El Rey Del Mar - Cocina Mexicana Mariscos — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Overall disappointing. Went on a Friday during the lunch hour. Hoping to experience some of Reseda's local personalities only to find the place empty, cavernous, and dark. The staff was wonderful, friendly, and accommodating. They did a great job serving.

The menu has probably over a hundred items ranging from simple Hispanic favorites and small plates to seafood and lobster. They served complimentary tortilla chips and salsa. The chips were warm, but felt old and stale, definitely not freshly made. The salsa was also bland and tasted like store bought salsa. Nothing impressed me.

I got the shrimp tacos and was mostly disappointed by them. Normally I expect a variety of flavors in my shrimp tacos, from the seasoned shrimp, cabbage, onions and cilantro, and likely some salsa or avocado. Here the tortillas were very warm, but the shrimp didn't match the temperature and lacked noticeable seasoning. It didn't feel fresh or authentic; it could have been frozen or prepackaged. There was a lot of sauce but the shrimp or vegetables lacked exciting flavor. Even the heavy sauce felt bland and rich in mayo or ranch.

I also ordered a pollo asada burrito to go, and received a carne asada burrito instead. It was okay, but also disappointing. The carne asada felt old and overcooked and significantly lacked flavor. The beans were completely mushed and the rice didn't have any bounce or flavor to them. Overall tasted and felt like a store bought microwaved burrito.

Furthermore, regardless of having a bill that exceeded $10 they attempted to charge a $1 for using credit. No other place I have visited recently charges for credit on bills exceeding $10 and most of the time the charge is $0.30 or $0.50.

The location also serves a variety of alcohol, yet I didn't...

😡BEWARE THE FINE PRINT! Upon receiving the check, we had a $2-$3 upcharge per drink. After asking the waitress, she stated that since there was a DJ that Friday night it would be considered a "karaoke" night and proceeded to show me some dark blue print at the top that said "prices may change". Just to be clear, nobody was singing karaoke, only a DJ playing concert level music on 2 huge speakers😵‍💫 in a restaurant with a total seating area not much bigger than a studio apartment. There were no indications (or mentioned at the time of ordering) on the menu anywhere to know what the prices would be on "karaoke" nights, only 1 set of prices for everything. So theoretically, they could have charged me anything for our 2 beers and magarita. The bill also included a 4%(!) charge for cards (despite the bill being $79), and they pre-added a 15% gratuity to the total only to also suggest at the botttom to add 10%/15%/20% more! Haha, I've never seen that before for a party of 2 with a bill above $10.

Menu prices are doubled since those old pictures. I didn't bother taking new pictures, sorry.

Honestly, they only got a star because I loved their "homeade" salsa. Nothing else worth mentioning. Service was ok.

Atmosphere was so ridiculously loud for such a small location. Tvs were stupidly placed in corners where the screens were perfectly obstructed by hanging lights 🤦🏾😆

Anyway, would have probably gone back just bc it's close by, but they changed my...

I personally do love this place during the day, the food is amazing although I've never tried the margaritas or appetizers so one night I went in the night for some karaoke fun with my mom and we ordered mango margaritas and wanted to try the buffalo shrimp appetizers so when we got the food and drinks they were disgusting it did not taste like mango AT ALL it tasted like they tried making it with beer? It didn't taste right at all we had to return them they brought us back another two, the same thing whatever we thought and tried to drink them. Then came the appetizer nastiest shrimp I've ever tried, their idea of buffalo shrimp was 6 defrosted shrimp in a pool of tapatillo hot sauce. Never going there again...