Masa 14

So you walk in to a bar that looks like some place you might hook up on a weekend. You go to the roof top and sit outside on a great night and… Get served some great food. The Spanish was great… and my girlfriend is a vegetarian and the chick pea fritters were very tasty. The peanut sauce in the papaya salad was fabulous. If you’re into drinks the Masa Mule is a great summer outside drink.

One of the best foods I have ever had in my Life! That is saying a lot especially since I am a foodie.

I leave 2 stars with a dramatic single tear dangling from my left eye as my boyfriend and I wait for our bill. He and I were Masa 14 officianados– making sure that our über would pull up to this establishment on a Saturday or Sunday morning, no later than 11AM, to ensure that we would have ample time to shamelessly indulge in multiples of our favorite small plates and lose count of our bottomless mimosas.
Today, after a 2 month lapse in Masa visits, we noticed an extensive change in the menu. No more steamed brisket bun, pork fried rice, nor beef barbacoa *quiety weeps into cloth napkin at table. No more pan dulce, granola, nor cubano. People– Masa has changed. Now some may prefer the corn dogs, which are now readily available, or perhaps the bacon, egg, and cheese steamed bun might be right up your alley. For all those heading to Masa right now, salivating anticipatingly for the juicy brisket steamed bun, you will be bitterly disappointed.
Mr.Sandoval, whyyyyy? *This half inch melancholic sliver of carrot cake was just brought to our table.
Sandoval fans, let’s just hope El Centro & Zengo have maintained or even improved their menus.

I’ve been here for happy hour and brunch. I enjoy the roof deck and sitting outside. The bartender is super friendly and chatty, and there is a nice cocktail selection. I love the sushi happy hour on Wednesdays – it’s surprisingly good sushi for a bar.
They have a prix fixe «bottomless» brunch but allow you to pay a lower price for no alcohol, which is nice if you’re going in a group of people who do and don’t drink. I don’t like the ambiance downstairs as much, it’s kind of trying-​too-​hard trendy and super loud. (true of many places on 14^th, to be fair.) I liked all of the food except for the breakfast steamed buns and the corn dogs – it’s a fancyish brunch spot, I don’t want American cheese! So not perfect but I will be back for happy hour and possibly brunch with a large group.

Please don’t make make my mistake and trust the pictures on Unilocal!!!More thank half of the food is not even on the current menu.
Don’t get me wrong this was good restraint but not what I expected for sure.
The location is great, good tasting food and wonderful service but really the reasons why I’m not giving 5 stars because they say don’t have individual plates but only shareable food (which takes up half the menu) then you have your big ticket items which only is for plates. I understand that it’s busies and that’s how some restraint is like but they made it seem like a family portions. They don’t even put how they will give you in the shareable pet of the menu.
When we received the food it look amazing and smell great too but you have to ask, «is this food for ants?» The food was small «shareable» portion and just out of the ordinary food like «pig tail» and sushi they put random ingredients (in my opinion.)
Over all good environment, wonderful service, and good tasting food but Damn it quit trying to be mysterious on your menu and tell me the true portion size so I know I’m paying more than $ 10 for two small pork sandwiches, it can’t even compare to a 6 inch sub size!
Again everything was good but the info Unilocal and the freaking portion size!!!
Btw I was in a party of 6 and they agree too.
Ps the place turns into a club after 10!!!

We went for brunch as a group and it was just awful.
To save you a rant, here’s a list of how the staff/​establishment just completely epically failed:
— Medium quality food
— Service sucked
— Food came out in varying portion size (server told us that if we ordered 1 item enough would be brought out for the entire party of 12 but some was a single plate others were large portions)
— They kept bringing out food we didn’t order/​want
— Runners blew us off when asking for server
— Would only split the check 4 ways when we all ordered the same thing in a group of 12
— Wanted us to consolidate the entire tables order for them… not my job
Anywho, you get the hint. Awful service, average food and a lot of work on the customers part to get some food.
Do yourself a favor and grab brunch somewhere else, you’ll save yourself a lot trouble.

MASA 14 recently launched a very special 13-​course menu that is served directly at your table Thursday through Saturday evenings. Our Chef de Cuisine will present a selection of the most innovative plates. The dishes are globally inspired, and you also have the option of adding a wine pairing. The table seats up to 11 friends, but you may reserve for 2 or more friends and family.
Chef Ryan prepares each dish right I front of the entire table while giving a detailed description of the entire
Just call MASA 14 to book this wonderful experience

I liked it here. My waitress was very attentive and kind. She even made a few jokes with my friend and I when we were there.
The food was tasty and the drinks were ok. The ambience was perfect, though. I think this place deserves 4 stars… nothing about it really jumps out at me that would make me give it 5 stars, but there’s not really anything bad about it either. I think 4 stars is spot on.

