Ironbound - Elizabeth

Food is really good. Bartender and wait staff are great and very attentive.

Didn't have high hopes of a hotel bar and restaurant at the late hours of the night, but Ironbound proved to be an ok spot. Our waitress may have been a bit new, and so the light-hearted banter while taking our order got a little awkward. A gentleman from another area in the restaurant seemed to be helping her, which took the edge off. We had the pretzel sticks with beer cheese, which came out quickly but were luke warm. I had the shrimp tacos, and my husband had a cheesesteak. The tacos were a bit spicy but still enjoyable, heavy on the slaw. The cheesesteak was as you would expect from a restaurant not in the Philly area but still fine. All in all, it wasn't a bad dinner, but also wasn't anything to rave about. It's definitely more of a convenience spot, especially given the area and clientele passing through the hotel, but I wouldn't turn my nose up to it.

I've been here a quite a few times passing through the Newark airport area. Service is friendly and prompt. The menu changes often and the quality of the food sadly continues to decline. The minestrone tastes like progresso, the potstickers are frozen, and the wings are awful. The basmati rice bowl is loaded with salt. They used to have a Great chimichurri steak on the menu, but that went away with much of the food quality. Service is still great and friendly. It just too bad the kitchen has become such a disappointment.

Just to be clear at the outset, this is a one-star review only for Ironbound the restaurant and is not at all about the hotel Renaissance Newark Airport , where--apart from the appallingly bad and stupidly overpriced breakfast--I had a lovely experience. You know the warmed-over, dull, flavorless free breakfast buffet on offer at faded seen-better-days Quality Inns or Comfort Inns? The rubbery lukewarm potatoes? The weak-as-dishwater coffee? The eggs that were poured from a carton rather than cracked out of a shell? The whole wheat bread better used for making spitballs than for eating? The icky unripe melon chunks sorry for having to use that word ? THAT is what you get at Ironbound but... you have the privilege of paying $18 !!! for this. I 'm sorry. Yes, I know all about choked supply chains and staffing shortages and inflation surges blah blah blah. But there is no valid excuse for laying out a spread of such unadulterated dreck and then expecting guests to actually fork over cash for it. It was such a let down after spending the night in dreamland what a comfy bed! and enjoying the most invigorating early-morning shower ...wonderful, better-than-home water pressure... to end up in breakfast hell. Perhaps it was my fault? In retrospect, I might have been able to read between the lines when I entered the restaurant and the host told me it was buffet only, no a la carte ordering and then he added, sotto voce, You can take a look at the buffet first before you decide. I hadn 't understood in that moment he was being prophetic. I get that for all sorts of reasons hotel food tends to be overpriced. In and of itself, I 'm not too bothered by that. But if you insist on sticking your hands deep into my pockets, have the common decency to serve something of quality. It needn 't be in massive portions. Just make it with quality ingredients, fresh, and serve the hot food hot and the cold food cold. Is that too much to ask? After all, it 's not as if you can ditch the hotel for the corner bodega. If you 're staying at an airport hotel, you probably have no other options. Rant over.

I was stuck in the associated hotel during a blizzard. Ironbound was the only option. The food is likely not cooked in the kitchen but reheated. I ordered several times the basmati rice bowl because it was remotely plant based. It came in various presentations, veggies around the bowl, half rice half veggies. It always came out quickly. Like 5 minutes quick. That's not time to cook a meal. Thankfully they had sriracha and I dumped it on my Basmati rice bowl (no meat). That improved it.