G. Hunter’s Restaurant & Raw Bar
The family and I went to G. Hunter’s last night for dinner. The restaurant is located just past the Frederick Towne Mall off the Golden Mile.
It’s actually in the same building as the VFW club. In fact, the VFW and the restaurant share the same bathrooms. I suppose the VFW gets a restaurant on the premises, doesn’t have to pay for it’s own exclusive dining room, and makes income from renting the space out.
The place is very nice with a huge bar running along one side of the dinning room. Multiple TVs are placed behind the bar for your viewing pleasure. Another good thing about the place is that there is no smoking in the restaurant.
When it comes to the food let me start by saying any establishment that puts bacon in their Caesar salad must be good.
They serve all manner of sea food and raw bar fare including steamed shrimp, oysters, clams, crab cakes, and more. The rest of the selection is pretty standard, but should provide a choice for just about anyone. There are burgers, sandwiches, brick oven pizzas, and some more intricate dishes. G. Hunter’s is run by the same group that owns Brewer’s Alley and other Frederick restaurants so you may recognize some similarities in the menu to those places.
My wife got one of last night’s specials, a baked lobster and pasta dish that was great. The dish came with the aforementioned bacon Caesar salad. I was pretty boring and got a chicken club sandwich on ciabatta bread. It was very good and came in at 8 bucks. The food is well priced and the portions, while filling, aren’t overly huge.
My only complaint about the place is that it didn’t have a diaper changer in the bathrooms. If you are going to have a kids menu (which they do) you should be equipped to deal with kids.
G. Hunter’s website is currently under construction so if you have any questions you can give them a call 301-663-8845.
Has anyone else out there tried this new Frederick eatery? What do you think of the place?
Very interesting. I’ve never even heard of this restaurant. I like all the other downtown restaurants in that group, especially Acacia. We’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip.
Bacon on a Caesar salad? BLECH.
The only other place I’ve ever seen that is at Wendy’s. I took one look at it and exchaged it for a garden salad.
As always, thanks for the review. I’m always interested in reading about new restaurants. I do plan to try this new place, but I plan to skip the Caesar.
Bacon makes everything better! Thanks for reading.
Ohhh bacon my old freind. Honey, if your reading this add that cookbook to my wishlist for my b-day. Thanks for the comment Felice!
i agree with guy about bacon. check out this recipe book!!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811832392/qid=1136489987/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-3211672-5311153?n=507846&s=books&v=glance
I can’t believe so many people are concerned about whether or not there is bacon on a salad. Anyhoo…I went there w/ my boyfriend several months ago on a Sunday afternoon. I had an eggs benedict dish w/ crab meat on it. It was quite good. My only complaint is that I felt the menu was a bit too limited. The food, however, was excellent.
awesome restaurant……….killer food
My wife and kids went there last week and the food was wonderful. Our server was wonderful and our food was brought out to us hot and delicious!When it came for desserts they had so many to choose from. We got tuxedo cheesecake with an irigh coffee. The view is just beatiful. They also had a lunch menu fir $9.99 drink and side included. I highly reccommed this place. Our server was Anglea.
We are going to go hear our favorite local band, THE COMMUTE, at G. Hunter’s, on Friday, April 13, 2007, from 9:30 p.m. – ?
Yum, I love the raw bar……!
My wife and I went to G. Hunters for valentines day so I thought I’d give everyone a review of our experience.
To start off, it’s my belief that reputable restaurants will remove from your bill dishes that you send back because of items not mentioned on the menu. I simply cannot imagine charging a customer for appetizers or entres they cannot eat. Unfortunately, G. Hunters does not agree with me on that as they charged me for an appetizer that we sent back due to their use of bell peppers.
That being said, the ambiance is nice; the setting is quite good; and, the wait staff are generally good.
If you happen to like bell peppers, this is the place for you. Unfortunately, my wife and I both highly dislike bell peppers. We dislike the flavor and find that their flavor tends to overpower all other flavors within a dish.