I had a totally new experience at MASA 14 this past Saturday night.
It was at the Chef’s Table newly set up close to the kitchen and the new Chef de Cuisine Ryan Ratino did a superb job preparing and explaining all 13 dishes right in front of us.
He is one of the chefs who started and led Caviar Russe in NYC to a Michelin Starred restaurant. No wonder!
Among the 13 unique and wonderful plates, I particularly liked the following:
Kumamoto Oysters
Sweet Pea (Tortellini with porcini jus)
Rock Fish
Lamb
It is well worth $ 80 for the plates and $ 125 for plates with wine paring.
It really was an amazing experience.

I feel really bamboozled. When I originally bookmarked Masa 14 ages ago, I was impressed by the brunch pictures and menu. Seeing as how it’s in the same family as Zengo, I knew it would be GREAT, but it was really just average & I was disappointed.
I was able to make reservations online w/​OpenTable. They only allow you to sit once everyone in your party has arrived. We were seated at the front of the restaurant & were told the rooftop was on a first come, first serve basis. My entire table (5 of us) got the AYCE & drink option for $ 39 ($ 25 for just AYCE). The menu isn’t as extensive as Zengo’s and wasn’t as appetizing. We did however find about 3 things that we really enjoyed: chorizo hash, grits, and the smoked bacon sandwich. For the life of me I couldn’t figured out why a Mexican-​Asian fusion restaurant put American cheese on their egg & bacon steamed buns. Speaking of, those weren’t all that. I haven’t had a breakfast steamed bun that I like yet. Smh! The chorizo hash was my favorite and had some tasty guacamole on it. The grits were seasoned to perfection and so was the sandwich. Ohhhh!!! The jalapeño cornbread was pretty dang good too. Our waitress did a good job keeping our glasses filled, but I wish they would’ve made our «family style» tapas larger when she saw we were all eating the same thing and sharing. The «masa mimosa» was my favorite; they had 2 diff flavors of mimosas, 2 Bloody Mary drinks, & a shandy cocktail that came w/​the brunch. Also, why are corn dogs on the menu?! LOL! We ordered them, but hardly anybody finished them. They were slightly greasy & we were all strategizing to make sure we didn’t fill up too fast.
I wouldn’t go again until they add some more items to the menu. All that time I waited to visit, I was a little upset after looking back at my food pics.

Boo. Soft shell crab. Blah
Apparently you should only come here for brunch. Yet someone order the Korean fried chicken and it looked delicious. Wine was blah. You can tell it’s been sitting for a while. Service was very nice.

I only went to masa for drinks and we chose to sit in the rooftop which is a very cute place! The atmosphere was busy and I didn’t like how the servers didn’t come to our table. They where all over the place we had to go to the bar to place our orders for food and drinks!
Which actually where not the best drinks but they where okay. We ending up sitting and talking and the food was quite tasty but the service was not so good! Maybe because we came in right after happy hour but I wasn’t impressed.

This review is based on my experience earlier this month with a Bachelorette party of 16 girls.
The Bad
1. The reservation was planned in advance, yet they only made room for 12 of us in the corner near the door. The host told us there were no other tables, so we would have to squeeze. It was super tight and uncomfortable, and they weren’t very apologetic.
2. They also had the door open and it was about 35 degrees out, so those of us closer to the door were freezing.
3. Before the rest of the group got there, my 3 childhood friends and I wanted to take a photo. It’s so rare we get to be together these days, so this was special and wanted to save the memory. The woman who ended up being our waitress, and was so sweet, offered to take a photo. As we posed, another waitress gave our waitress a look I can only describe as mocking of us. A judging eye roll since us «basic bitches» wanted a photo. That’s fine, she probably just doesn’t have any friends and hates herself deep down.
However, our sweet waitress offered to take a few more of us. The rude self hating waitress walks in between the camera and us to ruin the photo. Now, this could be an accident, except I saw her time it and walk into the flash with a smile as the flash. I have the photo as proof. I mean, WHY work in the service industry if you hate people? She also looked mid thirties, early forties. Grow up.
The Good.
1. Our waitress was very sweet and handled our large group well.
2. The food was delicious.
Overall there are many other places in DC to check out, so after this experience, doubt I’d go out of my way to come back. Definitely wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

So, I came to Masa 14 for brunch with some friends and both the drink menu and food menu were just ok.
Since it was a bunch of us, we ordered different plates and passed the plates around. I really enjoyed the chorizo hash. The chorizo hash was probably the best plate on the menu. The portion size was nice too. I was really excited to see that they had tortilla espanola on the menu until I tried it. It was super dry and bland. The egg on top doesn’t help. I took one bite and passed it on. Honestly, this place needs some help with seasoning food. The beef sliders were bland. The dulce de leche parfait tasted nothing like dulce de leche. The carrot cake was also dry. Yeah, brunch is cheap here but not worth the drive, parking, or waking up early.
I think I got my money’s worth on the bottomless mimosas. The lychee mimosa was ok but definitely an acquired taste. The Masa Mimosa was delicious. I enjoyed the mango taste to it not too sweet.
The service was pretty bad. The only person who was attentive was the water guy with the cool accent. Our waitress would disappear leaving us to wait on her. I would look around for her and she would be talking to other servers or bartenders. She would see me look at her and look away to avoid having to do any work. I kept asking cool accent guy for more Mimosa and he would have to keep looking for her. He did this about four times.
I really don’t recommend this brunch to anyone. You’re better off cooking at home.

