The Empire Grill

Empire Grill is a sub-par restaurant in a great neighborhood.  The decor is great, the staff is relatively friendly but the food is not that great.  I've had different pasta dishes and a portabello sandwich from here and they are not worth the price.  The portabello was small.  The pasta is dry.  I've also found other types of noodles and meat in my pasta dishes so I'm not sure what their kitchen is like.

They do have a cool dance party thing going on, on the weekend.  A lot us younger people go and dance in the main bar area.  The people at the dance parties are not trashy like some other low-key bars.

However, there are better places to go though for tastier food.  This has the feeling of a chain without being a chain.  Blah.

We had better service than some other reviewers but a shared experience with the food. I ordered the Gouda Burger and requested medium, but it came out well done. Another diner ordered steak and crabs, but the steak was also overcooked and fairly tough.  Our companions ordered Chicken Piccata and a penne dish with chorizo, and both were very good.

What this place lacks, at least in terms of food choices, is anything that really stands out.  If the kitchen picked up their game a little, this would be a nice little spot. However, as it stands, there are many better options on the same intersection.

I wanted to love the brunch at Empire Grill, I really did.  For around $20 a person, a Sunday buffet of breakfast and lunch foods with bottomless Mimosas on Hertel Ave sounds lovely on paper!

We had reservations for 1:30pm and were promptly seated by the window facing Hertel.  The décor inside the restaurant is modern and very pleasing to the eye.  The buffet spread is in the bar area, and upon first glance there appears to be a wide array of food.  But then when you start to look closer to decide what you want to eat... the amount of visually appetizing food seems to dwindle.  Most of the food looked like it had been sitting out for quite some time.  Now, we were there in the afternoon, so maybe if we arrived in the morning, the food would be of a better quality.  There was a carving and omelet station that usually wasn't staffed whenever I walked by, so I didn't get to try any of their offerings.  My husband had an omelet that he said was ok, but lacked any seasoning.  The one thing I had that was actually very good was the vegetable lasagna.  That was yummy.  Everything else I tried was just.... eh.  Peel and eat shrimp that were small, steamed broccoli that definitely came from the freezer, steak in some sort of bland sauce that was tough and overcooked, pasta salad with salami and cheese, fried chicken that was dry with a soggy crust, dry carrot cake for dessert.  You get the idea.

Definitely a quantity over quality experience.  They get 2 stars because of the bottomless mimosas... after a few of those, I no longer cared how mediocre the food was.  I won't be back.