Our Mom Eugenia - Mosaic — Restaurant in Merrifield

We came for an early dinner and had great food, superb wine, and an overall great time. Our waiter, MK, was the most interesting person. He made great food and wine recommendations and was very engaged. We came pretty hungry and had already some specific food in mind, yet when we got there and we were going through the menu and the wine list, we were so "overwhelmed" (in a good way) by all the delicious choices. The wife had her mind set on Spanakopita, but when she saw the Souvlaki choices she couldn't make up her mind. MK was the most patient waiter and really helped us to make great food choices. When going through the wine list he helped us to choose according to our pairing and expectations from the wines we usually enjoy. I had my mind set on the Grilled Octopus since a friend of mine had it for lunch before and it looked so good. I am a bit picky when choosing octopus and squid, since the preparation is key. The Grilled Octopus at Eugenia is possibly one of the best I ever had. The garnish it is served with, is perfect to enhance the flavor and the Octopus itself is perfectly spiced and marinated and grilled to perfection. There is just enough char to add some of that desired grill notes on the palate as the soft and moist meat fills your mouth with the taste you expect from perfectly seasoned seafood. I had a glass of the Galavas Santorini Blue with my meal which was MK's recommendation. It was a perfect fit with the Octopus dish. For a main dish I chose the Moussaka in a bout of nostalgia, because my mom used to make it often when I was a kid. It was so good! Loved the way the meat was seasoned and the topping was so nice, soft and fluffy. I wish I had ordered another glass of a red wine with it, but I had to drive. My only complaint is that the plates should be heated, so the food stays warm longer after it is served. The wife had the Fileto Souvlaki as the main and we shared Spanakopita. Her Souvlaki was grilled perfectly with a nice grill char and a soft medium rare center. She really loved the dish. Her only complaint was for more of a garnish of maybe some lettuce and tomato on the side and maybe a pita bread. The Spanakopita was great, too. The filo nice and crunchy and the filling moist and delicious. You can't go wrong with that choice. The wife had glass of the “Dyo Elies” Kir Yianni with her meal, as MK had suggested, and she was so happy with that pairing. MK really helped to make our dinner a culinary and hospitality experience from what we had planned as an excursion from our rural dwellings to just getting our tummies filled. We had a great time and will...

The low review has NOTHING to do with the server/staff or food which was all fine but somewhat overpriced. It was really busy so I'm happy they have lots of patrons. The food tastes good and it would have been worth the price, had the manager acted differently. I've seen other reviews where people cite a very unwelcoming attitude from the staff and I would have to agree when it comes to the manager.

Instead of doing his assigned job of managing the front of house by assisting his servers and working to speak with every table, he was too busy sitting with these other patrons who happened to sit right next to us. Because the seating is so close together inside, each table is about 2 feet away from one another.

The manager, knowing how little space there is between tables rudely sat way too close to my friend and invaded their personal space. He practically sat on my friend's purse and didn't even say sorry or excuse me. The least he could have done was tell us that he was planning to sit there so that my friend could move their purse. Had this happened, everything would have been fine.

He is the manager, he can do whatever he wants, but it was extremely unprofessional for him to ignore dinner service just to cater to his friends. The timing was not appropriate. It was 8:30PM and his staff were still seating plenty of reservations. I've worked in casual fine dining for over 6 years and I've never seen a Manager stop working to sit with their friends in the middle of a busy dinner service.

Normally in an instance like this, I'd have asked to speak to the manager, but since it was the manager who carried himself in this manner, I knew speaking to him would be futile. Like I said, a simple sorry, or 'can I sit here' would have sufficed.

The manager's ineptitude spoiled the experience. The lack of attention he showed towards not only the other patrons in the restaurant, but to his own staff was disappointing. No server should have to flag down their own manager for help with the POS system or for a check. He was more concerned about sitting and chatting with a specific patron than running...

Had lunch (11:30 am) reservation so they were not at all busy yet. Was really looking forward to having some great food. We had 2 appetizers, the stuffed grape leaves with beef and the hummus special. The grape leaves were just ok but the hummus was not very flavorful. Almost like all the things that make hummus taste good were in short supply, not much olive oil, little to no tahini flavor, not much garlic and the texture was too thick like it had been under blended. For my entree, I ordered the island salad with octopus. The octopus was decent but the salad was waterlogged to the max…everything was soggy. The lettuce was so limp from being wet, the salad was not crisp and fresh and it had no flavor because all the dressing was merged with the water in a giant puddle under the salad directly on the plate. When asked about how things were, I told the waiter what the problem was and he claimed it was from the cheese melting. That was definitely not from melted feta cheese. It was from inadequately drying the salad after washing the romaine lettuce. I didn’t eat it but took it home to try to redress it later (but wound up just throwing it away). Other than the melted cheese excuse, there was no more communication offered, no follow up to see if anything could be done, no offer for something else, no offer to remove a dissatisfying item from the bill. One of my lunch companions had the Greek salad with shrimp and the shrimp was only 3 shrimp total for which it cost at least $12 or more extra to add 3 shrimp to the salad. I wanted to enjoy some great Greek food, but unfortunately this was not to be. Other than completely ignoring my expression of disappointment about my salad, the waiter was nice enough and was attentive besides that, but if you have nothing but an excuse to offer when a customer expresses disappointment in their food; then that’s not really...