El Rey Sol Restaurant — Restaurant in Ensenada

TL;DR - Terrible service, food quality, coffee quality, and alcohol proportions. Don’t bother coming for breakfast.

Full review: For starters this place is not a French restaurant during breakfast hours. They’re just traditional Mexican food for breakfast with half decent French pastries.

Next, getting a table is an unwelcoming process dealing with sour staff that have no pride in their work. Not what I’d expect from a 4.9 rated restaurant with nearly 2k reviews. Be prepared to stand around until you lose your patience and interrupt someone pretending to look distracted.

For context, I called on Saturday before coming in on Sunday and was told “breakfast ends at 12, but today we extended it till 1”. Now logically, at 12 PM, both lunch and breakfast would be available but not here. This will be implied later.

So we arrive, check in at 11:30 AM, and get a table about 12 PM. A very young waiter working the cafe stand took our drinks orders for a party of 6. We asked for 6 waters, 5 mimosas, 3 coffees, and 1 Bloody Mary - the kid stops us and says “let me check we’re still serving Bloody Mary’s”. So we think “cool they’re transitioning into lunch, totally understandable” - and for whatever reason the kid isn’t writing anything down… of course he forgets the water and coffee.

So we look at the breakfast menu, and not too jazzed about it being mostly local style cuisine, and we look at the super impressive lunch menu and we all decided to order some extremely well described French food.

So we wait. And wait. And wait. And about 20 minutes later some mimosas show up, mostly orange juice.

Still no water, or coffee. And no waiter has come by to ask if we want food either……

Another 10 minutes later he finally comes by and asks what we’d like and we try to order lunch - only to be told at 12:30 PM - lunch isn’t being served until 2 pm!

So we force ourselves to figure out what we want for breakfast and lo and behold, waiter avoids us for another 30 minutes. When he finally comes by we say “Look this person is in the restroom but we’re all ready to order. Can you come back as soon as she’s back?” - the person returns to the table and no waiter for another 15 minutes.

So we order breakfast and a pitcher of sangria. Still no coffee lol. One of us spilled a drink, which we asked them to clean up twice. It took two more times to get a single napkin from them, and the river of mimosa just sat there with us.

Desperate to snack on something, we attempted to order pastries by leaving our table and standing in line at the counter. The attendant ignored us for at least 5 minutes. We finally order 3 pastries, 1 of which was incorrect when they were eventually delivered to the table. We just accepted it anyway.

And if you’re sensing a theme here you’re correct, another 40 minutes goes by and sangria then food start to come out. Sangria first, was, and I mean this sincerely - completely non alcoholic. The breakfast was completely dry, the eggs inedible and flavorless - almost like wet dog. The eggs Benedict stale and sauce far too thick, and again flavorless.

Literally none of us ate our food but 3 or 4 bites. One of us actually wept from hunger, it took so long to receive our salty, sad entrées with no tortillas. 3 hours to still be hungry.

Now you might think “didn’t the waiter check in with you and ask how your food was?” - hahahaha no.

“Didn’t the waiter ask why nobody ate their food?” - hahahahhahaha absolutely not.

We paid our bill and left for another restaurant which was the complete opposite in every single way.

Avoid a catastrophe and steer...

To The Owner Of El Rey Sol My name is Mario Tom . I'm the Friend of Julio . He live in Endenada more than 20 years. he also is the loyal Customer for more than 20 year in El Rey Sol rest . on the date Aug 10 2014 Sunday Night . Me and Julio go to your Rest for Dinner , we very happy the Appetite of Pate . Real French Crusine . The Best . and the seafood Cream soup is very rich and favor . we love all the food and the service . the waitter is very nice . very time when I back to Ensenada I must go to El Rey Sol to Enjoy my favorite . when we order the drink . one of the new guy come over the service us and we never see him before , and he said his name is Carlo . the new manager of El Rey Sol . than we order a cocktail mix drink . he bring 2 kind of bottle of volka . one is Bacardi . the other one is Matusalam . we never try matusalam before . than we order 2 mix coctail MOJITO with Matusalam . taste is very good . he very happy the drink . we total order 5 mix cocktail MOJITO and 2 straight Matusalem . we enjoy the drink and our favor food . we ask the Manager Mr Carlo how much it cost for the bottle of MATUSALAM .if we want to order a bottle. he say is $2500 peso a bottle . when we finish the dinner and when we got the bill . Mr Carlo give us the bill is 5 mix cocktail drink and 2 staight drink total is $250 peso per drink x 14 = $3500 peso . we ask him we only drink 7 drink why you charge 14 drink ? He told us the cocktail mix drink is give us a Double .that's why he charge us 14 drink . That is very exspensive cocktail mix drink a never drink in my life . that mean $500 peso per drink = $40 dollar per one cocktail mix drink with ice and soda of MOJITO . that is very very Exspensive cocktail mix drink in MEXICO . that price is higher than Las Vegas 7 star Paris Hotel or any Casino in Las Vegas . we made a phone call and ask some bar and talk to them about theprice of mix drink . they say the reg price of Cocktail mix drink is $75 to $90 peso if double is arround $120-$160 peso per drink . and that day we feel very bad mood and very Sad about this . for friendship good customer over 20 year for the good rest of my flavorie . they give me the feeling is try to rob the Customer money . the service is the worse in Ensenada Mexico . I don't think we will come back again ! if they try to ROB like this .Eye withness in this case .El REY SOL Rest all waitor and some Chef and cashier and some customer of that night they all see that happen ! we ask Mr Carlo we want talk to the Owner . and He said the owner not here now , He is in San Diego ... so we learn the lession . when you try to order anything . please ASK the price before order .or you have to pay the exspensive price . don't let happen in that time and will be too late and...

My mom & grandma speak French. My mom studied in France. This was excellent French food accompanied with great service and chateau ambiance.

1. Canard a l’orange was traditional and delicious, sauce was tart and vibrant, potatoes and orange slices matched well. Large portion of duck breast meat and the skin was crispy as if broiled with a torch. Other places I’ve tried they didn’t make the skin crispy. My girlfriend tried duck for the first time and loved it. Thank you for that! She’s a keeper because she’s not shy with trying new foods.

2. fettuccine Alfredo was the best I’ve ever had. Surprised a French restaurant makes it better than Italian restaurants. It was made from scratch and you can taste the multiple cheeses that make the sauce.

3. Rack of lamb. Her first time trying lamb/borrego and she likes it. You, reader, you know how difficult it is to get first timers to like lamb. It’s because they made it will, traditional French rack of lamb is the best way to cook it.

4. the flan caramel was not French traditional, it had queso in it, you can taste it but that’s because of the influence of the location. It’s just a preference thing, having made flan caramel myself with just eggs, vanilla, water and sugar. Great flan.

5. the chicken cordon blue couldn’t be a winner because all the other dishes outshined it. Plus she doesn’t like ham.

Next time we’re in Ensenada this is...