The Harp Bar and Restaurant — Restaurant in Kent

I'd previously posted (and then thought better of and deleted) a three-star review of my first experience here a couple of weeks ago. That time, I had a pretty awful order of chicken wings. They were shown on the menu as a half-dozen for $9, but the server informed me that there might be five instead of six, depending on their size. There were five. They weren't particularly large, they were over-cooked to dry/chewy and they were over-breaded and seasoned like something that had been shaken frozen directly into the fryer out of a generic Sysco food service bag.

Management responded to my review assuring me that everything was prepared on-site and encouraged me to return. I agreed that I should do just that. I took down my admittedly lurid review and then I returned last night and ordered Guinness beef stew.

I paid $15 for something the kitchen managed to make uniform-brown in every dimension of culinary experience; color, aroma, texture, and flavor; baby carrots, apparently out of a bag, with stringy cubes of beef, along with the usual onions and potatoes, all stewed down to near oblivion in a base that seemed to be primarily made of Kitchen Bouquet browning agent... with a few chopped green onions thrown on top. (Photo included)

Why did I come back? Well, I have to drive my son and his friends to baseball practice at a nearby facility from north of Seattle (35 minutes to an hour each way, depending on traffic) and I want a friendly, cozy, and tasty place to chill for 2 hours while I wait. So far, I haven't been able to find many options in the area that are open this late in the evening. Also, management asked me to give them another chance and I really want this to be the place!

I'll give it one more go when I'm back there in a few weeks. I'll probably try one of my go-to benchmarks; either a reuben ($15) or fish and chips ($14 2pc / $17 3pc). If they blow those, I'll never be back. If this is all Kent has to offer after 8:00PM, I'd prefer to save my money, bundle up, and just sit in my car in the cold dark parking lot of the baseball...

Well I am in town for a business trip and this place happened to be close to my hotel. I have enjoyed Irish pubs in the past and figured I would give it a try.

To start off everything was really expensive, but that may be the area and Washington in general. I decided to get the Shepard’s pie because that is a good tell as the whether or not someone knows how to cook Irish food. I was sorely disappointed. There was no “pie” to speak of, the dish consisted of peas, carrots hamburger gravy, and topped with instant mashed potatoes with the cheapest shredded cheese available. The meal seemed like Sysco made the whole thing and it took me back to school lunch in the 5th grade.

I decided to should try my luck at a dessert because it could have been a fluke, and they had bread pudding as a special. I got the first bread pudding and it was doused in a cream sauce and had reddi-whip on top. I took one bite was got overwhelmed by whiskey. I politely ask for a different bread pudding as I don’t drink and the alcohol was definitely still there strong. They bring me another bread pudding without the whiskey cream sauce and just reddi-whip. This bread pudding was moist, but almost flavorless. I understand this is a pub and there are people who might enjoy the shocker cream sauce, but there was no sweetness to speak of in the dish. I was not asked to show ID before being given an alcoholic cream sauce and I’m in my early 20’s. That’s not the worst of it, I get the bill and the bread pudding was $9.50. I gave my tip of $5 on a $28.00 bill and said good riddance.

I will not be back or suggest this place to anyone, but my waitress was very kind and understanding, that’s why it gets 2 stars. Sysco food has no place in a restaurant, if I wanted a flashback to school lunch I would have gone for a cafeteria...

I'm revising my previous review after having visited two more times with similar experiences. This place has great food....AND terrible service. I used to be a server and was very capable of managing 5-7 tables of 4 to 6 people at a time. How the two servers I have seen the last two visits are never able to handle for themselves more than 5-7 tables at a time total between the two of them, I don't know. We used to have rules where I worked in my younger years where you had to greet the table within two minutes of them sitting down and you had specific intervals that you had to revisit each table to check on them. I'm pretty sure neither of the servers here have heard of prompt or consistent meal service because literally the cook was coming out to run food that had been sitting in the window too long and even to greet a table who flagged him down after having sat down and had no one approach him for several minutes to either give him a menu or even bring him water. Like....where were the servers? How can they not handle this situation when most of the people in there aren't even eating and just drinking? Like are they too busy smoking out back or something? Or do they not know what it means to check on tables? Like I know in Europe it's common to flag servers down. But you can actually find them and you aren't flagging down a cook to help you either.

Anyways. Food is lovely. After having now been there 3 times and 2 of those times being horrible service....my husband and I will 1) not be returning 2) will caution anyone who wants to come here in the future on the service making the food absolutely...