After-work in progress

606 Congress needs some revisions to become more than a hotel restaurant

At 606 Congress, roasted lamb loin comes with pickled beets and fried leek rings. (Wiqan Ang for The Boston Globe)

Our food hasn't arrived, but already something doesn't taste right. A second bite of bread confirms it: The butter is rancid. On a recent night at 606 Congress, it isn't the only thing that's off.

Business is too. Located in the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, the restaurant is corporately handsome, with wood floorboards in alternating shades, an open kitchen, and wine bottles displayed in racks stretching to the ceiling. A few corporately handsome people are drinking in a lounge area, but very few people are eating. Servers are hanging around with little to do. Having an open kitchen is an act of confidence that may not always be warranted - when things are slow, diners are privy to gossip and goofing off, rather than showmanship and bustle.

The hotel is located in the Seaport District, a developing area termed "hot" by real estate optimists. With the right name or the right concept, one can create a scene here: Witness Drink and Sportello, Lucky's, and the Blue Wave, each happening in its own way, and for entirely different sets of people. But 606 Congress is a half-mile farther from South Station (not to mention right next to LTK Bar and Kitchen, a Legal Sea Foods offshoot). During summer concert season there's more foot traffic, but in the short, dark days of winter, the after-work crowd hustles homeward.

There's little keeping them here.

Crunchy fried oysters aren't particularly crunchy, nor particularly hot for something that's just been fried. The shellfish is flabby and served with an overly salty salad. Squash soup is floury and tastes overwhelmingly of clove, though a few nice pieces of lobster float in the bowl. The 606 clam chowder isn't anything I'd want as my signature dish. It's thick as porridge, salty as seawater, and as clam-flavored as fatback. We watch it congeal as it cools, turning a crusty yellow-ish color.

Strange but much better is a spicy miso soup with shrimp and jalapenos. The broth tastes more of mushrooms than miso, but it's flavorful, with pleasant heat. "Griff's famous Caesar salad" is a good rendition, crisp lettuce stacked with croutons and coated in creamy dressing, wide shavings of Parmesan on top. Many Caesar salads stint on anchovy flavor, but this one features plenty of salty, chewy bits of fish. The menu does not say who Griff is, and the explanation of the dish ("made the way Caesar used to order it!") isn't particularly enlightening, but I come to praise this salad, not to bury it.

Sweet, sour, and spicy meatballs have good texture; in flavor they fall somewhere between Chef Boyardee and La Choy. The standout appetizer at 606 Congress is the butter-poached lobster - tender, fresh, floating in golden butter with asparagus and tiny rounds of potatoes. It's delicious, and it shows what chef Toby Hill can do.

Potato-crusted halibut is so overdone we can't even tell it's halibut; it tastes as though someone stood over it with a salt shaker the whole time it was cooking. The lobster roll is a minor crime against the species, and local ingredients in general. 606 Congress is located just a few paces from a pier, less than a quarter of a mile from Commercial Lobster, but its roll is filled with the tiniest pieces of tough meat. Is it from claws? From tails? Hard to tell, but we suspect it was frozen.

A preparation of Nantucket Bay scallops is a major crime. The very worst thing one can do to these sweet and wonderful seasonal scallops is overcook them; these have been brutally, senselessly subjected to heat till they are unrecognizable chunks of dark brown rubber. Cooked unevenly, some are nearly burned, and others are coated in grease. In a further insult, 606 Congress makes the claim of "celebrating fresh, seasonal ingredients."

Steak is more forgiving. It's cooked closer to rare than the medium-rare requested and is a bit on the fatty side, but it's fine. It comes with "Justin's mashed potatoes." Again, no explanation of who this Justin is, but he makes a mean mashed potato. A cheddar-bacon burger, on the other hand, is cooked closer to well than medium-rare, but it's also fine. It's mysteriously served on a tiny plate that can barely contain it and the pile of fries; each time I pick it up or put it back down, a fresh wave of fries is pushed off the plate and onto the table. Pan-roasted lamb loin features slices of rosy meat with pickled beets and fried leek rings; it's delicious.

You can get Justin's mashed potatoes as a side, as well as Andrea's "high-falutin' mac 'n' cheese." It's high-falutin' because it's made with ham, peas, and truffles, though slices of truffle are few and far between. No word on Andrea's identity either. Another side, Brussels sprouts with chourico, offers great flavors, though the sprouts are a bit greasy.

For dessert, a Concord grape and peanut crumble tastes like a melted PB&J with the crusts cut off. And then the rest of the bread cut off too. The flavors are classic, but there's no texture here, just warm goo. It might be good on vanilla ice cream. An appealing malted chocolate milkshake is made with Guinness ice cream and malted milk balls; it's more chocolate malted than stout, but the Guinness lends depth.

The wine list is nicely structured, broken into flavor profiles and grapes - "light to medium whites," for example, offers a subcategory of "unoaked or lightly oaked chardonnay." Most of the bottles are in the low to middle price range. House cocktails include a well-made martini with blue cheese-stuffed olives that are wrinkled from age, and the awfully tart Cranberry Bog.

Service on several occasions was very good, though there were lapses. One night we barely touched our food on several plates; the waiter didn't inquire why. On an evening when the restaurant was particularly slow, the staff began setting up for breakfast and rearranging tables right beside us. It was early, but there was nothing else for them to do.

I suspect I ate at 606 Congress on one occasion when Hill was not in the kitchen; the food was notably better on other visits. However, part of running a restaurant is making sure it still runs when the chef is away. The food then doesn't cost any less, after all. Michael Schlow of Radius, Via Matta, and others is a consulting chef here; his photo is featured on 606 Congress's website. It might be time for him to come back in for a refresher consultation. As a hotel restaurant, 606 is passable. If management wants it to be more, there's work to be done.

Devra First can be reached at dfirst@globe.com.