I consistently enjoy going to Richard Sandoval restaurants. Yet, this one was truly meh, which made me super sad. I came here for brunch with a friend on a gorgeous Sunday. We sat outside to enjoy the beautiful weather on the front «patio» as there was no seating upstairs on the rooftop. Can I just say that I love that their rooftop isn’t under cover?
The food was just there without strong flavors or spices. Worse, was that based on my experiences at other Richard Sandoval restaurants (for brunch), I presumed that I would be able to order items which had bacon in them without the bacon. However, our waitress told us that getting the items without bacon was not an option. While I know many of you are bacon lovers, this gal doesn’t eat pork so it really limited the menu. Especially of note, is that all of the items listed on their menu online are not actually on the menu at the restaurant. My friend wanted to try their Bacon Blood Mary, which apparently was not available that morning as they hadn’t made the vodka or some component. On the bright side, the hijiki salad was delicious.
Sadly our service wasn’t all that great either. We, along with the table of 6 next to us, had a lot of difficulty getting our waitress’ attention to order food or drinks. At a couple points we had to ask someone else to get her. As another note, according to our server, Masa 14 has a policy of not being able to get another drink until you finish the one in front of you. This causes an issue if (1) you don’t care for the drink you decided to try or moreso in our case (2) your waitress disappears for 45 minutes at a time.
Will I give them another shot? Possibly as I have had such positive experiences at some of his other restaurants. But, it won’t be for awhile in the hopes that some of the issues are fixed.

SCORE!
Came in for dinner because I wanted something a little lighter. I had a note from a prior Mgr that I could 2 sushi rolls on the house due the service the last time I was there. Current manager accommodated the offer and did better.
Ordered the Tuna Kimchee and Baked crab rolls. VERY tasty a day flavorful! There is fairly new menu with some really tasty shared plates.
My friend ordered the soft shell crab and calamari. They didn’t receive their daily shipment of soft-​shell crab. Not only did they explain why, but the co-​owner came over and gave a lesson on how soft she’ll crab is harvested and that it’s fairly early in the season. Love!
For shared plates, I ordered the miso salmon and calamari. Salmon was tender and moist! Vegetables were tender and not overly seasoned. Calamari had a sweet twist, but excellent taste.
My friend ordered chicken curry and crispy shrimp. That crispy shrimp… call home, but don’t slap momma, yet. It was tasty! The crispy shrimp was compliments of the manager! Very good!
Great comeback, Masa14! Will be back to try out other items on the new menu.

This review is for their ** $ 39 bottomless brunch on weekends only **
I’ve been to Zengo, which offers a similar deal so I was very much looking forward to trying Masa. $ 39 for bottomless including bloody mary, bacon bloody, mimosa, Mango mimosa, Lychee Bellini, Lemon Lager) + unlimited food items.
The drinks were fine, A-​OK the bloody was alright, and the mimosas were fine — but the quality of the food was severely lacking.
We also noticed a few of their menu options did not come out as described. For example, we got the chilaquiles, which came out without chorizo. We also tried the smoked chicken hash which had great flavor, but they were NOT yucca most definitely red skin potatoes (still had the red skin on them. and I love yucca).
Outside of that everything else was just OK but nothing that made the meal worth $ 85+ between two people before tip. The chicken salad was soggy, and the salad did not look fresh (see picture). We also received an order that we didn’t order, so service was slightly inconsistent as well.
Based on this experience, I would not return.

Six years later and Masa 14’s endless brunch special has lost a little bit of it’s sparkly appeal. Prices have gone up and quality has gone down.
All of the entrees were inconsistent and towards the end of our meal servers just started auctioning off random entrees that we did not order at our table. We would try to tell them that we did not order it but then they would hover around and put it down on our table and shrug which kind of made me feel like I was eating at a feedhouse. The dishes I had were okay but I’d much have rather put my money toward one really great meal.
Am I old?
PS: Kim Chee Fried Rice, you are still just as good as ever!

BRUNCH REVIEW ONLY:
Everyone in DC has brunched at Masa 14 at least once… probably twice… more than they should…
This place is kind of the go to brunch spot, you kind of know what you are going to get. Masa14 has a bottomless deal all you can eat and drink for about $ 39 with the last seating before 2pm. Masa has an assortment of mimosas and a few bloody mary options. The rooftop is really fun when the weather warms up. Masa is pretty much known as a party brunch.
This place has Asian fusion type brunch with tapas. A lot of options with eggs and bacon, the menu is kind of similar to Zengo.
There is not really much I can say about Masa14, whenever I need a go to brunch and I don’t feel like thinking… I hit up Masa 14. The food is OK…

I love coming for their Wednesday night sushi special — half price on all rolls, all night. They also have a pretty good happy hour special until 7 most nights, and all night Tuesday. I would stick to wine/​beer as the cocktails are mostly ice and weak.
The restaurant is huge, has different floors and a rooftop, so you’re almost always guaranteed a seat. However, if it’s a nice night the small rooftop will fill up quickly.