We first ordered their baked clams appetizer. Ashley ordered their prime rib entre and I ordered a fish and crab ‘newburg’ entre which I questioned the waiter about prior to getting to see if anything I dislike was mentioned.
The clams arrived in the half shell, baked to a nice brown with a small piece of bacon on top, and covered in bell peppers. The bell peppers were not on the menu so we politely explained to our waiter the problem, that the bell peppers were not on the menu, and that neither my wife nor I would or could eat the appetizer.
No more than ten seconds after we sent back the appetizer, our entres arrived and yet again, my entre was covered in bell peppers so I sent it back. The manager politely came by to pay the customary lipservice apology and say that a new one was being prepared for me.
Five minutes later, the “new” dish arrived. A quick glance at it showed me that they had not prepared a new non-bell pepper contaminated meal but instead had attempted to scrape off the bell peppers. Unfortunately, they did such a poor job that with a bit of poking around on the plate I had a small mound of bell peppers piled up. Being brave, I decided to attempt the entre.
My first bite was an absolutely explosion of bell pepper. The buttery cream sauce prepared with it had not been replaced and was very much akin to a reduced bell pepper sauce. Oh yes, if you liked bell pepper, you would have loved this. Unfortunately, I find them inedible.
This was valentines day so I chose not to make much of a scene. I ate approximately 3 shrimp so as not to starve the rest of our evening out and I had them throw the rest away. Anyone familiar with my thoughts on leftovers will understand just how blasphemous throwing out leftover food is to me. For me to toss food rather than have leftovers, it has to be utter trash that I can’t even stomach the idea of bringing through the door to my house. So it was with G. Hunter’s entre.
After such a terrible dining experience, my wife and I chose to get dessert somewhere else. I’m sure they have nice desserts but I had completely lost my appetite.
The bill came to just over $80 for two people with an appetizer–THE ONE WE SENT BACK–and two entres. With the $25 restaurant.com GC applied (which automatically adds an 18% gratuity unfortuantely) it brought the total cost to $70. We paid and left, thankful to have gotten out of there with only bad food.
A short time after dinner, I found myself having a flushed red face, my heart was racing, and I had a rash form around my mouth. I cannot say if this was bell pepper related or not; however, it’s my opinion that the cooks rubbed mushroom into my dish as my reaction was very much akin to a low level reaction to a food I’m allergic to–I’m not technically allergic to mushrooms but I am allergic to something they grow in or around as sometimes mushrooms will make me go near anaphylaxis shock. I was fortunately able to control the reaction with benadryl and didn’t need to use my epipens.
So much for only having bad food.
Now, to climb my soapbox for a moment, I’d like to point out that I have a belief that no adequate cook would ever place bell peppers and seafood together. Seafood has very delicate flavors that are easily overpowered by strong flavors like bell peppers. Why spend the money on seafood if you’re not going to taste it because of bell peppers?
If you know the answer to that question, perhaps you’d enjoy G. Hunters. As for myself, I’ll be avoiding their establishment like the plague.
Kevin
I’ve got to say I agree with you Kevin. There needs to be a clear description of ingredients on the menu, if for no other reason than to warn people with food allergies. I have a shellfish allergy and know there are certain situations to avoid (the hibachi table for example) but I was surprised once at An Loi to see tiny bits of shrimp floating in my chicken Pho. There had been no mention of shrimp on the menu. Just chicken broth. It can be a very dangerous situation.
We have been to G Hunter’s 4 to 5 times. Wonderful food. Great view. Excellent wait staff. Chef Frank Tyeryar is among the area’s best.
Sorry to hear about the experience at G.Hunters. We’ve eaten there dozens of times and think it is generally quite good. However, they do have some bad practices. For one, they substitute without telling you. They also tend to over accent their food. I recently had the sea scallops with almonds and chive mashed potatoes. It comes in a pool of lemon butter and they layer on the almonds. How could that be considered good? How about a beurre blanc and a sprinkling of freshly roasted almonds instead? The presentation shouldn’t over power the taste of the meal. The previous chef served a much better integrated meal.
