for dessert, hes always ready for dessert, he has quite the sweet tooth, especially for chocolate (yep, not me, him). So, upon another terrific recommendation by Lesli, we ordered the Harborside Triple Brownie Sundae (see photo) & holy cow, no need to order two desserts, wow. So, to sum it up, we highly recommend Harborside & Lesli too. What a change & improvement from 20+ years ago. Since Im the seafood lover of the two of us, Im so looking forward to our lunch & the shrimp & lobster quesadilla. On a side note, my husband & I both work in hospitality & are generally quite critical of customer service, so when we say Leslie was fantastic, trust us.

NI

Nina Hechmer

First, just let me say that I am by no means a Food Critic; however, I do know the difference between a 5 star Restaurant and a Over Rated 3 star Restaurant. This is what Frank & Mannys Harborside appeared to be to me when I finally went to see what all the Hype was about. Two of us arrived around 7 pm and there were about 30+ customers waiting for tables. Ok, so I kind of expected that, and hostess told us 45 minutes to 1 hour wait. We decided to wait and were seated around 7:40 by Frank himself. If first appearances are any kind of a sign, then we were in for a spectacular dinner. Well......... Our Waitress name was Kayla, she was a bit of an airhead. When we were seated by Frank, we were never supplied with Dinnerware or napkins, so when Kayla came to take or drink order (we had unsweetened tea), I told her we needed some. There is no sugar on the tables for whatever reason, so we asked if they had Splenda, and was told yes. So here comes the two glasses of Tea, and she brings Sweet & Low. I asked for the Splenda, and was told by Kayla, "Oh, we dont have Splenda, only Equal". She brings equal and in the meantime we decide to order this delicious Drink off their Drink Menu and reminder her we still need Dinnerware. Its called a Black Swan and contains Vodka, Baileys, Marshmallow Liquor and the Glass is rimmed with Graham Cracker Crust and Chocolate Syrup, Yummy, right? Here comes drink with nothing on the rim of the glass. I asked Kayla if she knew this Drink was not right, she said no (please, you should know everything you serve). Drink sent back and here comes salad. Now I refuse to ask for Dinnerware a third time, so I get up and get it myself from the Hostess Station (and by the way, there goes any chance of getting a TIP from me). Food did come out Hot, but i asked for blackened Mahi Mahi and it came out grilled. The Vegetables were cooked and hot but were Crunchy, not the way they are listed on the Menu. Overall I give this place a 3 (and thats being generous) out of 5 stars. Service was lacking, food not all that for the prices you will be paying, and you will be PAYING A LOT for this 3 star restaurant who thinks they are a 5 star.

RA

randall McNally

We went today, at a time that is usually slow: between lunch and dinner, around 2:00 PM. Long wait just to be seated, while the greeter talked on the phone. When I said something, she said it was the owner on the phone. Seriously? If it was the owner, it demonstrated a real lack of understanding of service. Once seated, another LONG wait; 30 seconds is the Industry standard for the time to greet a new customer; we had to flag someone down. We started with the seafood skins, which were quite nice. My girlfriend had the shrimp scampi; the portion was ample and well prepared. I had the seafood combo. Be warned: the kitchen has a very heavy hand with the breading. Very heavy. The problem with breading that heavily is two fold: first, the flavor of the breading overpowered the underlying food (especially the scallop - who in Gods name offers crunchy scallop?). The second problem is that, to properly cook that much breading, the underlying food takes a beating, as did the shrimp. The breaded fish was cooked to flakiness, but again, completely overpowered by the breading. On another note: shouldnt sweetener be offered automatically if serving ice tea? All in all, the ambiance was nice, the food could stand tweaking, but even the best food would not overcome lackluster service, which probably would have been better had there been a manager present, and not an owner on the phone.