Honestly? I hope I never have to eat here again. Eating out at restaurants like Eli's really crushes my will to live. I would rather not eat at all than to eat at a restaurant with completely mediocre/not good food.
Eating out is my primary (potentially only) "leisure activity." For me the place does not need to be fancy. The service does not need to be exceptional in any way. But the food needs to be delicious and the vibe needs to be good. Eli's fails on both these.
Here's what happened: we all met up at a nearby restaurant that turned out to be randomly closed (??) and so we just drove down The Hill a bit and went to Eli's. I definitely got out voted on that choice. Oh well. I say that to say I never would have chosen to eat at Eli's.
But there we were, so I ordered us a sampling of their appetizers: Fried mozzarella, Street Corn Brussels (bore zero resemblance to any kind of street corn), Nachos, Spinach Artichoke Dip (wow, terrible), Local Tomato Bruschetta (I would bet someone actual money those were NOT local tomatoes and I'm pretty sure they bought the bread at Big Y), Point Judith Calamari. The fried mozzarella and calamari were pretty good and the marinara was not half bad! The other stuff? Bad bar food. Like real bad.
The nachos were a travesty. I think we can all agree that nachos should not be "rocket science." However, throwing some jar, white cheese sauce, pickled onion and jalapeños and a few diced tomatoes on top of a pile of tortilla chips is NOT nachos. Eli's nachos is the kind of food that actually makes me angry. As in: the NERVE to serve up something an 8 yr old could have thrown together and then charge money for it. Gordon Ramsey would lose his mind over these things.
I tried everything. One bite in was as far as I got.
I then ordered the fish and chips and asked for the parmesan truffle fries instead of the Old Bay fries. I ordered a side Caesar Salad. The Caesar was the best thing I had. It was actually totally good. I should have just gotten a full sized Caesar, maybe added some shrimp and called it a day! But noooooo, I had to try fish and chips. To be fair, the fish and chips were FAR BETTER than any of those appetizers. (I'd have to recommend skipping all appetizers.) The mistake I made was asking for the parm truffle fries. Because all they did was sprinkle some sort of parm truffle seasoning all over the plate. And it wasn't good. That was my fault. Because Eli's fries are actually good. Which you're thinking is not a big deal. But it is. A lot of places serve fries. Not a lot of them are good.
The fish was nice and flaky, fried crispy on the outside, cooked all the way through. It was perfectly fine. It was not better than perfectly fine. I do not want "perfectly fine" to be the highest praise I give to a meal I am eating in a restaurant.
And yet we pressed on and tried some desserts. I have no idea why. We ordered the beignets, the peanut butter pie and the chocolate chip cookies and milk cake. Obviously, these are all premade desserts bought from some food supply company. The cake was awful. The peanut butter pie was pretty good for premade food service dessert. I have no idea why the little deep friend rectangles of what appeared to be pastry dough were called beignets. They weren't beignets. Maybe most people can't tell the difference?? Ugh.
Everyone working at Eli's was very nice. But it was still kind of a struggle to get water, to get the eaten food plates cleared before adding more food to the table, to get the to go containers, etc etc.
Hopefully I will not be back. This is not the kind of dining out experience I can recommend to anyone. read more