Mushy fries, stick-to-your-teeth shrimp, disinterested servers doom new Gilbert eatery
By CRYSTAL PETROCELLI
Get Out

Wait: There was no wait for two people at 6 p.m. on a Monday.

Service: Hearthrob is a casual family restaurant, and that’s how it is run. Our server didn’t do anything to sweep us off our feet, and we weren’t expecting her to. But I did see a guy twirling a toothpick in his mouth while delivering popovers and soup to a nearby table, and there was also a shocking cerveza shortage. A man sitting a few seats to my right ordered two different beers and was told they were sold out of both. He finally chose one they had in stock, but when he tried to order another round, he was told he had just drunk the last bottle. How do you run out of beer?

What we liked: Nada, zip, zilch. Dinner started off rocky, with a bucket of rubbery calamari rings (some of which were so small the holes were lost to breading, making a handful of pieces unrecognizable as calamari). Served over a pile of mushy fries in a Corona bucket, the calamari took another blow when it showed up with cocktail sauce. Where is the marinara or tartar? Can I get a lemon wedge? I thought I was safe ordering coconut shrimp as my entrée. I couldn’t remember ever running into a plate of it I didn’t enjoy, a streak that ended after one bite of my nearly inedible dish. Four small, butterflied shrimp were breaded to death with a molasses-y, stick-to-your-teeth coating of nearly burned batter. It didn’t look good, and it didn’t taste good. The sides, a croutonless Caesar and sweet potato fries, were unremarkable at best. What kept this from scoring an “F,” you ask? The Alaskan cod, while a bit buttery, was cooked properly and had a nice lemon-pepper flavor. Scene: Stacked stone walls, flat-screen TVs and music, movie and marine memorabilia everywhere.

Bathroom break: Clean but out of soap, so maybe not so clean after all.

Tab for two: $40 with tip and tax for fried calamari ($6.95), coconut shrimp ($11.95) and Alaskan cod ($12.95).

If work weren’t buying: “Hearthrob”? More like “Heartache” for yet another restaurateur failing to break the streak of culinary catastrophes (Mahogany Run, Gonzo's) that continue to plague this Gilbert Road address.

Snotty service, lousy food leave bad taste in critic's mouth

By CHRIS PAGE
Get Out

Wait: We knew we were in for trouble Saturday afternoon when we walked into Hearthrob’s jam-packed entrance, only to hear a woman in front of us loudly complaining, “I placed a reservation a week ago for 12 people — and now you’re telling me we have to sit on the patio?!” to a startlingly indifferent hostess. Yow. We killed the 30 minutes it took to get a table for two by chatting on the chilly patio and at the busy, understaffed, understocked bar.

Service: From snotty hostesses to a crabby manager (who curtly seated us) to an inexperienced server who brought out our salads with our entrées, didn’t bring bread and took forever to bring our check, Hearthrob’s service is the worst we’ve experienced in the Valley.

What we liked: Most everything left a bad taste in our mouths. Browsing past the menu’s wince-inducingly egregious typos — which, considering the restaurant’s name is itself misspelled, is no surprise — we settled on what turned out to be a disgusting array of seafood items: Unpalatable, mushy crab cakes in a foul puddle of alfredo; overwhelmingly coconutty fried shrimp; and a slab of flavorless salmon molested by more of that damn goopy crab. We tried ordering off the unfortunately named "rockatizer" menu of appetizers during Hearthrob’s much-publicized “hungry hour” (in which all drinks and those apps are $1.99), only to be told the deal was in the bar area only. Wish they’d mentioned that before — or at least not advertised it in the dining room. Nevertheless, many of those apps come from a company called McCain Snack Foods (read: made off-site and reheated) and aren’t worth the cost. Our hot wings might have been tastier had we not found a long, dark hair stuck to one of them. “C’mon,” you say, aghast, “Hearthrob can’t be all that bad.” Seriously, the only thing we even mildly liked was the pile of sweet potato fries that came with my salmon entrée.

Scene: The joint wants to be half Hard Rock Cafe, half Red Lobster, but the effect is tacky and laughably lame. During our visit, assorted TV screens were showing a concert DVD by Neil Diamond on mute. (You ever looked at Diamond’s lyrics on closed caption? “Ah, the girl’s outta sight, yeah . . . ”) Plus we found the statues of the Blues Brothers, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley to be, more than anything, ultra-creepy.

Bathroom break: Clean and well-stocked, but drab for a theme restaurant.
Tab for two: $60 with tax and tip for coconut shrimp ($11.95), hot wings ($6.95), crab cakes ($7.95), stuffed salmon ($12.95), pecan pie ($4.35) and soft drink ($2.50).

If work weren’t buying: We couldn’t help but notice how everyone leaving Joe’s Real BBQ across the street looked so satiated and happy. For Gilbert’s first stab at a rock ’n’ roll restaurant, Hearthrob deserves to be booed off the stage.

Hearthrob Music Cafe
302 N. Gilbert Road, Gilbert

Major cross streets: Page Avenue and Gilbert Road
Hours: 11 a.m. to midnight daily
Reservations accepted: Yes, for parties of eight or more
Health report: Not available
Kid friendly? Yes
Web site: No