El Senorio Peruano is located in 1127 N.E. 163rd Street, North Miami Beach. When we arrived, our tiny hurricane Mia was sound asleep after an exhausting day at the beach. Unknown to us, this would turn out to be a huge blessing.
We met up with the Lluberes family and sat ourselves in an almost empty restaurant. Normally this can be a bad sign, but it was around 3pm, so the lunch rush could have gone and obviously it was too early for dinner. I saw they had a ceviche that I really liked in the menu, but since nobody was willing to share with me, we all decided to get the anticuchos, which is basically a kabob made out of meat which has been marinated in a chili paste overnight. So an order of anticuchos and a pitcher of chicha, a corn based drink, was made and we waited, and waited...and then waited some more. Now, I am not the impatient kind at all, my husband may disagree, I can understand an order taking long because its a busy day. But again, it was an almost empty restaurant! There must have been two other tables (TOPS) who were being serviced!
The food and drinks finally arrived and it was very good. The chicha was refreshing and sweet and the anticuchos were seasoned and grilled so that they were juicy and very tasty. Alfredo also ordered some fried yuccas with Huancaina sauce, which is a cheese based sauce, and also no complaints there. I appropriated the corn, claiming that it would be for Mia when she woke up. It was a blatant lie, I ate that up, shamelessly denying my poor hubby of any taste.
We put in our orders for the main course (we Peruvians eat ALOT) and I shared a Jalea, a plate of fried seafood, with Silvia, Alfredo got a Lomo Saltado and Carlitos a Fish and salad. Now, this is probably my own pet peeve, but I HATE it when restaurants bring the food separately. It puts everyone in a bad position, the person who got the plate first is hungry, but wants to be polite and wait for everyone to get their plate...but really who wants to wait and then eat a cold plate of food? Well, they brought in Carlitos' food first, we told him to eat while we...waited....
Finally our food arrived, and Mia woke up on cue. Had our tiny hurricane been awake the entire time, we would have had a horrible time with a hungry, bored and irritated toddler. But the food was there and she ate up, shrimp, scallops, fish, calamari all perfectly fried to golden perfection served with yucca fries and a onion/cilantro/lime sauce on top. YUM.
I asked for some tartar sauce, and our waitress actually looked at me blankly and asked Carlitos (to whom she had brought some tartar sauce earlier) "Was your tartar sauce OK?" why? was it supposed to be bad? whatever the reason of her question, it was just awkward. We also asked for another pitcher of chicha and she said that there was no more.
Gluttons for punishment that we are, we decided (actually, it was Silvia and I) to get dessert and got some Picarones which are basically Peruvian doughnuts. Again, very good. Somewhere between the food and dessert Mia needed to use the restroom, which was located in the back of the restaurant and was not very clean.
While we had a great time with Team Lluberes (we always do) it was just a shame that a restaurant with such good food had such poor customer service. I really wouldn't go back there because of this. I can cook Peruvian food at home, if I'm going out to a restaurant what I am expecting is a certain attention that I can't get at home, and unfortunately for us, this time such attention was not given to our table.
Regardless, the company rocked and we made plans to see the Lluberes again, over a plate of food of course!
Pros: Good food
Cons: Poor service, slow, bathrooms were not clean
No comments:
Post a Comment