Ketchup - Restaurant Review

I'm in National Harbor for the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children) national conference. I just had dinner with a friend (Aunt Piddy's daughter, Christy) at Ketchup. When I got back to the hotel room, I googled it and found some of the most horrible reviews I've ever read, which I found interesting because I had a delightful dinner experience.

I forgot to bring my camera on this trip, so I have no pictures unfortunately. Too bad, too, because the Seafood Risotto was picture perfect. And tasted great! Succulent sea scallops, large cooked-perfectly prawns, fresh lobster...mmm. The risotto was great. My friend had lobster macaroni and cheese. She didn't say anything about it, so I suspect it wasn't great. We also had the 'threesome': 3 kinds of fries (sweet potato, parmesan dusted, and spicy) served with 6 kinds of homemade ketchup, hence the name of the restaurant. The ketchups were ranch (fry sauce to you Utah people), chipotle, root beer, wasabi, honey, and something else that I can't remember. The fries were uninspiring, which makes sense because they'd want to highlight the ketchups. But the sweet potato fries had a cinnamon sugar dusting. That's just wrong.

The highlight of the evening, running even with my seafood risotto, was Chantel, our server. She was fabulous. I am disheartened by the lack of customer service these days, but she has restored my faith. We ate dinner the night before at McCloone's Pier House, which had excellent food, but the server was bad AND rude. Double whammy. I messed with him right back. Don't be coppin' a nasty attitude with me, Mr. I'm-too-good-to-serve-your-food-you-tourist-with-money-to-tip. I can count on two hand the times I've tipped below 20% (I'm a former bartender and waitress) and this was one of them. Shame on him.

All in all, let me say that a visit to either McCloone's or Ketchup is worth it. And frankly, I'll be trying to convince Rhett to come back here with me and BonnieBlue for a long weekend. Fun time.