El Jardín — Restaurant in California

My family and I had spent 2 days in Miwuk village. We stayed at a cute little hotel in town. With not many options and a trip to a " Diamond Jims steakhouse" turning out to be a bar, we searched the web. El jardin with great reviews sounded like a highly recommend place. Voted "best" .We drove about 25 minutes from the hotel in the snow. The town was cute the restaurant had a romantic feel. The lights the snow. It looked picture perfect. Then we were meet with rude servers at the door arguing about where to seat us. I mentioned it was our first time in the restaurant we were excited. Nothing..... We were given chips and salsa no napkins no silverware with 3 kids .....the salsa tasted like it came from a tin can with diced cilantro and onions thrown in. Not good. :( So we ordered bean dip. I think they forgot because we had to remind our server we hadn't gotten it. I have a 3 year old daughter that loves chile rellenos. We ordered our food. My daughter was asking the whole time for her rellenos. After a long day in the snow everyone was famished. After abiur 20 minutes....The server brought everyone else food and said "ooh sorry we don't have rellenos we can make something else really fast for you " I sat there shocked. Then confused about why am I being told now. When my family is ready to eat. I of course didn't make them wait but my daughter and I had nothing to eat:(. Epic fail. I've worked in the restaurant industry for almost 20 years. That's something you tell a table when you put your order in and the cook tells you were out. How many people ignored that? Where was the manager. The server left me there with a broken hearted 3 year old watching her brothers ear. She was so dissapointed. The server turned her back on us and said well im going to take this tables order. Seriously El Jardin in awful I would never return. I ordered steak fajitas hoping they'd heat the skillet throw meat on it and I never got that either. My on asked for green sauce they forgot that too. Disappointed we left I nor my daughter had anything more than awful salsa and chips. I will never return to any El jardin Ever!!!! Ruined our family dinner. Ignored my daughter. Awful food,and again where was the manager. The management should be more aware of...

I hate to give 1 Star Reviews, so 2 will have to suffice. Definitely overpriced for the quality and experience. Twain Harte was having their Summer Arts & Wine festival and it seems this restaurant was anything but prepared. An entire section (near the bathrooms) was closed off with no service being offered. The festival itself had one booth selling burgers, sausage and the likes and thus other options were needed. So by default, people sought out food locations. Also, our food seems to take ages as well. Reading other reviews, that seems to be a common complaint - prolonged time for the food to be prepared and served. The lady in the crochet black dress who yes, was busy greeting and placing names on the wait list and appeared to also be taking orders, was anything but hospitable. In fact, I witnessed some people leaving and overheard them citing her brusqueness. Our "10 minute" quoted wait time was easily tripled that - 30min for a table of 4. We watched a least 2 tables get sat prior to our party and I know our name was higher on the wait list. The complimentary house chips & salsa, eh. The cabbage was better tasting than the salsa. The red wine sangria, skip. I was able to drink my glass solely because I squeezed 2 orange slices and 2 lime slices. Essentially it was dry (not sweet like noted on the menu) red wine with little additional flavor. So the self-squeezed fruit juices was absolutely needed! My sister got the most definitely overpriced Torta ($12) with steak. The steak lacked flavor, tenderness, and was akin to shoe leather. I got the Burrito Grande and I know my brother-in-law got a burrito as well, unsure which, - both burritos very dry. Thankfully, I was able to get some red sauce (enchilada) which helped. The steak in my burrito was also shoe leather. In all, we were there for almost 2 hours. Not a place I plan on ever returning to. Oh, and we witnessed a young busboy hand scoop, sans gloves, chips into a basket and wipe his hands on his apron. Multiple times. No deli sheets, no gloves, and no scoops used. And within plain view of the entryway and front porch. Not the most...

This would be 0 stars if possible, except for their service staff. If you're looking for Mexican food, this is not it! I don't understand how they are even in business! Ordered their Chicken Mole Poblano, I've had it at one of their other locations... this one was absolute trash! Then ordered 2 asada tacos because you can't possibly screw those up, wrong! They had absolutely NO seasoning, not even salt! I had my husband try it because I thought that maybe my taste buds were off. Then he offered me some of his food (Tres Favoritos), so I tried his shrimp, which were suppose to be "Rancheros" and tasted like the sauce was basically diluted ketchup with slices of onion. Do not waste your time, money, or calories! Seriously, at that point just go to Taco Bell, which by the way is definitely not referred to as "mexican food" in our home, but is definitely a better option than this place. I will say this, our waitress really tried to be accommodating and even removed both dishes from our tab and only charged us for my husband's food. We asked her not to do that, but she did, so we compensated...