El Cristo Restaurant — Restaurant in Miami

My husband and I were on a cruise that made a stop in Miami for the day on January 23, 2018. I had done some research prior to the visit for El Cristo Restaurant and went based on the reviews. When we got off the ship we headed straight to Called 8 and walked around, eventually making our lunch stop at El Cristo Restaurant. When we first came in we were told to choose a seat and they would be with us shortly. We chose a seat and waited a little and were then greeted by a waitress who had to be told by another waitress to come to our table to take our drink order. The restaurant at that point wasn't busy so we figured she had just missed us sitting there or didn't know that we were assigned to her. I won't bother to go on service because the service this waitress provided was not good.

My main concern here is what happened with our meal. My husband does not digest pork well, he hasn't had pork in years because when he does eat it, he gets really ill. He pointed at the menu and ordered BISTEC (STEAK) en Cazuela, clearly stated on the menu as steak under the beef section with white rice and black beans. The waitress came back to the table to double check that we ordered the steak in cazuela. When she brought the order out, I asked the waitress in Spanish, IS THIS STEAK? she said yes. I cook and can clearly see its not steak and asked her again, are you sure this is steak because it looked pale like chuleta (porkchop), she reassured me it was steak and my husband began to eat his meal. A few bites in my husband tells me this is not steak, the texture is different and it had a bone, and that we need to ask again. At that point i wait, and wait and wait, the waitress NEVER came back to us to even check to see how the food was or if we needed more beverages etc. I then decided to get up and walk over to another waitress to bring us more water and when she came to fill up our glasses I asked that waitress, is this steak? at first she said NO then she say my husbands reaction (you would be upset too wouldn't you?) then she said well the steak doesn't have bones, we then told her "there ARE BONES right there" and pointed them out. She then takes the plate and says she will ask the chef. UNACCEPTABLE, how can this mistake have been made we asked 3 times. They told us that they were making a steak order and bringing out shortly. We told that we didn't want a new order we just want the check so we could leave. Another woman who I believe was a manager came to the table and apologized, she stated that they would not charge us for the entire meal, which any other person would have taken up that offer but I told her to charge me everything we had consumed because we just wanted to leave that we were not there for a free meal. As we are waiting for the check another waitress comes out with the plate of steak that we had already said we didn't want. She said we can pack it to go and you can eat at home because its free. We told her that we were on a ship and unable to heat up the food even if we wanted it, we stated we just wanted the check so we could be on our. Our actual waitress finally came up to our table and apologized saying that she was new and got confused when punching in the order on the computer. The manager then said she just needs better training, we paid what we consumed and left.

Here is my final thoughts and advice to all: I understand that people are new and that need to be trained, however this is not just a simple oops i pressed the wrong button. My husband got very ill over this and we were unable to enjoy the last 3 days of our cruise due to him being ill. Please be sure to double check your meal and if you think its not correct, please send it back because clearly the staff here is not trained to tell the difference between pork and steak.

I am just glad it didn't turn out worse for my husband and he was able to see a doctor once when he arrived home back in NY to help him but the experience was definitely not a...

TLDR - Sleazy tactics used to trick tourists into ordering food they don't want. Avoid this place and find somewhere else to experience the food in Little Havana. Before you read anything else, know that I am a restaurant industry worker and have been for over 20 years. I know how hard it is to run restaurants, work in restaurants, and to take care of customers inside of any restaurant. I am extremely patient because of this experience. I am likely more forgiving than the average consumer. Took a family vacation to the Keys and then made our way back up to Miami. The first thing we had to do in Miami was go to Little Havana. We wanted nothing more than an authentic Cuban sandwich. When we got to Little Havana, we stumbled on El Cristo. We went up to read the menu and were greeted by what seemed like a super friendly staff. I quickly looked at reviews online and it seemed like a good fit for us. I wish I had dug a little deeper into the Google reviews - it would have saved us a LOT of grief and money. Everything started out normal. We ordered a couple of beers and said we needed time to look at the menu. The waiter (who is mentioned in these reviews A LOT....Juan Carlos) asked if we would like still or sparkling water. Like a normal person, we wanted regular tap water. Juan Carlos failed to mention that our still water was a $5 glass bottle of water. It's not the price at all; it's the principal of the matter. Let people know in advance if you are charging for this. You are misleading tourists on purpose. If that were the only issue, this would have been a fine dinner. Juan Carlos came back with the beers and the $5 bottle of water. He asked if we wanted an appetizer. My wife ordered an appetizer but halfway through her sentence, he cut her off and began to talk about the daily specials. Weird but fine. He rattled off a better "special" appetizer that's not on the menu. At that point, he completely disregarded what we wanted and HE decided what we wanted for an appetizer. We did not know it at the time, but that's what was happening. Anyway, he then went on about a steak dinner special and how we have to try the steak (ribeye steak....of which we had ZERO intention of ordering).

