El Camino — Restaurant in Ottawa

The drinks, the food, the service were all outstanding. We had the betel leaf prawns, spicy chicken and crispy fish tacos, all delicious. El-Camino is our favourite restaurant for date night and now, we love the market location even more. Keep up the great food! The upper portion of this review was submitted 3 years ago. My wife and I have just recently re-visited El Camino, on Clarence after their lockdown due to covid. The service level has increased significantly. However, so has the prices but this is understandable when you take a look at the increase in food prices. With being closed for so long they will need to make up for lost revenue and adjust for the food prices. But the food has it usual great taste and the service was outstanding. The service staff have adopted an unified approach to waiting on the customers. This has proven to be an innovated 💡 bold move by the management. The service staff has also made it their goal to stop and converse with the customer to try and develop a connection during the meal lending a feeling of caring about their customers during the meal which makes the meal more enjoyable. Therfore, although the prices have gone up you are still getting additional service attention that was not there prior to the pandemic. We had our favourite to try and keep this review consistent with my previous review having the betel leaves 🍃 prawn, along with the fish 🌮 taco. The construction of the betel leaf prawns was not as precise but the taste was non the less very delicious. However, we found the fish taco increase in size and made for a full meal on its own. As far as value for price it is still worth the visit given the increase in service and their attention to making your evening more enjoyable. My initial rating was a 5 star but my rating this time around has dropped to 4 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 . Simply because of the increase in price for your meal. But this is still worth the visit I am a huge fan and would recommend a visit by anyone. I would also recommend the betel leaf prawns as a must order off the menu. El Camino has shown an innovative spirit with regards to their service approach. 👋...

I typically visit the Elgin St. location and never had a problem there. Food, drinks, and service is great. On the pricer side for tacos and drinks but I don’t mind to spend it once and a while. The Byward location however, really needs to improve on service. Waited 10 minutes once seated a at a dirty table until someone came by to clean the table and give a menu. Drinks took so long to arrive it showed up the same time as the tacos. During the summer the waitress who took the order mentioned the corn on the cob starter special which I gladly added on when putting in the taco and drink order yet the corn never arrived. Finished my drink and tacos, still waited and no corn. The waitress that had taken the ordered was never seen or was checked up by her again. Had to grab another server nearby just get the bill, and yet was still charged for the corn that never showed up. When I asked for it to be taken off my bill and explained that it had never arrived even after I finished my food and drinks, the server I had grabbed to get the bill suddenly couldn’t easily take it off and had to bring the manager by to do so. The manager took me by surprise as when I explained the situation to him that the corn never came, he seemed to have an attitude about not taking it off and tried to make excuses for the kitchen before I had to state I’m not paying for something that never showed up to my table (the corn on the cob was $8, I don’t understand why there was that much attitude and hesitation from the manager to take it off my bill). Overall, an awful experience at the Byward location. If I’m ever going back to El Camino it will strictly just be the Elgin...

El Camino came very highly recommended so I was excited to try it. Unfortunately, the experience was disappointing due to slow service, missing parts of our order and a rude server.

First, there were hiccups with the booking system once we put our name down for a table. Not a big deal though, and the hostess was so wonderful. Once seated, it took a while for a server to approach us and when she finally did, I almost wish she hadn't! I know the job is tough, but this person seemed to wish she was anywhere but here. Rolling her eyes, no smile or friendly greeting, didn't give her name, hardly looked us in the eyes when we spoke. It was very uncomfortable. We ordered 4 margaritas for the table, which took a very long time to arrive. We reviewed the menu for what seemed like forever, and no one came back to take our order. I finally flagged the hostess down to ask a question about one item, which she answered cheerfully (honestly thank goodness for her or this would be a 1 star review). Hostess must have told the server to come back to our table, and it was the same bad attitude. It took a very long time for our food to come out. As mentioned, there was 4 of us - but when the food came out, only three orders came. Mine was nowhere to be seen, and we couldn't get the server to come back to ask about it. Luckily one of my dinner mates' order had two tacos, so we shared. We saw a different staff member walk by and asked for our bill so we could just leave. That person sent our server back over with the bill - my original order wasn't even listed so I'm guessing it was missed altogether. We left hungry and disappointed. The taco I got to taste was...