I haven’t run into the bell peppers there yet and hopefully won’t. I only like them fried with onions and Italian sausage.
Most restaurants don’t list every ingredient in a menu item; in a lot of cases the menu would be the size of the phone book. That being said, if you asked your server about the bell peppers, they should of known if peppers were in what you ordered. Your sever should know every major ingredient in a dish, and should know to ask/inform the kitchen if there is a question.
The word “Allergy” is the scarcest words I know of in the kitchen. Just touching something and not washing your hands, knife or replacing your cutting board can put someone in the hospital or worse. I would doubt that the cooks rubbed mushrooms into your dish, more likely their cutting board, knife or hands were cross contaminated, with mushrooms from another order.
As a customer you also have a reasonability to inform the restaurant if you have special dietary needs (when making the reservation is the best time), most restaurants will do whatever it take to accommodate you, on a busy night having to stop everything to make something special, effects every table in the dinning room.
As to them not removing an uneaten item from the bill, as long as you informed them about the problem with bell peppers, and they still used them, it should have been removed from your bill.
I will disagree with you about the use of bell peppers with seafood, a lot of Cajun and Creole, Mexican; Central American dishes require the use of bell peppers, but they like any garnish to a recipe should enhance not over power.
I have to say that my husband and I have noticed many recent changes to G. Hunter’s … all have been for the better. New management coupled with the return of Chef Frank have made this restaurant one of Fredericks finest.
I have found that in every restaurant, when the executive chef is away, the food seems inconsistant.
As for the gentleman that mentioned bell peppers in his Newburg, if you have any food knowledge, you would know that a classic Newburg is always made with bell peppers. I am always amazed at the number of people willing to complain, yet know nothing about the subject.
My family and I will continue to frequent G. Hunter’s as well as other locally owned resaurants and hope that others will understand the difference between fine dining and a corporate chain.
Katherine
Katherine,
You may have written the most hilarious, tongue-in-cheek post I’ve seen on this forum. You had me going until I realized that newburg is not made with bell peppers. I doubled checked multiple sources and confirmed it .
Bravo!
My kids and I play this game all the time. We call it Opposite Day.
JJP
A lot of needless snarkiness here, folks.
The recipe below for Newburg uses peppers. The classic preparation doesn’t use peppers, but G Hunter’s chef was probably trying to give his own creative twist. He, like I and many other home cooks, probably wasn’t aware that some people are allergic to peppers.
Calling Mrs. Marple!
http://www.thatsmyhome.com/fishermans/seanew.htm
Dude, feel free to run the snark detector on your own posts. I think you may catch a few.
I maybe the only one but I’ve been very disappointed by Chef Frank’s return. The guy is a klutz when it comes to designing a meal. The “creative twists” I’ve seen have been over done and take away from the meal. Hopefully, he’ll cut down on that in the future. He does make a mean cuban and hasn’t figured out a way to screw up a steak yet. I had this place at #3 on my list, but it is slipping quickly. We’ve gone from eating there 4-5 times a month to just once a month. Who cares? Do the math.
JJP
My family and I visited G. Hunter’s for the first time last night and I have to say our meal was delicious. I’m not originally from Frederick, and I do not know “Chef Frank” but we were very pleased with the food and the service. The manager came to our table, spoke with us about wine and was very knowledgeable. He came back later and asked if we enjoyed our meal and told us about desserts. All said, I think all restaurants have good and bad days. As for me, I think G. Hunter’s is great and I will return.
Toni
I work on kitchen equipment, and I have to say, G. Hunter’s is one of the cleanest kitchens you will ever see. I have been in most kitchens in this town I will only eat at a handfull of restaurants. G’ Hunters is one.
Sam-
Without saying which kitchens are bad, can you tell us the kitchens that are really clean?
Wow! What a surprisingly large response to my review.
