Carlyle Grand Cafe No Longer Worthy Of The Name
Written: Jul 29 '01
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Pros: Multiple people claim the ribs are some of the best in the country...
Cons: ...but we had multiple problems during a recent dinner
The Bottom Line: Still popular, but without as much reason. Certain dishes are excellent, but the overall experience is unpleasant.
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| Joubert's Full Review: Carlyle Grand Cafe |
Arlington’s Carlyle Grand Café is known throughout the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area for its casual atmosphere and good food. The long-standing pearl of the necklace that has become the locus of the Great American Restaurants Company, the Carlyle serves reasonably priced, tasty food in a two floor restaurant where jeans and ties mix equally.
Sharing many menu items with its sister restaurants, notably Artie’s in Fairfax and the burgeoning Sweetwater Tavern chain, the Carlyle does a thriving business lunch, as well as strong dinner and desert business. A perennial favorite of Washingtonian readers and local food critics, the restaurant regularly won a slew of awards as late as 1998. This rose’s bloom is fading, however, as I found during a recent dinner when the last vestiges of the Carlyle being a pleasant place for a quiet meal or post-movie desert were shattered by reality.
Getting There and Getting In
Arlington’s Shirlington neighborhood continues to grow, eking out every last inch of available space for this inside the Beltway, straight shot to downtown location. Through all of the change, the Carlyle Grand has sat at on 28th Street at the entrance to Shirlington Village, a small strip of restaurants, shops and a multiplex.
Parking is surprisingly easy to find, usually in the parking garage just behind the main strip or in the movie theater’s lot at the end of the strip. A large sandwich board sign directs patrons to the free parking area on the garage’s first level.
The legendary waits were gone when we visited on a Saturday night. Instead, we were seated in the noisy first floor dining room within ten minutes; barely enough time to park and walk back. Our experience was quite possibly a fluke of timing. The restaurant does offer call-ahead reservations and diners who visit as the nearby offices let out and the pre-movie crowd enters on a Friday evening will find themselves grasping a pager in the bar while waiting for a table.
Sit Please, Senor Torquemada Will Arrive Shortly
A quick mix-up at the hostess station quickly resolved itself when the lead person came back from seating someone else and took over. Prior to that, the two hostesses on duty were doing their best to ignore us because our pager had apparently been activated early. We were quickly ushered to the rear of the first floor dining room and seated next to the window where we could peer back at the table on the patio pushed flush against the window next to us. A staggered arrangement would help solve the people aquarium problem that quickly developed although I would be remiss without complimenting our dining companions’ manners and entrée choice.
Only a moment or two of gawking at the others occurred before I realized just how uncomfortable it was sitting the faux rattan chairs. I noticed my wife experiencing the same discomfort as she delicately shifted in her chair. That’s when I noticed that we were sitting in smaller chairs, pitched slightly forward, without arms. The adjacent table had larger chairs with arms that would still fit at our table. My indecision was swept away when a hostess with a party trailing her snagged one of the four good chairs and moved to another table. We quickly swapped our own chairs, and while I found them more comfortable, my wife complained that gripping the arms was necessary to avoid sliding down.
Thus, finally seated, I listened through the dining room’s din to the muddy music. A mix tape of two to three year old Adult Contemporary hits was playing. The bar, which for some reason has a service bar facing the dining room was going full tilt, but the restaurant’s horrible acoustics generated a cacophony of noise that made conversation or even peaceful dining an option. I would not have minded loud music or a boisterous crowd, but both combined in a room with high ceilings and glass windows combined to actually give me a headache.
Um, I’m Not Sure How They Make That. Neither Are They.
When our server took drink orders, my wife ordered a strawberry daiquiri. Nope. No blended drinks here. So, apparently feeling in a islands frame of mind, she ordered a rum punch, hardly the most difficult bar call that night. Virtually anyone who has spent time on either side of a bar knows that a rum punch is a combination of rum, orange juice, cranberry juice and sometimes a splash of pineapple. Save your Elmore Leonard jokes for someone else; this is a restaurant review. The server had not heard of the drink and returned from the bar saying that the bartender had also not heard of the drink.
Forget for moments that every restaurant bar in the world has a bartender’s guide somewhere close by. Forget for a moment that we’re talking about a restaurant open for years on a busy Saturday night with any number of managers close by for support. No, this well-known restaurant sent a server to my table with a suggestion. “Try the Shirlington Temple,” he said, describing a Shirley Temple, which he offered to bring a separate shot of rum for her to add at the table. Hot diggety, had I known it was Mix Your Own night, I could brought some of Grandpappy’s corn squeezins.
Thoughts of recreating Jack Nicholson’s chicken salad sandwich order haunted me for the next five minutes.
Our inexperienced server ran from the table with our drink order (black coffee with no cream and a Diet Coke, two waters) as we told him we were ready to order our meal. He returned after five minutes with the soda, the coffee, the cream we specifically said we did not want and no water. Having already spieled the specials, he made little effort to take control of the ordering process.
When I asked about the scallop “steak”, he drew a blank. Well, is it broiled, grilled, what?” I asked. He honestly didn’t know. I ordered anyway, and my wife ordered the incredibly tasty baby back ribs for which every restaurant in this chain is known. There was no upsell or offer to salads, soups or appetizers. Whiz bang., he was gone.
Waiter, There’s A Pound Of Salt On My Food
The restaurant’s justifiably famous bread was presented to us on a plate with a small dab of the homemade butter. There was no variety. Instead, three pieces of rosemary bread were stacked on a plate and brought over. Our own bread dishes were left stacked next to the plate. I found the bread stale and flat in taste and wondered aloud why the tables around us were given the more typical baskets with an assortment of breads.
Dinner arrived fast enough to tell me that the kitchen was churning out its half dozen most popular recipes throughout the evening. That is par for some restaurants, but when I order seafood, I do prefer that it is cooked at the time I place the order. The bread plate was whisked away, the water finally arrived and with a decent presentation on the plate, prospects were bright for a better experience.
The better experience expectation lasted until the first tablespoon of salt ladled into the sauce hit my taste buds. I was also very disappointed to learn that the scallops were simply four large scallops wrapped in a piece of ordinary ham and served with a glazed crust to hold them together. The overpriced dish was not tasty and was left unfinished. Those who have dined with me before will marvel that food was actually allowed to return to the kitchen once served.
The baby back ribs were excellent as they are throughout the chain and the side dishes accompanying both entrees were adequate.
The Bottom Line
The Carlyle Grand Café also offers standard American fare, including steak and chicken dishes, as well as a full range of appetizers and some wonderful deserts. We skipped desert at this meal, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the same dishes – notably the mixed berry desert – at the other locations.
Had the server, the hostesses or the bartender not been up to snuff, I might be convinced that someone was new or not having a good day on the job. Had the food been uniformly appetizing and the service bad, I would warn folks to expect poor service as part of the price for their meal. Had I been smarter, I would have gone to one of the chain’s other restaurants, including the Sweetwater Tavern (multiple locations, but long waits) or Artie’s in Fairfax. Allow me to suggest you do the same. Meanwhile, if you’re in the Shirlington area, the restaurant row there contains multiple alternatives.
© 2001 Joubert
Recommended:
No
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations Resting on its laurels, this is not the place it once was. Beware of restaurants that have 2-5 year old awards displayed. Ask them were the recent ones can be found.
Best Suited For: Friends
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