Accounting for Taste

This just slayed me! While at a recent conference down in National Harbor, Maryland, we dined at Grace’s Mandarin, an Asian restaurant just across the way from the Gaylord National Resort and Conference Center. We put this place on our short list when we visited in May and made online reservations before we even headed down.

Have you ever seen a “purse chair” before?? Well, I hadn’t and I was so intrigued I had to get not just one, but two pictures of patrons putting them into action. Actually it’s a pretty cool idea if the table your seated at doesn’t have enough space to accompany your pocketbook in a “safe” fashion. Although Russ was mortified that I was even taking these pics!

OK, so since I’m blogging about Grace’s, I might as well mention the other restaurant particulars. It is quite a large establishment, with a decidedly zen-like atmosphere and a ginormous Buddha flanking a corner by the stairwell. We were seated in prompt fashion in a cozy booth that allowed for easy conversation.

Our shared appetizer was a spicy tuna roll which came with the requisite soy sauce, wasabi paste and pickled ginger—quite good actually. In between this course and our main entrees we received “utensil chairs.” I kid you not! Check out the photo of our fork, spoon and chopsticks resting—another fabulous idea so that you don’t have to put them directly on the tabletop where germs may lurk (not an appetizing thought.)

Our take on the food? Decent, but not a WOW factor. We’ve had better at restaurants close to home. That being said, my choice was the National Harbor Rice which was artfully plated with a beautiful edible flower and had lots of tender shrimp, scallops and crabmeat with peas, carrot, fried brown rice, ginger and egg white. Russ ordered the Crispy Beef which was tasty in its own right, just not earth-shattering.