Sam, I don’t understand what a clean kitchen has to do with tasty food, adequate service, and improper billing. Furthermore, I’d suggest that if you had a window to your kitchen it would probably be rather clean as well.
The fact of the matter is, I even gave the manager ample opportunity to respond in some way before beginning to post my review of his restaurant in various places. No response from his restaurant so I have posted up a review.
As for “Chef Frank”, I only know his “flair”. I could toss a bazillion bell peppers on green meat, fry it up and call it southwestern also. That wouldn’t mean I had any idea what I was doing just as it’s my belief he has a lack of seafood experience.
As for Katherine’s comment regarding local restaurants vs. chains. It is the policy of my family to only visit local restaurants except for rare exceptions. We spend about $80 every other week on a restaurant and care a lot more about the food than the building.
Finally, for those rating cleanliness, I’d like to state that were I doing weekly restaurant reviews–which I’ve considered doing, I’d be a lot more apt to rate the cleanliness of the bathroom as opposed to the kitchen. My thinking is, if the bathroom is disgusting, how can their hands and food possibly be any better.
Hey Kevin-I’d like to aplogize to you about your meal at Hunter’s on Valentine’s Day Night. This is coming from Chef Frank, Executive Chef. Wow, In my 24 years I’ve have never had such a bad comment on 1 tablespoon of red bell pepper. The fish and shrimp entree you ordered, which is actually titled “Southwestern Jumbo Crab and Shrimp ‘Newburg’ is simply a reduction entree of paprika, red bell peppers, serrano peppers, garlic, butter, chives, crab and domestic gulf shrimp garnished with micro watercress and cilantro. We have served more than a 100 of these since our new menu and have received rave reviews on this dish. I’m sorry about your dislike of bell peppers and when your dish was returned, my kitchen staff was informed that “the customer wanted the red peppers removed” which we did. A new dish of shrimp and crab with a beurre blanc or oil infusion could have been done just as easily, but we didn’t know about your dislike of bell peppers, so we removed them. Sorry Kevin. And Kevin, I have been cooking the best seafood for many years, the dislike of bell peppers in a dish is not really grounds for your negative comments about my cooking abilities. At Hunter’s I use #1 Yellowfin Tuna, Chilean Sea Bass, Canadian Salmon Fillets, Fresh Maine Lobsters, All Domestic Gulf Shrimp, Rope-Cultured Mussels and Local Domestic Fish from the the Eastern Seaboard. My number one goal as the chef is to please our customers. Next time please inform us and we will do the best job we can to make you happy-not unhappy over red bell peppers
Thanks for stopping by and answering some questions Chef Frank. I think this may be a first for a Frederick restaurateur to visit the site and interact with the peeps. You are a brave man sir! FMO readers are pretty serious about their grub as you can read.
Thanks for the comment Frank.
I think you’re mistaken in the belief that my issue is 1T of bell peppers. The bell peppers is not what offended me although I did make a good effort by asking the wait staff what was in the meal before I ordered it and did let them know I was allergic to mushrooms or something around mushrooms–which obviously were not in the meal.
What offended me is the following:
1. I sent back an appetizer with bell peppers so obviously I wasn’t going to be having anything with them.
2. The entre was then brought out with bell peppers on it as well.
3. The entre was not remade (as I was told by the manager it would be) without bell peppers but instead simply had them scraped off to make them less visible as evidenced by the 2t of them I left on the plate.
4. The appetizer was not removed from the bill.
I’ll grant you that a lot of my issues are not ones that you caused and instead seems to have been caused by wait staff; however, the attempt at scraping off the peppers was just underhanded and was most certainly done by one of the cooks you are responsible for. I was not told they would be removed but instead was told by the manager that the meal would be remade without them. You simply cannot remove such a strong flavor from a dish and your cooks should know that.
As for my belief that no adequate cook uses bell peppers with seafood… that’s obviously my personal belief. Others feel differently and I’m fine with that but I just cannot imagine how people can taste anything but bell peppers in dishes that use them.
