Duke's Seafood Greenlake — Restaurant in Seattle

starting off, i was pleasantly surprised by the portion of sourdough bread given prior to the meal - as I wasn't expecting that the bread wasn't anything special - but i did like the outside; found it to be pretty crispy. also, i liked the fact that they gave you butter as a dip, although it wasn't easy to spread it on the sourdough as it was just one big block

i thought the main part of this dish, the salmon sliders, were quite good, however this came in three separate 'sliders', each with a base of rosemary bread, a sliced tomato, and a portion of salmon, topped with pesto

the actual salmon itself was ok - personally i thought it was a bit stringy and chewy, but otherwise not bad. being brushed with oil certainly helped with the taste however, the other aspects of the slider were fantastic normally, i don't like tomatoes, but it fit really well with this dish. the flavor was there but not overpowering i also quite liked the pesto as a condiment - there was a solid amount on there - and it added a nutty texture that was good

the best part of these sliders, however, was the rosemary bread. this was exquisitely good - it was crispy, herby, buttery, and served as an incredible base for the sandwich as a whole. i absolutely loved every bite of this

the other thing that was a great touch was placing the sliders on the bottom of the bread rather than the 'more fluffy' side. this ensured that the bread wouldn't get soggy from the tomato/salmon and had it retain its crunchiness to the maximum

three sliders was also a pretty good portion size another thing i enjoyed was the salad. a lot of places think that lots of dressing, often oil, is necessary to make a good salad, but this place managed to deliver something that tasted really good and had nice flavor with the use of little to no dressing. i'm impressed

at the end of my meal, i got a carrot cake from the dessert menu this was decently sized, and the cream cheese frosting on this had a wonderful flavor i didn't taste the carrot as much in the inside of the cake, but i could tell it was still baked well, and the frosting added a great touch i would say its more of a cupcake than a cake, however

i came during happy hour, so for the price of about $14, the sourdough bread + the salmon sliders were a pretty good value i can't say the same for the carrot cake - as while it was good - about 9 dollars is a little too expensive for that

Overall, a really solid and satisfying variety of...

The food was great, although we only had the chowder. I enjoyed the laidback, chill atmosphere outside on the patio. I felt like it was a wonderful experience. However, when I paid our bill, the waiter never brought me my receipt. When I asked him if there was anything I needed to sign, we told I was “good”. Essentially, telling me he had no interest in receiving a tip from me. I have no idea what I did to offend this gentleman. Clearly I inspired so much outrage that my waiter felt compelled to insult me, right to my face and rob me of my generosity. I’ve waited tables before. I know what a demanding job that can be. It is my experience waiting tables that forces me to make a point to generously tip my wait staff. I have also heard those stories from other wait staff about how they told a customer, in one way or another, that they don’t want their money. I am truly sorry for whatever infraction or social forepaw I violated. My other half quite rudely completed a loan application over the phone at the table for the first half of our dinning experience and we did show up with a pack of dogs. Three to be more specific. However, I was not conducting any business over the phone and my dogs are much more well behaved than most adults and all children. Perhaps I simply had the only independently wealthy waiter that isn’t in it for the money, he does it because he enjoys transporting food from one place to another. Bottom line to this story is that I love seafood. I grew up on the beach and it’s a staple to my diet. Unfortunately, I will not be returning to Dukes. I prefer my $60 late lunch without so much passive aggressive smuggarry - it’s a word! I assume this was the desired result of this gentleman’s actions today. May I suggest in the future if someone does something that irritates you. Instead of insulting them and trying to hurt their feelings. You politely inform them how they are irritating you. Perhaps they will tell you to fly a kite, orrrr perhaps they could be an open minded person who would appreciate your honesty and is eager to learn what they may do inappropriately so that they can avoid making the same mistake in the future. On a positive note, I took the $12 earmarked for the tip. Loaded into my Audi Q7, drove a few blocks over and...

I'll start with the good: The restaurant was really clean, the location is wonderful, and they have parking! The Fries with the fish and chips were excellent, nice and crispy but not oily.

The not so good: we had a reservation and still got told at the desk there was a wait. We did get sat immediately, though. We sat on the patio and waited about 20 minutes before anyone came to our table, and we ordered. We then waited another 20 minutes for our food to come out and didn't get our bread basket until then. After finishing our food, we waited about 25 minutes after our plates were cleared before I went inside to ask for our check because nobody ever came back to our table.

The bad: The service issues we had were not really our servers' fault: we were his only table sat outside, making it almost impossible for him to check on us regularly. Not sure if that's the fault of the host stand or if the sections are laid out that way, but that's restaurant mismanagement 101. The food was honestly disappointing, and charging as much as they do is absurd. The dungeness crab uncake had all the flavor of crab taken out of it, almost tasting like it was cut with something else. It had a medley of unseasoned, barely blanched peas, tomatoes, and corn underneath. Bland and boring. The lobster chowder was so sweet it could have been a dessert and had no depth of flavor to it. The sweetness completely overpowered any subtleties you would get from the lobster. The pesto salmon was fine but completely devoid of any coloration. It had that same bland medley of vegetables underneath. The fried cod was in desperate need of some seasoning, nothing in the breading or the tartar sauce to bring out any flavor. The worst of all was the clam chowder. It might as well have been cream of wheat for all the flavor that it had. No clam notes, no saltiness, no acidity, just thick milk soup. It wasn't even hot when it hit the table.

All in all the place feels like a tourist trap - clean and shiny - but with massively overpriced and underseasoned food. Would recommend avoiding and going to literally any other seafood restaurant around. That...