Gatsby's Seafood & Steakhouse — Restaurant in Bay City

The onion rings arrived in a flattened black bowl with brown paper, which I found oddly appropriate for the intentionally cultivated atmosphere of a 1920s steakhouse. I know little of the cuisine from this time, but perhaps their onion rings were also known for inconsistent size and coloration, a haphazard mixture of darkened and shriveled rings laid with wild abandon among their larger, golden cousins.

Despite the issues with size, the batter was fairly consistent, with the patchy elements split between the two species of onion ring. By appearance alone, it's unclear if the flaws of the onion rings are due to the poor execution of a frozen brand, or the unfortunate consequence of the hand-battering process.

My first bite of an onion ring provided an immediate and shocking amount of rich, malty flavor, so much so that I was immediately convinced that they were not frozen. A closer read of the menu reveals these are "sweet onion rings dipped in malty beer batter," explaining the concentration of the malty flavor in the batter. Likewise, the batter is more sweet than savory, albeit lightly salted, a bold and fairly uncommon choice among onion rings.

While the malty beer flavor goes well with the onion, the onion itself doesn't provide as much flavor, despite being sufficiently wet and juicy. I suspect that these onion rings were made with sweet onions, which usually lead to a less pronounced onion taste, perhaps as part of the general theme of sweet instead of savory.

I have no idea what the accompanying dipping sauce is, with my top guesses being "ketchup," "cocktail sauce that's basically just ketchup," and "mystery sauce." For personal reasons (those reasons being "I hate ketchup"), I did not consume the onion rings with the sauce.

Through some combination of factors - possibly including the beer batter, the cooked-through sweet onions, and the variate size of the rings - the onions in these onion rings were absurdly wet, almost sopping with every bite. The inconsistency of the batter - first soft, then crunchy - also brings these rings down a peg.

If the sweetness of the rings speaks to any aspiration of a desert, the closest comparison I could think of would be an onion-flavored jelly-filled donut, except the jelly is made out of onions and the whole thing is soaked in beer. Would I eat that? Absolutely. Does that lead to the best textural sensation? No.

For $5.95, the amount of onion rings, and the handmade quality, are a reasonably good value. The unique flavor profile of the malt and the sweet onion, while somewhat lacking in onion taste, is a novel concept, which is worth trying. I think if the onion rings were of a more consistent size and cook time, they may have been a bit better, but the sweet onion is too mild to soar...

Upon arrival I and my guests were greeted by a weirdly dressed mannequin. I think the idea is to have her dressed as a 1920s flapper girl, as this restaurant is named "Gatsby's", I get that. I still thought it was weird. When we walked in it looked more like a dark, dingy, bar rather than a restaurant. There were two large, extremely loud groups of women there. I realize this wasn't the fault of the establishment, but we were glad when they left as they were very rude and had no self control, talking loud, laughing, not caring about anyone but themselves. It was more like a bar atmosphere rather than a dining experience, but it was early yet, about 2pm on a Saturday so I am not familiar with how things work there. We were handed lunch menus and one person in my group wanted steak which was not on the lunch menu so we asked for the dinner menu, which we were given. We were told that some items from the dinner menu may not be available yet. While our waitress was standing there talking to us, saliva shot out of her mouth and narrowly missed one of our guests. She didn't apologize for that and just ignored it like it didn't happen. I ended up ordering the special that was written on the board out in the front lobby. It was a steak sandwich with fries for $7.99. It was awful! The steak tasted like it had been sitting around for a week and it was processed meat, not real pieces of steak but more like thin shavings of those steak slices that you can buy frozen. I did like the appetizer we had. It was bar cheese with pita points. But it's rather hard to ruin that. My guest did get a T-bone steak which our waitress tried to tell him they didn't have. He pointed it out to her on the menu and she said she was shocked and didn't even know they had T-bone steak. My other guest had the club sandwich which was more bread than filling. I don't care to come back here to eat as the restaurant was dark, not cheerful and uninviting. The food was mediocre at best. The waitress was pleasant, but she was unprofessional at times, spitting when she talked and interrupting us while we were ordering our food by turning to talk to someone else, forgetting to refill our drinks even though there were not many customers present. I see no reason to return here or recommend this...

My wife and I had a great dinner at Gatsby's. When we arrived at 6:30 we were told it would be a fifty minute wait and they took our phone number to message us when the table was ready. We expected this and headed a few doors down to another establishment that had a bar and live music. We returned about 40 minutes later and the hostess told us she had a table ready for us. We were quickly seated and drink orders taken shortly thereafter. We ordered appetizers, bruschetta and escargot, as well as our meals when our drinks arrived. The server suggested that she should hold our entrees until we were done with our appetizers before firing our entrees, as we also had salads coming with our meals. It was a great suggestion as we would have had way too many items on our table. Both of the appetizers were flavorful but overall it was too much for just the two of us, but this was a rare night out and we wanted to enjoy Our salads, a side salad for me and a Caesar for my wife were both crisp and the dressings were perfect. I ordered the 1855 ribeye medium+ with the grilled vegetables and my wife chose ginger glazed salmon with maple mashed sweet potatoes. Oh what a meal. My steak was cooked perfectly and the season was spot on. The grilled vegetables were hot but with a good amount of crunch remaining. My wife agreed regarding my steak and my bite of her fish was amazing. The fresh ginger hit the spot. She also really enjoyed the sweet potatoes. The atmosphere was lively without being too loud and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The entire staff was friendly and VERY efficient. We had a...