King Tide Fish and Shell — Restaurant in Portland

I've written reviews on Google for over 8 years now and never have I written anything less than 5 stars since I feel you should praise in public and offer feedback in private. However, this experience was something I have never experienced in terms of restaurants in my life and I did try to reach out privately but after three attempts and a month later I've come to here.

I was invited to a corporate dinner here. I had asked before if they had vegan options. To be honest, I did not think so, and that is completely fine as I'm very used to it in the corporate world. I ask ahead so that I can eat beforehand or inconspicuously order their suggestion. I was told they had "plenty" of vegan options. Great!

I get there and the menu comes out and, in fact, each course of the 4 course meal had a "normal" option and a vegan option. It said V and at the bottom of the menu said "V=vegan". Just to be sure, when the waitress came over and asked me what I wanted I said I'm vegan so just each vegan option for each course. She nodded as she knew but when she said "so this, this..." and pointed to the items I said "yes, just the vegan ones, so no animal products like meat, fish, eggs, dairy, etc". She nodded as she totally understood.

First "course" came out which was bread. It was shiny and felt suspicious it was not vegan. I asked if that was just oil and another staff member said he had no idea what the shiny stuff was and went to ask. It was egg wash and butter. He just said "sorry" and walked off. I felt like since it was labeled that way and my order they'd bring back one without that, but they never did.

I waited for the 2nd "course" which was supposed to be some mushroom on bread type dish. It came out with mushrooms on cheese on bread. I said "this was labeled vegan and so I ordered it, this has cheese" she goes "oh of course sorry". She comes back 10 minutes later with what looked almost like a joke which was just lettuce on a plate with a lemon wedge. No dressing, oil, nothing. I ate it all since I was starving at this point. I added an image of this.

Finally, the "main" course came out. It was the "Vegetable Risotto". It came out and very clearly had cheese on top. I told the waitress, again, "I don't eat dairy" and she said "No, no, this is our vegan cheese!". I just had a feeling it wasn't true but she insisted so I ate it and said thank you.

That by itself was awful experience and embarrassing to have to send each thing back in a room of like 20 people despite calling ahead, being told they have options, then labeling it as such, and having a waitstaff that insisted they understood. Again, I would be fine just eating ahead and having drinks as this was a corporate event.

However, I felt skeptical but since she insisted it was their vegan cheese I reached out to the restaurant to ask what vegan cheese they used since it tasted so realistic. 3 days went by and nothing so I bumped it. 2 more days goes by and they reply "We don’t use any type of dairy or vegan cheese in our risotto.".

I may not be the smartest guy in the room, but I know what shredded cheese is and on their menu it even says it has "pecorino" on it. I replied saying what was the shredded stuff on top, was it "pecorino" and no reply. It's been one month since that and that's why I'm writing all this out.

Regardless of your views on veganism or not, there are many reasons for this. One is alpha-gal syndrome for those who've been bit by certain ticks which an ex-coworker had and is very serious. I have a family member very allergic to dairy. Another family member gets extremely sick (vomits) if she has fish. It's absolutely fine in my opinion to say "the food isn't vegan" or "there's cross contamination" but to just flat out lie and have no understanding of common terms or to just not care is incredibly dangerous.

I would strongly avoid this restaurant if you or anyone in your party has any allergies or food...

I never give poor reviews, but must do so here. This restaurant could be tremendous, but the staff need much more training and supervision.

Five of us visited King Tide for Mother's Day brunch. The restaurant wasn't at all crowded, and it wasn't a special menu, so they weren't overwhelmed. The location was beautiful, staff were perfectly pleasant, and the food was good!!! BUT:

-Contrary to the posted photos, there's no signage out front, and the lobby of the hotel it's in is permanently locked. -The waitress brought us four complementary mini scones - for five people. -We weren't offered coffee upon arriving. When we asked for lattes, we had to ask for sugar and spoons after they were delivered. -We weren't brought setups (napkins/utensils) or salt/pepper until we asked - AFTER our food arrived. -One meal arrived at least ten minutes after the other four (and that was only after we asked several times).

So: great location, good food, and pleasant but darn near incompetent staff. TRAIN YOUR PEOPLE and you'll go to 4-5 stars.

UPDATE, OCT. 2024: This should be a wonderful restaurant. The location is perfect: there's decent parking, it's right on the riverfront and waterfront park, etc. And the menu LOOKS delicious.

But we've been there twice in the past few months, and clearly they aren't actually committed to doing a good job for their customers. This morning at brunch, one of the Eggs Benedict dishes came without any hollandaise. We had to ask for salt and pepper, and were brought... two peppers. The setups contained only forks and knives, and when we ordered coffee, we were not brought spoons, so I had to stir my coffee with my fork handle. The container with sugar etc for coffee did not contain Splenda, which is a pretty standard sweetener these days (and no, the alternatives aren't the same). Whwn our friends arrived, they stood behind another couple at the entrance for several minutes before finding that no, no one had even greeted the first couple. And the time before this, which I initially excused because it was Mother's Day, we had a similar experience, and one person's dish came half an hour after everyone else's.

It really should be wonderful. And the staff couldn't be nicer. But it is not a well-run restaurant. If you actually want a good dining experience, you'll need to...

DO NOT EAT HERE! FOOD POISING!!!!

Tonight we were celebrating my birthday dinner we found this place with good reviews and decided to give it a try. The waitress was very cold and seemed to not show too much interest in us at all. Attitude and all. My friends ordered the lobster rolls and the steak I ordered the clam spaghetti. We were not being checked in at all, no refills of water no urgency with anything. Food took quite awhile. Our food arrives and is looks just as disappointing as it tastes. My friends said their lobster rolls tasted like literally nothing no flavor almost bland. On the plus side my other friends steak was good the very nice 4 bite size pieces of steak. My clam spaghetti was not good at all. As I was starving at this point and wanted to leave sooner than later I ate it. As I’ve never had clams before really I decided to try something new. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it then but the clams had a super fishy smell and taste. I had assumed maybe that’s just how they taste? The portions of our meals were absolutely ridiculous for the price. As we were waiting for the check the waitress just brings us one check without checking in with us to see how we would like to pay. We were going to be paying separately. She had a perplexed look on her face and wasn’t sure if she could do that as the register is like it’s “something from the 90s”…. We were very confused as it was very normal thing at restaurants to confirm. She eventually was able to give us our separate checks. An hour or so later my stomach started to really hurt: as I got back to my hotel I started to profusely vomit as well as having diarrhea. This persisted most of the night. Come to find out clams that have a “super fishy smell” Are not fresh or have not been stored properly. I am very disappointed I had to spend my birthday like this. Will never be coming back and...