by Elise T. on The best thing about the Continental Midtown is the consistence. The drinks are always over priced, the food is always very good, and the service is just OK. Have been here for brunch, dinner, and today was my first lunch trip. We started with our usual, a Calamari salad to share. As always, it was delicious. The calamari is always cooked perfectly, never chewy. The greens and veggies are fresh and crispy and the salad is perfectly dressed. I had the turkey burger and it was surprisingly moist, topped with huge portobellas, onions, and cheese. The fries are always good, especially if you order with a side of aioli. This is a great place to bring friends from out of town due to the retro decor and "Stephen Starr" name attached.
by Seema F. on With all the hype surrounding this place, I expected a lot more. We ordered the Dallas Burger, Buffalo Burger, regular fries and sweet potato fries. Both burgers were ordered crunchified--which as you might imagine is a stupid gimmick. The crunch is a handful of off the shelf potato chips, but they made the entire burger rather salty. The Dallas burger was a strictly average burger whose only distinguishing feature is a bbq sauce that bears a striking resemblance to the "burger sauce" that sits on every table in the joint., The buffalo burger was essentially a run-of the mill burger topped with blue-cheese salad dressing and a slight reddish appearance (no taste) of buffalo sauce. Both came with a half pickle which was a translucent and spongey. The regular fries were mushy as if fried, then held in a steamer, and served with a rather neutral chipotle mayo. The sweet potato fries, on the other hand, were nicely crisped, but oddly paired with a honey mustard dressing. The one thing I did like about this place (apart from the decor) was the reasonable selection of condiments on each table: regular ketchup, common yellow mustard, sweet jalapeno relish, chipotle ketchup (the best sauce offered), and 'burger sauce' which seemed to be a tamarind accented bbq sauce. I did, however, find the omission of a spicy mustard to be conspicuous. For all of Bobby Flay's talk about spice, there was very little of it in the food I had, which instead relied upon an abundance of salt to ineptly draw some rather dischordant flavors together . The meal wasn't awful, but average at best, so I will not be buying anymore $8 hamburgers from this fashionably decorated burger hut.
by Josue Languirand on I love the goth-y look and feel of this bar, complete with gargoyles and crosses. I love the whole underground vibe, the exposed bricks, the use of the color red and their always-clean and supernice bathrooms. The only problem is that televisions playing sports and a stripper pole are glaringly style-opposed to the elements that I love so much. It feels like a bar that hasn't quite made it's mind up whether or not it's going to serve mainly the drunk frat crowd or go for a slightly older and more sophisticated clientele. The bar staff are astoundingly nice though, and the drinks are pretty decent, though they could stand to have a couple of decent draft beers. All in all, though - I mostly liked it and will go back. Hopefully, they will have replaced the sports with silent films on the televisions and the stripper pole will be gone entirely.
