El Jimador Restaurant — Restaurant in Camden

First time here - just going to share the facts.

I ordered the two chilis rellenos (one stuffed with cheese and the other with ground beef) combo and a glass of water with lemon.The meal included two stuffed peppers, a side of rice, and a side of refried beans. I was also presented with a bowl of tortilla chips and a small bowl of salsa. In the process of eating, I asked for one refill on the salsa. I thought the $10 cost was fair. It was kind of hard to understand my server (couldn't understand when he said his name, but the check said Roberto), as I don't think he spoke very good English. I tried to ask if the refried beans contained vegetable oil or lard - it's either or at most most Mexican restaurants - but I don't think he understood what I was trying to say. If he does speak good English, then perhaps he's just not a very good communicator.

It didn't take very long to receive the food - maybe six or seven minutes. The plate was extremely hot, which I was warned about and I prefer it that way so the food stays warm as long as possible. The rice and beans were warm, but unfortunately the inside of the peppers were not. Both were kind of cool - almost like they were prepared ahead of time and thrown in a microwave to heat up, which apparently wasn't long enough, as the inside cheese wasn't even melted. The taste was so so - as I have had better. The rice was ok and pretty average tasting, as were the beans. I personally thought the taste of the salsa was excellent, and the chips were okay, but I thought they were slightly less crunchy than they should have been.

The check came to $11.30 with tax. I gave Roberto a $20 and he brought back $8 - $0.70 short of what I should have gotten back. I was already planning to leave $2 and the $0.70 change that I should have gotten, so I didn't make a big deal of him shorting me almost a dollar. Either he really doesn't know the language and the cash system very well, or he was trying to scam me. I think probably the former. It's definitely something management should look into though, as nobody wants to be shorted. I also thought it was strange when I gave him the $20 that he asked if I needed any change back. Something's not quite right for somebody to think that they were going to get almost a $9 tip on a $10 sale.

Anyway, OVERALL I enjoyed the lunch but things could have been better all around. Hopefully management will see this review and make decisions...

First time eating here and will never be back. Service was horrendous. Waitress did not want to give us time to look over the menu, even though we told her it was our first time there.

My husband's order came out wrong (was given steak tacos instead of the chorizo he asked for) and when we mentioned the mistake (by simply saying we received steak and asked for chorizo) she got a bad attitude and pulled out her little notepad. She literally said " well, I wrote it down as asada, so you're going to have to pay for both plates if you want chorizo!" He slid the plate towards her and said " no, I won't be doing that but you can take this back and try again." She stormed off to some guy behind the bar stating that we refused to pay for both plates and after a couple minutes of a back and forth with the guy, she came back, took the plate and said she would fix it.

Once the correct order was given, she vanished for the rest of the evening. No checking on us, no drink refills, nothing. She only came back with the check 10minutes after the bus boy had already cleared our table and we were simply just left waiting.

Having a mishap with a order happens, it's honestly not a huge deal because it can be corrected and most servers at most places are pleasant if/when it does happen and we rarely complain, but her attitude was terrible and trying to get us to pay for her mistake was not okay. We assume she wrote down "asada" because on the menu they are called "Mexican street asada tacos" but with options to get chorizo, chicken, carnitas, etc... a simple mistake that I am sure any server could make but to say we had to pay for it because that's what she wrote is beyond me and the lack of service overall was very poor.

As for the food itself. It was okay. Sadly the chorizo wasn't good. It wasn't a ground sausage type meat like we are use to. It was more like chopped up pork strips with some seasoning thrown on and was very stringy/fatty and hard to eat. The grilled vegetables and seafood that I ordered was delicious but the rice was very soggy. My daughter loves her burrito. Overall, I just feel the food was not worth the bad service and we can find better of...

Asked my boyfriend what he wanted to do for his birthday he said let's try the newer El Jimador in Camden. I wish we would've never gone. Our excitement was short lived. Asked (in a whisper as to not alert said boyfriend) if they celebrate birthdays, she said huh really loud then proceeded to restate what I whispered out loud so he could hear, "yes we celebrate birthdays" she stated. Okay minor red flag number one. But before this we waited forever to be asked what we wanted for drinks. We were served stale chips. We finished the salsa (which is a very small dish) while waiting for our drinks. Were never offered more salsa. Food came, the waiter (male) said he had to go back for the rice. Our waitress finally comes to check on us and we ask for the missing rice. Which we had to bring to her attention she overcharged us for twice. She would not come check on us for anything. She had other tables yes, but I guess because they were familiar faces she paid more attention to the regulars. It was not a busy night. None of the tables in the restaurant were having any of the staff rub back and forth for anything. I would have really liked if whatever birthday celebration they do for customers would've happened. Or had my drink refilled. Or offered dessert. Or been offered any sort of service at all. This was a terrible first impression of a beautiful restaurant. There was no excuses given. We are good tippers for people of our age because we understand what it's like to work in the service industry. It was painful not leaving a tip tonight. But the management needs to have a team huddle or something because it looks like most reviews are based on the lack of care they are giving paid customers. We would come back for drinks or maybe just drive further away to another El Jimador. Birthday was sad enough anyway without the piss poor experience tonight. Save yourself $80 for two people and go to a smaller scale...