Restaurant Review: Ketchup

As a self proclaimed foodie, I'm going to try to get back into doing restaurant reviews. I like to venture out to new restaurants but before going I usually check the reviews of others before I try it out for myself. So when I try out new places, I'm going to start posting reviews.

Last week I went to Ketchup, a new restaurant that opened a few weeks ago at the National Harbor (Oxon Hill, MD). Apparently, there are two other Ketchup locations one in Huntsville, AL (random) and the other in LA. It's also owned by a larger restaurant group that has restaurants all over the country.

Atmosphere: When you enter the restaurant there is a bar to the left. To the right, they have a nice set-up of trendy, low to the group, kind of futuristic red pod-shaped seats that can accommodate I'd say 15-20 people. The restaurant is very uniquely designed and the color scheme is red, black and white. It's a fairly small place because of the set-up. They also have some interesting art pieces/floating walls coming from the ceiling that kept my attention throughout dinner.

Service: We arrived around 7:45, a little early for our 8:15 reservation but the hostess seated us right away. As soon as we sat down the people next to us started receiving their appetizers, which looked very tasty. The waitress came over about 5 minutes after we were seated to take our drink orders. Definitely took a good 10 minutes for our strawberry mojitos to come out. As the waitress handed me my mojito, I looked at the glass and thought you have to be kidding me. There was a fresh, pink lipstick stain on my glass, like the glass hadn't even touched any water. She immediately apologized and came back like 5 minutes later with another one. However, I wasn't impressed with it, definitely was not a good mojito. The lipstick left a sour taste in my mouth and so did the mojito but I tried to get past it.

Food: So we ordered a dish called the Threesome for our appetizer which was three different types of fries with which was supposed to be served with 5 different types of ketchup. I say supposed to because they ran out of one of the flavors so we ended up having 2 of the regular or "original" ketchup. The fries were good and they gave us a nice size portion. I ordered the grouper topped with crab meat with green beans instead of the asparagus and my date at the Grilled Shrimp with a side of Lobster Mac & Cheese. My fish was nicely seasoned, but lukewarm when I received it. My date thoroughly enjoyed his Lobster Mac & Cheese. I had some of the grilled shrimp which was also good but wasn't very hot. All in all the food was good.

Overall, I thought Ketchup was nice, the food was good. I was attracted to the colors and the eclectic decorations. I'd go back for happy hour, but I definitely would not get their strawberry mojito. I would order the Threesome again as it seemed to be very popular because everyone around us ordered it too. On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd give Ketchup a 6.

Here's the link to their Dinner Menu