A few minutes pass and I start thinking more and more about the interaction with the appetizer. I decided to get up and check with Juan Carlos about what we ordered. We wanted the appetizer on the menu. I confirmed with him that we wanted the appetizer we ordered and not the special he suggested. This threw him into a bit of a fit. He goes into the kitchen to tell the cook. I understand quite a bit of spanish, and what he said was not pleasant. That's when everything changed. After about 10 minutes, the food we ordered came out. Juan Carlos, because we did not order what he suggested, threw our plates on the table. He threw the appetizer plate down and did not say a word. We were obviously waiting to order the main course but he started walking away. I grabbed his attention and said we are ready to order. He said, "ok" and look extremely annoyed. We ordered Cuban sandwiches. We literally went here to get Cuban sandwiches. Juan Carlos did not like the fact that we did not order $50 ribeye steaks and hastily grabbed our menus and huffed away with out a word. We waited about 15 minutes for the food. That's 100% fine - but the waiter did not check on us one time during that period. Beyond that, we were one of TWO tables in the entire place. The sandwiches came out. He slammed them on the table and gave us what I would call a sewing thimble's worth of ketchup for 2 orders of fries. We only ordered 1 order of fries, but I was not trying to be petty at this point. Before he stormed off, we asked for 2 extra plates.....continued...

BEWARE OF OVER PRICING

I went here last night 8/3. What caught our attention and made us stop was their $5 mojitos.

Got served by a guy that has a small earing and is part of the LGBQT which there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, however I say this bc i forgot the guys name and this experience revolves around him.

We asked for a suggestion and he immediately suggested the 4 most expensive plates on the entire menu. $100, $80, $70 & $60. Yes they were all shareable plates, but he didn't even bother to explain anything else. Also there was no pricing on those 4 plates on the menu. Anyway, I ended up getting a Ropa Vieja ($18) and my buddy went with the Churrasco ($24)

THE GOOD: When the food finally came out, needless to say it was pretty dam good! The ropa vieja was delicious and it was plenty along with the moro rice. My buddies churrasco was also very tasty however it was a bit small, but whatever. The flavor was still good.

THE BAD: The mojitos were a complete waste of money. They tasted like absolute water. So that was $10 down the drain. Now when the bill came out, my buddy noticed he was charged $27 for the churrasco instead of the clearly priced $24 on the menu. When my buddy questioned it to the server, he just nonchalantly said "oh I forgot to mention that it's not $24 it's actually $27, and continued to proceed with taking payment. Then I questioned it, and said.." wait a minute so you're going to charge $27? And he said, yeah I'm sorry I forgot to say it was a different price. Then that had me questioning my cost. So I asked to look at the menu again and you can tell the server was getting upset and then he begins to say, "we'll I can discount it to $24 if you want, but it's really $27“ I told the server, yes it's $24 on the menu!

Long story short, the server was kinda pissed off that he had to put $3 out of his own tip to pay us back. The reason this is shady is bc there is already an 18% gratuity included.

Moral of the story to this shiesty establishment is, don't sell watered down drinks to get people in the door, then over charge them for food. You can scam tourist with your tourist trap, but not us...