Latin Bites Restaurant & Food Trucks — Restaurant in Manalapan Township

I really want to give them a better rating but they seriously need to order additional staff. One server who disappears into the kitchen constantly (I can only assume she is helping in kitchen as well) We had a party of 6. It took 20 minutes before our orders were taken. Appetizers came out individually rather than all together. Drink orders were not fulfilled. Server had to come back out and ask what my main dish order was as she claimed she forgot to write it down. Than after serving all but one of us. She told us what we ordered on the menu didnt exist. I could only assume the gentlemen who sits at the table and does nothing is the owner. His only concern seems to be what is on his laptop

After 3 of the 6 orders were wrong and I asked to speak to the manager.Turns out the manager is also the cook. Who made excuse after excuse that it was the servers first day. It wasnt the servers fault the food was prepared wrong

I can not recommend this restaurant to anyone. Food is either overcooked or ice cold

This is in response to the owners comments. At no time did I address the server directly. I asked her to get the manager. Her first response was the manager was in the kitchen and too busy to speak. At which point i addressed her to either get the manager out of the kitchen or we were leaving. If this was my first bad experience in the restaurant i would have written it off as a bad day. But we had tried the restaurant once before on a recommendation, we had the same experience.

The mofongo bites are listed as beef. They came out with bacon. When we addressed the cook/manager she said it was recently changed but the menu has not been updated. What if a customer has an allergy to a certain food product? Do you understand the ramifications of a mislabeled menu?

If you knew a you were shorthanded a server, Do you not have other staff you could have called in for the day?. We watched 2 other sets of customers arrive, sit down after 20 minutes of being ignored get up an leave.

Rather than admit your faults, you choose to defend the restaurants shortcomings by saying we were bad customers. That shows just what type of establishment you are running

Let me add it was my wife's birthday dinner which was...

To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. Finding Puerto Rican food /cuban food in our area is nearly impossible. It’s been years since I have stopped in so I decided to look it up. While the reviews are poor I decided to still place an order as I felt the dishes we were ordering were easy enough that not much could go wrong. Well boy was I wrong.

I placed the order online so easy peasy. We ordered two wepa platters off the lunch menu. I ordered the stewed chicken and flank steak both with white rice and for sauce mojo. Arrived a couple minutes after the site stated it would be ready and walked in. Older man sitting right to the left so I said hi I’m here to pick up an order because no one was at the front walk up area. He ignored me, continued on the phone. Walked to the front waited a couple mins and realized there was a bag just sitting to the side under a door dash sign. Had my name, ticket showed the order I placed so I took it. He never once acknowledged me.

Got back to my office to open up to a platter of pernil (pork) and no chicken. Unfortunately there would be no time to run back during my lunch so I called to address the issue. The person who answered (lady) seemed confused why I was calling although I told her twice that the food was not what i ordered. After a couple mins of back and forth she suddenly says “no speak English”. Oh wow cool because I can speak Spanish so let’s. She continued to insist that she gave me the correct order and then finally admitted that she gave the pork instead of the chicken by accident. Listen mistakes happen but take accountability. Additionally the place looks run down, the man sitting there is rude and to try and back out of your mistake by claiming to not speak English is insane. Perhaps she shouldn’t be the one answering the phone if that’s the case.

Move on to what we got. The food was mediocre at best. No mojo to be found on anything. The pork was dry from what my coworker said as he switched with me and the flank steak which is the ropa vieja had very little seasoning. The best thing in the platter was the maduros. Save yourself the disappointment and drive into freehold for some Mexican or up into Perth amboy for some real...

Simply HORRIBLE! dining experience. My husband, sister and I had the misfortune of dining at the Latin Bites Restaurant in Manalapan on Thursday, August 11,2022. Restaurant had no air conditioning, only ceiling fan and floor oscillating fan. We were the only ones there. The young man who waited on us had no people skills. He took meal order but failed to ask what we wanted to drink. I noticed a beverage refrigerator so I got up and got 2 bottles of water (thinking we could get coffee later) I had to ask for a glass. He brought 1 plastic cup. Now to the worse (adding insult to injury) The food (which I would not feed to a dog) When the waiter brought the food, I had to ask him for the silverware. After placing the plates on the table he brought 3 wrapped disposable packs containing fork, knife and fork with a small napkin. I had to ask for more napkins. The bacalaitos (cod fish fritters) looked like flat small pancakes, oozing grease and burned. (So disappointed since I have had bacalaitos in P.R. which were super delicious ). We should have, at that point, paid for the water and greasy bacalaitos and walked out. The bistec empanizado was burned, dry and hard as shoe leather. The tostones were tasteless and hard. The arroz con gandules lacked flavor, it appeared to have been reheated too many times. The Piccadillo was also dry and lacked full flavor. The pollo Al ajillo was fair, at least it was not dry nor burned. Overall, it appears that the left over food from the food trucks are recycled to the brick and mortar restaurant. Advise to management-stick to your food truck business. Don’t reheat/refry food to sell in a restaurant. Also, teach your staff/servers to greet and attend to your customers in a polite, attentive manner. A smile doesn’t cost anything. “Food makes people happy.” Not at Latin Bites in Manalapan, N.J. P.S. We know our food since my sister and I are from P.R. and my husband is Cuban. Being new to the area we were hoping to find a good P.R./Cuban restaurant. Guess if not eating at home will have to venture to North Jersey...