Jar - West Hartford

Date night with wife. Had her pick the restaurant and surprised me with jar and bar. Apparently stands for just another restaurant and that's exactly what it was or even worst. The service was great but when it came to the food , it was bad enough for me to never step in there again. We ordered the steak medium rare and the salmon ossoboco which didn't make any sense to me but was intrigued to say the least. How on earth can you cook a steak medium rare and it be dry , the brusslesprouts were burnt and raw at the same time. The salmon was dry and it came with scallops which I wish didn't. So easy to sear them but yet failed miserably. Don't know where ossoboco came in the dish. I originally gave it a 3.2 but after a couple days of post drama I down grade it to a 2.2. Pretty bad experience .

Came for the restaurant week (Taste of Greater Hartford prix fixe 3 course for $30.22 and also to try the Sijang Tongdak (directly translatable to market/marketplace whole chicken in Korean as a Korean. Giving credit where credit is due: great servers/ customer service oriented, timely food delivered to table, clearing of plates, frequent checking in/water refills by various employees, and quick check delivery. Has a private parking lot. Outdoor seating is cute and has heaters available! (Disclaimer: to no fault of the restaurant, it is, however, right on a busy street with cars/motorcycles/mopeds roaring, blasting music, and honking very close by. I 'll start with the fried chicken first off, it 's not tongdak because it 's half a chicken secondly, it is plated/served exactly as pictured in some reviews, which I didn 't realize until I had to eat it how difficult it is to eat in an easy/civil manner. It 's not cut up in anyway; in other words it 's literally half a chicken hacked up, breaded, deep fried and served as a long strand of meat. Knife and fork? Tried to be resourceful and somewhat civil by using 2 forks like a scavenger and I can 't say I enjoyed scavenging for meat as most of it was bone/skin. It was seasoned fine nothing special, drizzled with a slightly spicy, mostly sweet and tangy sauce that seemed very close to a sweet chili sauce which is not usually used in this dish or most Korean fried chicken iterations from my experience. The slaw was fine, light, flavorful, but again seasoned in a similar sweet chili flavor way that I personally did not find reflective of what this dish is named. For the prix fixe, my partner chose brussels sprouts, the land and sea (2 petite lamb lollipops, 2 scallops and risotto , and the sopapilla. The texture of the brussels sprouts were great (think oven baked fried kale chips on the outside and cooked throughout. The appetizer and main courses needed to be seasoned, minimally with salt. The main course was very disappointing in that (1 the lamb was cooked over (ordered medium, got medium well and not well seasoned, (2 the risotto was also not seasoned/flavorful in anyway and not textured correctly and the corn, well could 've been without the canned corn, (3 there was some sweet/tart raspberry sauce slathered to meet with the lamb and onto the risotto in a less than elegant way that was off and emphasized the dissonance in the suddenly small portioned entree dish. The dessert of choice, sopapilla, came and it was larger in portion than the entire main dish Think 4 dinner rolls from Bertucci 's deep fried and coated in powdered sugar and cinnamon with drizzled honey/syrup on top. From my research, I believe when this dough is fried, it 's supposed to puff up the skin to become somewhat crisp and the inside would become hollow; this version was the exact opposite, dense and doughy fried dinner roll that was too thick and chewy. We will not be back to this establishment for dinner/meals in general, but we did notice that a lot of other outdoor diners were thoroughly enjoying the space and weather for drinks. I 'd recommend that route, and their very generous happy hour* times and Sunday (entirely . *HH prices/offers apparently only apply if you sit at the bar/outdoor bar area.

Thought this place would be cool to try out based on a TikTok I saw. Very underwhelming in person. Seems to be still new inside, pretty dead on a Thursday night around 6:30pm. I'm always a fan of live music but there was no area to sit where you weren't yelling across the table to your partner to conversate. Food was just okay, not a whole lot of flavor to the corn risotto at all, not worth the overpriced meal.

Was excited to check this place out. Was disappointed by the time the check came. The drinks weren't good. The food wasn't good. The waiter didn't come ask how we were doing or if we liked the food. (Maybe he already knows their food is trash). He just took away our full plates each course. The food wasn't well seasoned. Ordered the lamb. It was supposed to be medium, it was well done. I had to request for a steak knife to cut into the dry meat. The chicken tacos were extremely soggy. The Brussels sprouts were just dry and salty. I got a crème brûlée for dessert. The sugar was barely melted (unmelted sugar can be seen all over). I won't be back. And I won't be recommending this place to anyone. We ended up going to bar taco after so we could have a real dinner and drinks. Service was bad and the food was bad.

I hate to leave such a bad review but this place is all style and no substance. We went on a Friday night around 7 and had a reservation. Outside tables were mostly filled, but inside was half full. We were early so had a the gauvamente and a beer at the bar. The guavemente was ok, super spicy, but it 's a premixed cocktail sitting out on the bar so it just lacked freshness. Also the bar had that college bar smell lol. Once seated outside (which is very cute) we waited a half hour for mussels that had a decent broth, but several had not popped open and the one slice of bread was not toasted. We waited even longer for our drinks a bottled beer and glass of wine. After that our food took an hour to come. We had ordered two bottled beers in the meantime and by the time we finished our mains had never got them. We had the 4 different tacos and the banh mi sandwich. The tacos had tender meat but no flavor and just tasted not fresh. The banh mi was nowhere near a true banh mi. No toasted bread (even though the menu said so) and no fresh herbs, minimal pickled veg, no pate, and the pork belly was not crispy, just fatty. They offered tiramisu as a peace offering lol which also lacked flavor. Seems like other people had different experiences with better food, so maybe it was not their night.