EAST Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Wells

As is common nationally, there is a staff shortage.

When my wife and I finally made it over, our previous attempts paid off. The first time, we came on a Wednesday, and as they clearly state (don't know how it eluded me/slipped my mind), they were not open. The second time, they were only doing take out, and we wanted to dine in. The third time, we went at 2pm, but they weren't doing dine in until 4pm. We had heard great things from locals, local restaurant owners, and other travelers, so we were being very persistent.

On our fourth trip, we were met with a new situation, yet we were happy to overcome it. There was no service staff. You could take out, sit at the bar, or dine in with your takeout without service. We just wanted to taste the food in its best/freshest condition, so we dined in and took care of ourselves.

Nobody else was in the section, so my wife and I made ourselves at comfortable. It was a great experience with a fantastic environment complemented by the home-y feeling of the autonomy.

The food was what I have to assume other Chinese food aspires to be. The fried pork was light, and had the crisp that won't survive the ride home. The Kung Po Delight was a nice surprise. Being from Texas, I like spice, and that has been in short supply during the two months I've spent in Maine. The shrimp you typically find in this dish is tiny, overcooked, bland, and tough. These were not those shrimp. For East to get such a minute thing right, demonstrated their attention to detail as well as their desire to reward their customers with delicious meals.

At the time, they were not serving sushi, but I'm sure we will be back regardless...sure would love to try their sush though😉

I'm not including pics of the food because I do not feel it is a fair representation of how they would normally serve their food when staffing is...

Deco: It is a huge restaurant by looking from the outside of the building. Okay decorations. We were at the bar first before dinner. It needs more lights especially in the center of the bar and for the bartender. Table that we sat at has a huge piece of wood sticking out and almost ripped my top off. Food and drink: We ordered Margarita and Mai Tai. They were good plus they have happy hours drinks at the bar. Win! Dinner was fine. One of my company enjoyed his dinner,Satay Beef in casserole. However, the chicken ginger and scallions in casserole was way too salty and it has a lot of onion than meat. I was sharing with another company. The more we eat, the saltier it got. Service: Service was below average. The server was probably new. We didn't get our steamed rice that supposed to come with our entrées. We were waiting and thought our server will come back with rice in her second trip but she didn't until another senior server noticed it. Price: I wouldn't mind to spend extra more however there is no value perception to the dish. Poor presentation. Overall: My company and I will not go back to this restaurant for the next visit to Ogunquit. Overall it was a disappointment dinner. However I still do the right thing by tipping the server 20%tip. It's not the server's...

Terrible service, mediocre food. Not family friendly.

We stopped in on a Friday around 6pm. There were numerous unoccupied tables in the dining room, but my wife, infant son, and I were ushered to the very back corner by the exit. We hesitated at this assignment but said nothing; the wait staff noticed our reaction and gossiped about it amongst themselves. This certainly made us feel unwelcome indeed.

A few minutes later a waitress set down two tall glasses of water directly in front of our son (in highchair), who immediately proceeded to reach for (as infants do) and topple one over. After a few minutes of mopping with our napkins, the waitress reappeared with a few rags and made a half-hearted attempt to help. She left, the table still covered in water, me holding cubes of ice in my hand with nowhere to put them. About 10 minutes later she reappeared, asking for our orders. No offer to replace my wife's spilled water, nor our napkins, and certainly no further attempt to help dry our drenched table and menus. We asked to place an order to go.

The food was disappointing. The orange chicken tasted like donuts. The egg roll ($6 for 2) had the same donut flavor. The filling of the egg roll was...odd. The chicken and mixed...