harbor house

my ratings. 0...............2.5................5
5(excellent)

cleanliness ......................... 4
menu(size).......................... 4
timely service........................ 3
knowledge of servers......... 4
flexibility of establishment... 3
food and presentation........ 5
fresh food ...................... 2 frozen
portion size........... 4
quality of service............ 3 rude parking attendant
noise level........................ 5
ambiance and décor......... 5
condiments ............. 5
bread............................... 3
restrooms....................... 4
overall value..................... 3.5
total rating............... 4.4

needs a little tweaking onbreadand frozen fries just so....so

food was average. very good service.the baguettebreadstale and dry. linguini pasta was precooked which is a terrible thing to do.i expected better from bartolotta.

what a shame. went to dinner last thursday evening with 2 other couples, we were all very excited for our first trip to the harbor house, unfortunately it will be our last. on a positive note, the oysters were excellent. however things went downhill quickly . the service was unacceptable for a restaurant that only offers valet parking, we repeatedly had to ask to have our dirty plates and glasses cleared from the table. we hadbreadplates and butter knives and had to ask forbread20 minutes into our seating. they seem to print their menus weekly but were out of the first two bottle of wines that we ordered. the seafood bisque was void of any seafood. the plates were served with the warning "be careful the plates are very hot, please do not touch them"..what does that mean?? yup, they've been sitting under a heat lamp for some time. my one, split king crab leg showed the sign of heat lamp drying both of the scallop plates just shouldn't have ever left the kitchen. who here likes chewy scallops? i asked for a med rare steak, it was served quite rare. no problem, i'll take a undercooked steak every time. even after being sent back to the kitchen for more heat, it was still rare. the halibut was described much differently on the menu than it was served. it came in a broth and frankly why would you serve a breaded fish in a broth? who likes soggy breading? the location was beautiful and it is just a shame to waste this location on food that isn't worthy of a 2 star hotel restaurant. maybe it was an off night, maybe some key personnel were out. in my mind there is no excuse. mr. bartolatta either need to make some vast improvements or remove his association from the harbor house.

great food, slow service. we made an unexpected trip to harbor house this weekend after the nearby wine festival was rained out. as you can imagine, it was packed--both a normal crowd of diners and others who, like us, came to escape the rain. we were told it was an hour and a half for a table, to to their credit they seated after only half an hour.

luckily, we already had wine from the bar. we waited half an hour for a server to stop by and another 15 minutes for bread, at which time they took our appetizer order. (thebreadbasket offered a nice variety.)
our appetizers took another half an hour to arrive. we had the crab cakes and the scallops. both were fantastic--fresh, perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked. when our appetizers arrived we ordered soup as our main course, since we'd already been sitting there for over an hour and had gone through twobreadbaskets. fifteen minutes after our appetizers were cleared we were brought spoons, and then about 45 minutes after that our soup finally arrived. we both had the bisque. it was great, very rich and tasted shellfish sweet, which was just what the waitress described. very good, but not really an entree soup. i'd highly recommend it before a main course. it took us about another 45 minutes to eat and receive our check. we noticed that others seemed to be receiving a similar level of service.

i have absolutely no criticism of the food. it was very good and well worth the money. the atmosphere is great, and we were there under what was probably unusually crowded circumstances.

that said, i expect better service from a restaurant associated with the bartolotta name. i always appreciate that they don't rush you at their restaurants and you can linger and chat, but an hour for soup? really? and our wine glasses and water glasses were both dry for quite while before they were refreshed.

i definitely recommend people try this restaurant if they like fresh seafood, but i would recommend that you are prepared for a slow, relaxed dinner. perhaps several hours.