Blue On Highland — Restaurant in Needham

This is without a doubt one of the worst restaurant experiences I've had. I have been to Blue on Highland four times, each time worse than the previous. Blue on Highland managed to mess up even the things that TERRIBLE restaurants can still do, in this case (1) serving soggy and cold french fries and (2) serving the food (mussels) cold.

The last time I was in was during Sunday brunch, which meant a jazz band was playing. The jazz band was likely the restaurant's saving grace, as I can imagine that without the presence of the calming music, patrons would have felt it necessary to commit arson and burn the restaurant down.

The salads are a disaster. Tried a caesar salad, it tasted like chemicals. One person at my table wasn't turned off, explaining that they LIKE chemicals, but otherwise, the caesar salad was browned romaine lettuce, cheese that looked like ripped up Kraft singles, and stale croutons. The entree salads - no better - and I won't even START telling you about the "grilled chicken" on the salads.

One person ordered a side of oranges with their food, and they were presented with what were clearly canned mandarin orange slices in that heavy syrup. Vile.

I mentioned the french fries. At my table, people had varieties of burgers, ranging from regular to veggie to turkey. All came with soggy, soft french fries reminiscent of a wet noodle. How can you manage to even screw up EVERYONE'S french fries?

As far as the burgers, the veggie burger appeared to be a frozen burger one would find in the grocery store freezer aisle, and the same applies to the turkey burger. I wish I could tell you more about the regular burger, but in spite of being ordered medium-well, it came out so raw and bloody that a pool of meat juice filled the plate and soaked the bun, and only a few bites of it ended up eaten.

And then, the grand finale: Mussels that were supposed to be served hot, but came out cool and smelling rancid.

Don't do...

I went to Blue on Highland for the first time this weekend, and I was impressed. We started with the buffalo cauliflower, which was absolutely delicious it was so lightly fried I could have sworn it was just steamed. The buffalo sauce had a bold Buffalo flavor but wasn't overpowering in the spiciness department. We also tried the blue nachos, which came on blue corn chips with braised short rib meat, corn, red onion, and a delicious white sauce. Those nachos were fantastic, and I would go back just for those. It was Saturday so prime rib was on the menu. The prime rib was delicious. The queen size was huge! A big hit with the diners I was with was the horseradish sour cream to go with the prime rib, it was DELICIOUS. The garlic broccoli was just fresh steamed broccoli tossed with fresh garlic. Simple garlicky and delicious in my opinion. I ended up with the pesto gnocchi..... It was everything I wanted and more! The pesto taste was delicious and fresh like they had just ground up the basil and garlic before making a cream sauce out of it. The mushrooms were delicious in there along with the pancetta, all of them together created a dreamy dish. I would absolutely go back to try other menu items as they had quite a few delicious...

This was an awful experience and I'll never come back. The restaurant was absolutely empty at 4:45 when our reservation for a table of 5 adults came in. Not one table was filled. They stuffed us into a table for 4, telling us all other tables had been reserved. We told them we had to leave in an hour but they still sat us at a table where we didn't fit. There was no room on the table for menus, water glasses, bottles, salt & pepper or shared appetizers. The waitress came by 10 minutes later and didn't know any specials. We had to ask to order mains, for the bill, to pack up leftovers. The food was not good. Two dishes we ordered were swimming in oil. The music was obnoxious and loud. The alcohol was not good. $21 for a glass of wine. I was embarrassed to have brought our guest to this place. The entire restaurant was empty for the majority of our dinner. One table of 5 sat empty the entire time, and another was a family with 3 small kids who took up a third of the space our table did. We spent hundreds of dollars and could have left happy if they had treated us with the same respect and dignity that they held for their other absent patrons. A piece of advice: treat your customers well. Think big picture. I'll...