Don Pepe Peruvian I — Restaurant in Jamesburg

Recently, my wife and I had a delightful dining experience at this restaurant. Our waitress, Val, was incredibly friendly. She even suggested a wine that perfectly complemented our meal. The green mussels as a starter were a tasty choice.

While waiting for our main course, my wife enjoyed a house cocktail (whose name escapes me) that she found not only delicious but also visually appealing. We opted for the skirt steak Lomo Saltado and shrimp in garlic sauce - both dishes were generously portioned and visually appealing. Everything was exceptionally good, and we thoroughly enjoyed our selections.

Val's attentive service was a highlight of the evening. She consistently checked on us to ensure everything was to our satisfaction. Although there was no visible manager or host, the atmosphere was pleasant, and the restaurant's aesthetics added to the overall experience.

It's worth noting that other staff members, including another waiter and a bartender, were equally friendly and efficient. However, there was no sign of a busser or host, and we observed Val and the other waiter multitasking to greet tables and clear plates.

In the background, we noticed a person making calls who might have been the manager, which was weird in my opinion, these waiters were busy and he was just on his phone instead of helping his workers. Despite this, the absence of a traditional managerial presence did not detract from our positive experience.

All in all, the restaurant provided a fantastic meal, a pleasant ambiance, and outstanding service. We're already looking forward to returning.

UPDATE: We came there again and it was a sad experience. The waitress, a blond girl, seemed lost, I requested to be served by Val again and the blond girl didn’t even answer me! But putting that aside, she could hardly understand me and never checked on us. Im pretty sad about that and just adding this so the manager can do something about it, because I saw she serving another table and brought an OPEN wine bottle, they need to re-train her ASAP. It will be such a shame if they give a customer this kind of experience. We will come back another day, just adding this because we had a great time...

We found this restaurant two years ago and were taken a back at the quality and size of their meals. It became our favorite go to place every few months. We didn't want to wear out our taste for the food as we have with the few restaurants worth eating at in our neighborhood.

The first few times, we loved every meal we tried. But over the last six months or so, the food has taken a dive in taste and quality.

We order a BBQ player with T-Bone, sausage, chicken, heart, tripe and pork chops. It was some meal that lasted a few days in our fridge. As well as their fried rice.

A mountain of fried rice and your desired meats. The fish was great too. But something changed.

We ordered the other day and as I thought the last time, their T-Bone is actually a Chuck steak. Pounded thin. Don't get me wing it was tender and delicious and yes there is a bone that can kind of look like a T, but it's a Chuck steak.

I didn't mind the few times I ordered it because it was tender but the last few times three steak was tough, gritty and tired.

As well as the steak, most of the times they are out of numbers items in their menu. If you don't want to make it, leave it off your menu.

The last two times we went, we said we'd never go back, but this, our last time, will undoubtedly be our last time.

Don't waste your time, they think everyone is a fool and they can do a steak switch and get away with it. Well if it was delicious, it can be overlooked, but once I'm chewing on shoe leather, it's no longer work it.

It's too bad too, because it was a great place. Nothing to look at, in fact it was dreary and needed a complete makeover. But that is ok to overlook when the food was as good as it once was.

Maybe I'll try in another six months to see if they get a new chef and learn to speak English. Yes, it's a Latin restaurant, but this should have one worker who speaks English. They have no problem when it comes to the bill, but any other time, it's a struggle to communicate.

Give it a shot if you want to roll the dice. Personally I know...

( constructive criticism)

I've been a customer of Don Pepe since before they moved to their new location, and I can say that my experience was always good, but today wasn't that day.

When we arrived, no one greeted us, so we walked in and sat down. A female server walked to our table, said HI, and handed us the menus. Then, she walked away. After a couple of minutes, she came and took our drink order. We had to ask the server to please take our appetizer order as well.

After taking our oder and our appetizer arriving we never so the female server again a nice gentleman came and took over the table with a great attitude and a more detailed service he was attentive and made sure we had everything we needed unfortunately so did the flys to the point where we couldn't eat our food at the restaurant and decided to take everything to go.

Advice for management and owners, this restaurant needs better cleaning and maintenance (bathroom). As a customer, I was very upset because my date did not enjoy the experience due to the magnitude of flies roaming our table and food.

Will come back in the future to give it another chance, the food is still very good But i would recomend to just order to go and avoid...