Patacon Pisao — Restaurant in Florida

Food is usually very good to excellent. The Colombian empanadas with the spicy sauce are some of the best I've tasted in Miami and the delicious thin crispy plantain with the sides is their trademark dish and well worth the visit. Other dishes like the ajiaco (a Colombian stew) and the fish filet covered with coconut milk sauce are solid choices that merit repeat visits to this place. Like many other restaurants, the pandemic and manpower shortages have taken a toll on the quality of service, but everyone seems to be having those problems. The couple of servers working still manage to be friendly and get the job done under the circumstances.

So why not a 5-star rating? Well, this restaurant's gratuity policy is confusing at best and borderline deceptive at worst. I mentioned it to the manager long time ago, but the practice hasn't changed, so I assume they do it on purpose.

An 18% gratuity is added to the check and listed as a line item on the check. But, when the credit card receipt is presented to the customer, the total including tip is shown but right below it, there's a line to add a "Tip" that's not marked as "Additional Tip". If the customer doesn't pay close attention or forgets that the total already includes 18% tip, you can see how another 15% to 20% can be added to the original tip. The check and credit card receipt should clearly read "Gratuity or Service Included" and the tip line should read "Additional Tip". At the beginning, and even a couple of times when I haven't visited for a while, I've added 20% tip to their checks and no one has ever pointed it out. I can't believe that anyone there would expect a 38% tip and that's why I describe the practice as borderline deceptive. This is a great eating establishment, but owner needs to correct...

I went in for a family birthday dinner. The time i went in, there was only 2 small tables full. The only waiter working that night, sat 20th, gave the impression of being annoyed, angry and didnt want to be there. He spoke very dry. I made an rsvp for 15 ppl, bjt unfortunately most ppl were sick, so it was a party of 6. When we sat down, he gave us the menu, didnt really talk about any specialties or beer/wine selections. After we ordered the appetizer, we asked if they sold beer and wine, it was not listed on the menu. So as we asked, he said oh yes we have. It was like pulling teeth to get information, so one of the ppl said...do you have a drink menu...he replied with, we dont you just ask me. So if we didnt ask we wouldnt know the restaurant sold beer or wine. So thats not good for the restaurant to get profits either. He was not very pleasant. Then we noticed the 18% gratuity is automatically added tl the bill. The whole table thought the same...no wonder, he dowsnt have to work for his tip, he is how he is and still gets the tip. Whixh is sad to me because the restaurant is great, the food magnificent and when i spoke to Julian, he was a professional nice person. Towards the end is when he soften up a little. But it gave us all a bad impression at first and we all thought its a shame the waiter doesnt look like he cares. When we left is when the restaurant had about 4...

The food was top notch. I got a patacon with steak and chicken, and mushrooms/sauce. Its like a chicken marsala served over tostones. They gave me like 3 individual tostones, not sure why it was not all togetger as one(they didnt explain that). My partner got the soup, also a good expression.

The two stars are for the dumb waiter. When I asked him to recommend a patacon he said the mushroom one that I ordered. He asked if I wanted steak, chicken or both. I thought about it for a second and I said both. It was a good amount of food, piled up nicely under the cheese. But he also threw on a $12 charge for "extra meat". He never advised that selecting a mixture of meats would increase the price more than 50%! When confronted, he said the upcharge is the only way to get 2 meats. Thats actually untrue, right on their menu they have a "build your own" patacon where you can choose all those elements, chiicken, beef, mushrooms, sauce, cheese and even add guacamole WITHOUT raising the price over the original $22!

Adding to my list of beefs with the service, they imposed a gratuity that is quite easy to miss. I saw no mention on the menu, or the door, or anywhere except the receipt. I actually left the guy a tip before I realized that it was already in there, and had to ask for my money back. So if you do go here, watch these guys...