The Salt Line — Restaurant in Arlington

My wife and I celebrated a birthday dinner at Salt Line, July 26, 2022, prior to taking the Metro down to the Kennedy Center to see a performance. We had read and heard a lot of great things about the food at Salt Line, and so were in anticipation of a fabulous dinner.

To get to the point, the dinner experience was disappointing. The food was mediocre, the service unrefined and the outdoor seating under the bar canopy was noisy with loud happy hour customers. We will admit however, that the prices for happy hour beer and wine were pleasing!

Unfortunately, the service was not great, a bit slow and the waiter brought me the entirely wrong dish, resulting in my having to wait an extra 10 mins. before the correct dish was prepared and brought out.

The correct dish was the lobster roll and here’s the first example of where the food quality was mediocre. After waiting the extra time to get the correct order, out came a plate with a buttered and grilled hot dog roll with approximately a cup of chopped lobster tail in it. More melted butter was drizzled over the lobster. Nothing else was added to the lobster. No mayonnaise, no celery, no chives, no parsley, no lettuce, zippo! The rest of the plate was simply filled up with a pile of French fries. All for $34. Having enjoyed many a lobster roll in Maine and elsewhere in New England, I’d rate this one a 2 on a scale of 10, with 10 being the best.

Prior to the entre, I also had their $11 appetizer of “Stuffies” which the menu described as “3 baked topneck clams, smoked linguiça, lemon, bread crumbs, house hot sauce”. As it turned out, it was three half clam shells filled mostly with ground sausage, bread crumbs and the spicy sauce. No clams were to be found anywhere, unless they too were ground up and mixed in with the sausage. Ground clams??

Then finally for dessert, we ordered and shared the $11 Black Tea Panna Cotta. This sounded intriguing, being lovers of true panna cotta. What came out was, again, a major disappointment and quite a confused dish. The panna cotta had little tea flavor, was not cooked in an individual ramekin and had the consistency of typical canned pudding. But even worse, it was buried in a pile of various chopped up fruit and crumbled cookies. It was difficult to tell what the dish was supposed to be with so much fruit and cookies piled on. The panna cotta was clearly overpowered by the excessive fruit and cookies. But then again maybe the fruit and cookies were intended to hide the poor quality of the panna cotta. Again, a 2 out of 10 for the Black Tea Panna Cotta.

My wife’s choices of the Whitefish Salad, the Rockfish Tartare and the Broccolini, were somewhat better, but nothing to get excited over. I tried each one and would give all three a 5 out of 10.

In summary, for Salt Line we had high expectations, given what we had read and been told by previous diners, but our expectations were dashed after experiencing the mediocre quality of the food. But the happy hour drinks were cheap!!! (Did I already...

THEIR SEAFOOD IS NOT SAFE TO EAT I got the perfect storm which is supposed to be a double Bloody Mary with garnishes that included a lobster claw, oyster, and a cocktail shrimp. The server told us it would be a grand dish and that I would definitely be enough for a meal also given that it’s marked as a special item under their brunch meal menu (it’s also in the drink menu) - it’s $30. However, it came in a colorful cup that seemed like would be for a child and the amount wasn’t more than a regular Bloody Mary. Worst part was that the lobster tail was so small it was even smaller than the shrimp and I barely got anything out of it. Actually, the even worse part was that the cocktail shrimp was yellowish-green in the side, and when I bit into it, it was completely raw. Cocktail shrimp is supposed to be completely cooked and chilled, but NOT RAW. That’s very dangerous so I let the server know. He was very nice about it, apologized multiple times, and told us the lobster claw isn’t supposed to be that small and that he understands the entire thing seemed very underwhelming. He took the shrimp and the lobster and told be he would comp it as an apology. When I got my check, he had only comped my $6 clam chowder and said he couldn’t comp more than that as his manager didn’t allow it. We spoke to the manager and she seemed very rude, calculating how much I drank (I was only drinking the Bloody Mary bc I had no other food to eat otherwise and didn’t trust to order anything else after that) and told me I could’ve ordered something else (what?!). She said since I already drank half of the drink, she will still charge for the drink and discount for the lobster and shrimp. As a manager at a nice restaurant, it didn’t seem like she was worried about our experience or the potential food code violation and danger, and ONLY discounted however much I wasn’t able to eat. It was a horrible experience with the way the manager talked to us alone and it ruined a nice brunch I had planned for my friends that came from out of town. My one friend barely touched her dish (egg purgatory) as that wasn’t great, but it didn’t seem like they were calculating that one out for a discount one...

An expensive disaster. Arrived for 8pm Sat night dinner reservation for two and was sat in a section of two seaters in which the tables are rectangular with patrons sitting on the two narrowest ends. The acoustics of the place are LOUD, so sitting this way not only makes for little plate and glass space (the juggle was real) but being further away from your mate makes for frustrating conversation as you shout your way through dinner. Ordered 6 oysters across the saltiness profile for a variety (Dancing Molly, Tall Timbers, and Duxbury point) - they were tasteless mush and not even copious amounts of tobasco, lemon or horseradish could save them. The only saving grace were the Pickled Mussels - we should have stopped here, ordered more of those and left. Feeling hopeful however, we ordered the Crispy Octopus but what came was something dry and hard that took far too many chews to get down. Provided this feedback to our kind waiter who acknowledged it with an "I'm sorry about that" and nothing else. Also ordered the Seared Scallops and was disappointed they changed the recipe from grilled asparagus, eggplant puree, chickpea and sesame crumble finished w/ lemon Vinaigrette to a poor attempt at an Aji Romesco (the too strong taste of obviously canned tomato paste was bitter and gross) w/ smoked sweet baby yams (not sweet, very blah), bok choy (horribly undercooked requiring a steak knife to cut through) and 5 rather sandy and tasteless scallops that wouldn't even speak to anything else on the plate much less be complimented. Husband ordered the Waterman's Platter which consisted of a far too large platter of cremated seafood. Not edible, honestly. Feedback was provided to the waiter and the floor manager across the board, however no compensation or offer/suggestion of something different was given - my guess is, it's Saturday, they're busy and just wanted us to move along. We ordered no cocktails, bill came to $150 before tip - an absolute waste of time, money and a terribly frustrating experience with little to no concern expressed by staff. Will absolutely...