The Embers Restaurant — Restaurant in Ocean City

From the Embers: the next hot spot in Ocean City

The buffets are gone – the ones your parents dragged you to as a child, replaced with a courtyard entrance the to Embers complex. Arcade, brewery, Blu (restaurant and crab house) and the re-imagined Embers itself now offering seating for 1,000+, total (including Blu) just lightly more than the old Embers itself.

Perched on the third level of the redeveloped compound, the Embers is an inside/outside affair, modern in style, staffed with professionals delivering the goods of a well-scripted menu. The menu of appetizers, steaks, seafood entrees and craft pizza (from two massive Neapolitan ovens) offered choices for everyone. And if you’ve been eating out in Ocean City over the last two years, you will realize the prices have tucked in below everyone else’s. My pizza was properly blistered, topped with the ingredients of my choice and the dough had a consistency that was just right. A swordfish entrée was museum-quality with a large portion over coconut rice and sauced with some ethereal recipe that had us mentally deconstructing it during the meal.

The view from the glass-fenced deck over the Bay is priceless and can be seen barside/inside through the two-story high openings with hurricane resistant roll up screens. Memorable sunsets will be seen here as you sip a craft cocktail and wonder how this all came to be. While sitting at the 30 seat bar, patrons can watch the kitchen staff workout – pizza makers, grillmasters, cold prep, food runners and bartenders. The ceilings are 18’ high and the décor is modern and comfortable. Tables and sofa sectionals on the patio offer a dinner and hangout experience not found elsewhere in town. A private dinning room on the south side offers a view of the bay and the ocean.

But here is the real story – the third generation of the Taustin family has reimagined the Embers for the next generation(s) to come. They have spent where it matters and have been intentional on their food offerings, cocktail program and an evolving well-conceived wine list that is headlining some upcoming wine dinners.

This is where the local food scene is headed – redeveloped real estate, top shelf chefs armed with local ingredients, and a management team that wants to set the pace for the rest of their peers.

Return to the Embers and see what’s...

Our whole group was pretty disappointed. The food wasn't very good. The service was rude. The cost was expensive and the tip automatically added. The crab legs were decent, but they are rather hard to get wrong. The rest of the food was merely meh. The crab imperial tasted like dijon mustard stuffing. It's easier to list the one or two decent things versus the meh items. They have an extensive spread, but nothing was really tasty. Edible is a rather apt discription. Even the iced tea tasted like a powdered mix and the desert spread were grocery store bakery quality....as in the lemon cake loaf with an icing drizzle sliced in pieces type grocery store bakery. I wasn't even moderately impressed. The bread pudding was decent. I had a party of six and the cost was $170. For that cost, I wish we had just gone to a seafood restaurant where the food was good. I tried a myriad of things hoping to find something tasty to soothe the burn of the cost. My entire party of six left disappointed. Even the kid who Is a shrimp freak wouldnt eat more that a couple shrimp due to it being bland and mushy. The other thing is that the waitress was not friendly at all and acted as if we were a bother by asking what the tea of the day was. She said "I dont know. It changes everyday." well... Yes. It does. But the menu had giant ad on it for the tea, blackberry, peach or strawberry. She did go find out what tea they had when we told her we didnt know what we wanted to drink then. We were polite, but she acted as if we should have just chosen something else. For a $170 meal, I would expect to have at least polite service. I was wondering why she was being borderline rude. When the bill came, I saw why. Gratuity was automatically added. She got a $25 tip for being rude, bring drinks and clearing our plates twice. I'm not a cheapskate, and firmly believe in tipping decently and fairly. But that rubbed me the wrong way after such disappointing food and rude service. I would have left her a tip, but it wouldnt have been $25. My total bill was $200.... And all of us were quite disappointed with everything. Do yourself a favor and...

I know the all you can eat buffets in OC are all about the crab legs and my wife said they were good. Personally I don't think they are worth the effort for the meat but they make her happy. With that I still have to spend $40 for my dinner even though I am not having any of the crab legs. I can usually justify it because I get a lot of the prime rib and other seafood. I don't expect it to be the highest quality like a steak house but it's usually still decent. The prime rib was horrible. It was tough, salty and tasted like ham. If it was cooked with the ham it still shouldn't taste like ham and my first cut was from the middle of the roast so it should have picked up the least flavor from anything else it was baked with. I thought it may have been a bad roast so I got another piece. This time from a new roast and the outside, maybe the second or third cut but it was the same problem. It tasted like ham and was super salty. The woman at the cutting station even struggled to cut it. Now on to the rest of the food. The fried scallops were the only redeeming food. The were a little greasy but were cooked well and they are easy to over cook. The fried shrimp, cod and clams had more batter than fish, the batter tasted funny and they were over cooked. The pasta dishes we acceptable but not great, it's hard to screw up pasta but they found a way to make it mediocre. The desserts were ok. The ice cream was good but the cakes we're average. I gave them one star because it feels like they only made the crab legs the priority because that is what most of the customers want and flaked on the rest of the food. If I don't want the crabs then the rest of the food should at least be decent since I am still paying a lot of money to eat there but I got screwed. I know they buy lesser quality meats to offset the cost of the crab legs but this was bad. I've been to the Bonfire here and their food is a lot better. I would even go as far as to say the The Golden Corral is better and they charge less than half the price. Overall it was a disappointing experience and we will...