I do appreciate your answering my concerns but I think you either did not read what I wrote and/or came to a misunderstanding about what I am bothered by. Hopefully I have clarified myself a bit in this response.
Kevin
Kevin I would suggest contacting G. Hunters. You would probably get a better and more timely response then posting here.
Wow, I happen to love red–and green–bell peppers. Sounds like I better get on over to G. Hunters!
This is without a doubt a fantastic place to express your opinion and thanks to all for making it such. Chef Frank is one of the finest Chefs in this town and he deserves credit where credit is due. G Hunters is a fine restaurant and should be patronized and given its due respect.
I just wanted to say that I think G.Hunters is one of my favorite places to eat. I especially LOVE their brunch. I go there with my family every month and the view is spectacular. The service is lovely and some of the BEST in the city. Thank you G. Hunters for keeping Frederick CLASSY!!
Wow. I’ve been reading these posts for 10 minutes, and I can’t believe I wasted my time. Bell peppers? Get over it. I’ve been in the restaurant business, and if you’re not happy with something, let someone know. And if it doesn’t get fixed, tell them again. Then exercise your right never to return. Don’t expect the staff to read your mind. Everyone, and every restaurant, has a bad day, and unfortunately, you experienced it on Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t blame you if you never went back, but one thing I’ve learned about patronizing any business – they want you to be happy, and if you tell them exactly what you need, most of the time, people will do their best to make it happen. My advice: if you have that much of a problem with bell peppers, you need to tell the server, before you order!
Amen Hannah!
Am I the only one who can see the inconsistencies with “Kevin’s” comments/accusations?
Hey Kevin, before you quit your day job to write weekly restaurant reviews, learn how to spell entree.
I just want to add this: Chef Frank rocks. He’s one of the area’s top chefs–creative, inspired and always trying to please his customers. He’s also one hell of a humanitarian.
I think the bartendars are handsome! Which is an added bonus, plus the food is good!
I have heard there is a new chef at G Hunter’s. I’m not sure when the change happened but Jim went there for lunch this past week and was told that Chef Frank has gone out on his own.
Thanks for the update on the chef. That’s good news. I’d given the place up for lost. Hopefully there will be a new menu. I will give them another try soon.
The view from the veranda and window tables this time of year is stunning.
G. Hunter’s is closed. (Good riddance!)
Anyone know where Chef Frank went to?
Chef Frank went to India, doesnt know when he will be back.
Kevin, the entire argument against G Hunter’s–at least as you ranted about an appetizer with (gasp!) bell peppers on it, an entree with bell peppers on it, the failure of the kitchen to remake your entree without bell peppers, and the unwanted appetizer not having been removed from the bill.
For that unpardonable sin, you ranted and ranted and raked the establishment over the coals. And now that it has closed, your comment is “Good riddance.”
That’s really over the top. You response seems strangely personal and far beyond a single dining experience.
Actually, that should read:
Kevin, the entire argument you made against G Hunter’s–at least as you outlined above–was (1) they presented you an appetizer with (gasp!) bell peppers on it (2) a follow-up entree with bell peppers on it (3) the failure of the kitchen to remake your entree fresh without bell peppers, and (4) their forgetting to have removed the unwanted appetizer from your bill.
For that unpardonable sin, you ranted and ranted and raked the establishment over the coals. And now that it has closed, your comment is “Good riddance.”
That’s really over the top. You response seems strangely personal and far beyond a single dining experience.
Sheesh, some people should not eat out- they are so picky, super fussy, and get so spun up when something doesn’t exactly meet there expectations that they fall off the deep end. Sure, I’ve had disappointing meals out, but I look at eating out as kind of rolling the dice. You’re not going to love everything, and if you get that bothered by a poor dining experience you should have all of your meals at home.
By the way, I’ve eaten at all of the Fountain Rock restaurants and think Chef Frank is great in the kitchen- also a heck of a nice guy too. I really liked G. Hunters, have had good and bad at Brewer’s Alley, love Acacia, but am not too fond of Isabella’s.