Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill

[Anonymous]

Completely agree about Uncle Julio and it broke our hearts. We used to love the Cadillac platter with lobster.

We turned to District Taco because the closest Chipotle took a nosedive - messed up orders, fatty chicken, seriously lazy food prep. For what we order, it's OK but we eat in so we're there to have them redo anything they mess up.

The bowls at the LebTav market have become our go-to. Italian Store - no noticeable drop in quality. And Lost Dog is still carrying on. And making reservations at Ruthie's to ensure a tasty meal, despite the price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four Sisters. We used to eat there a lot when they were in Eden Center, but the food after they moved to Mosaic became a shadow of its former self.

I’ll also join the chorus on Uncle Julio’s. The food was so bad the last time we went, we will definitely not be returning.

Their last day was this past Sunday.

I was so shocked by this. Only ever knew it in Mosaic, and the crispy pork spring rolls were essential to my extended family’s existence. Seriously, we’d meet there for dinner and argue about whether everyone needed their own order.
Sad to see it go.

You can still get the crispy rolls at Four Sisters Grill in Clarendon as well as some of the other menu items. It is run by one of the 4 sisters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Completely agree about Uncle Julio and it broke our hearts. We used to love the Cadillac platter with lobster.

We turned to District Taco because the closest Chipotle took a nosedive - messed up orders, fatty chicken, seriously lazy food prep. For what we order, it's OK but we eat in so we're there to have them redo anything they mess up.

The bowls at the LebTav market have become our go-to. Italian Store - no noticeable drop in quality. And Lost Dog is still carrying on. And making reservations at Ruthie's to ensure a tasty meal, despite the price.

Agree about Chipotle. I guess the food is still ok, but the order line, even when short, takes forever and the last one we were in was filthy. Dirty kitchen, dirty tables, trash overflowing and filthy bathrooms.

[Anonymous]

Red Lobster. Becoming bland and tasteless, especially for the price.

[Anonymous]

I know this post is old but I just found it and I feel so seen! I thought I was going crazy about Uncle Julios.

The Bethesda location was our absolute favorite restaurant, went there for every special family occasion, and now I am convinced there is some evil figure in a corporate office building somewhere methodically making it gradually worse and worse and raising prices at the same time, laughing an evil laugh at all of us suckers who keep going back.

So many examples - the old yummy chips are now MIXED IN with cheaper, hard chips. They stopped putting chili sauce on the cheese enchiladas, they are now just hard cheese and tortillas wrapped up. I loved those enchiladas! The kids menu has been replaced with some strange and inedible "bento box" that even my non-picky, uncle julio's loving kids were like wtf is this. I swear, every time I go back it's a new thing that is worse. And the menu changes all the time, more than it should.

And the service is just insanely bad now. How is it so bad? We ordered takeout the other day and they just totally lost it. It's like they train them to be bad?

After the last time, I finally said no more. But I, too, feel like I have lost a friend!

Ditto on District Taco - the main issue there is they stopped using good meat and the new meat is worse and gross, like fast food meat. People who don't notice that change just don't care as much or didn't go before. But it has absolutely changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Comet Pizza

No! Really? Loved the white pizza and green salad with the perfect vinaigrette.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL! I thought you were going to talk about a real restaurant, not a chain. Uncle Julio's in Ballston has been terrible for YEARS, OP.

I think Haandi in Falls Church has declined significantly.

Someone took me to the one in Ballston and she complained the food wasn't as good as the one in Fairfax. I had nothing to compare it to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! I thought you were going to talk about a real restaurant, not a chain. Uncle Julio's in Ballston has been terrible for YEARS, OP.

I think Haandi in Falls Church has declined significantly.

Someone took me to the one in Ballston and she complained the food wasn't as good as the one in Fairfax. I had nothing to compare it to.

Ballston was never great, but they stepped up their take out game for fajitas during the period restaurants were closed during the pandemic. They were one of our favorite take out spots. The chicken was decent, the tortillas were fantastic, and they gave large portions of chips and salsa. Now - take out is horrible . The tortillas are not cooked. The bag of chips is super small. We even paid extra for chips and salsa and got a tiny bag of stale chips. We went on person once, figuring that was thier priority, and it’s better - but not by much.

[Anonymous]

I am the above poster and the Uncle Julio's chip situation is crazy. There were literally two different types of chips in our takeout bag - they are getting like Sodexo chips or something super cheap and stale and mixing it in with the older better chips. They have to be in some sort of financial trouble or something to be making all of these cutbacks.

And I disagree it was never good!

[Anonymous]

Black Salt in the Palisades. It's basically garbage now at 4 star prices.

[Anonymous]

Literally all of them. You are much better off trying to cook something at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Literally all of them. You are much better off trying to cook something at home.

This. It’s an embarrassment at how consistently BAD the food quality is in the DMV. It’s practically inedible. Nothing is fresh or high quality ingredients. Even if they are, the kitchen is messing them up so much that they never appear to be. My addition to the list is Dumplings and Beyond dumplings are not the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Golden Corral has been slipping. Chocolate Waterfall has been discontinued and the fried shrimps aren’t as fresh as I remember.

You got shrimps?

[Anonymous]

So which restaurants still make good food? It sounds like they all suck basically.

[Anonymous]

I know this isn't perfectly on point here -- because it was never good to begin with, but I'll say Domino's pizza.

It used to be fine for what it was, cheap pizza that would show up on your doorstep right quick. The last two times I ordered it, I ate one piece and put it in the trash. Which is saying something, given how starving and exhausted I'd have to be to order from there anyway. Downright inedible; and you can tell by the fact that I was willing to order it all means I'm not exactly a food snob -- so if I say it was bad, it was very, very bad.