The Atrium

My mother & I had dinner at the Atrium since we were staying at the hotel over the weekend for Excel In Motion dance convention. Since I had been dancing all day, a restaurant right in the hotel seemed to be the quickest option, however, sometimes hotel restaurants can be mediocre, so I was worried at first. Even though there were a few conventions going on at the hotel, the Atrium was not busy and we were seated immediately. Our waiter was very kind, helpful, and answered all of the questions we had about the menu.
We began our meal with the Goat a Cheese boards, since busy my mother and I love goat cheese and anything with it. The small round of goat cheese was presented beautifully on a wooden board along with crostini, dried cranberries and apricots, and three tiny glass jars filled with apricot jam, pickled cucumbers, and a garlic olive mix. A basket of flatbread strips was also served alongside our cheese board. Our waiter told us to take a crostini, spread it with jam, and top with goat cheese-​so much flavor!
Shortly after came the rest: The Atrium Salad with grilled chicken, the Tomato Mozzarella Flatbread, and French Fries, all which were good. The herby flatbread was topped with fresh, sliced tomato, mozzarella, basil, and a drizzle of balsamic. The salad was good, as were the fries.
The Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding was too interesting to pass up, so a dish was ordered along with vanilla icecream. The dessert was good, but not amazing. Other than the doughy aftertaste, I didn’t taste too much else that resembled a glazed doughnut-​it was also very mushy bread pudding. If you order this, be sure to order some icecream as well-​bread pudding just isn’t complete without it!
Even though I wasn’t a fan of our overall bill because we ordered so many different thing, I was pleased with our dining experience-​it was quite good for a hotel lobby restaurant!

Great service got to know the bartender at the bar. He was friendly and remembered us after the first night. I ordered a burger & fries and surprisingly it was good! Hotel food to me isn’t always the best but this burger was spot on! Real beef, tender/​moist, and cooked exactly as requested.

I attended a conference here at the Crystal City Marriott. For lunch at the Atrium the service was just so so. But the half tuna sandwich & soup was pretty tasty.

Holy crap was that one of the worst meals I’ve paid for in a long time! I don’t expect much from a restaurant in a Gateway Marriott, let alone in Crystal (Sh)itty. But it would be nice if some restaurant in a 2 mile radius could rise to the occasion of serving edible food. If you want to feel like you’re in a foreign country and the only food available is crappy hotel food because it’s 11pm and you just got in from a long international flight and you don’t know where to venture outside of your hotel, come to the Atrium! Incredibly Bland boring salads, painfully processed meals, and a calamari that makes you wonder if it’s actually pig anuses versus seafood (true story! This can happen!) await you, making you scratch your head and wondering if you’re actually in the DC metro area or not.

Pretty Decent Food: I enjoyed the crab cake platter. Broiled to perfection. It contained more crab than filler. The highlight was the warm mustard sauce that I poured on my crab cakes and dipped my crisp fries in. The seasoned green beans were great. Beans were fresh, not canned not frozen, and tossed in the ideal amount of garlic butter. The dessert was creative. The Krispy Kreme donut bread pudding was a must based on creativity. It came with a warm and sweet Jack Daniels sauce and a warm vanilla sauce that sat on the side of the plate for pouring ontop. The bread pudding (although good) was a tad too mushy on the inside for my liking. I would have preferred the inside a bit more firm. The bread pudding was still enjoyable. Overall a good experience.

The only place available to eat at after 2 p. m in the hotel. We ended up eating here 3 or 4 times during our stay, mostly around dinner. Appetizers are really small, and due to that I feel like they were over priced. Alcoholic drinks were over priced as well. They wanted $ 11-​$ 12 for a Long Island Iced Tea. Wow. Also around $ 9 a glass of wine.
Food was decent. I got a burger, and a salad. Also tried the calamari which I wasn’t a fan of. They also needed more than 2 servers.

This is the hotel lounge. With everything closing down so early in Crystal City, this is one of the only places to have a decent meal after 10pm. It’s the usual bar food, nothing fancy. You can get any of it from room service but without the inflated delivery and processing cost. So, rather than do that, go downstairs, get the food here and bring it back to your room.

The sequel to my Atrium visit is not better than the original. It’s about the same. The thing is, I don’t have a problem going here. I think it’s a pretty swanky place. Very easy on the eyes. And the service is excellent. And those two factors are what’s feeding the two stars. Because the food is where its rating will suffer. More specifically, it’s the food to value ratio. Their food is quite average. So are the drinks. But both are expensive – too expensive for what is essentially bland fare. Two stars is fair. But if I were to be in a really great mood, I suppose they could pull a 2.5 stars, even though I’m not so sure I believe in half stars. Oh well.