Pollos A La Brasa Mario — Restaurant in New York

Poor experience overall. Service: the servers were in general plain, just took the order and went away, not even bother to ask if everything was okay or if I needed something else. 3 different came to my table during my whole experience but none bother to ask. It took long that you would expect since clearly the restaurant it wasn’t even at 30% capacity, it wasn’t busy at all . It was around 3 pm on weekday. If they’re busy and running around of course you have to understand. I’d give even less stars if I could BUT I just give 2 stars because the lady at the front doing the deliveries and saying hello was so so NICE, that was the only good thing overall. She was very nice and kind from the beginning to end, but of course she’s just at the front.

Food: it wasn’t even and “okay” meal. I ordered the rotisserie chicken platter; rice was the best from everything, it came with a side of “consommé “ which should be basically a “flavour” soup or broth; not flavor at all, just taste like hot water with a lot of salt. But the worst thing was the main thing from the plate: the chicken, it was absolutely NOT FRESH, it was warm (not hot), clearly it had been sitting on the kitchen for hours for someone to eat it; it was very dark (almost burn) and extremely dry which leads to an unflavored and flat taste. Clearly reheated over and over or kept in the heat for so long. When I asked to the server about the chicken; perhaps she would sense my discomfort or ask if everything was ok, she wouldn’t bother at all or care about my experience at the restaurant and just said “this is fresh and ran away”. When ordering she wouldn’t bother to offer any drink at all so I didn’t order, less spending for me, less income for the restaurant. CONS: I’ve notice how in this restaurant they use just plastic cups for all the drinks no matter what, which is very unfriendly with the environment and create a lot of more garbage considering all we create already in NYC. To end up I asked for a container to put my leftovers and was charged in the bill, I feel I was paying even for all the plastic cups they use at the restaurant. Like this kind of things should be contemplated already in the cost of operation of the restaurant either by the owner or the manager. Like where in nyc you’re charged for a container .

Definitely not coming back or would...

my son invited me and my wife to go eat at this restaurant....we ordered and then after 40 minutes of waiting our dishes come, one by one, so my wife was almost eat half of her dish when my plate finally arrived...I ordered seafood stew because the waitress highly recommended....saying that "all the ingredients were fresh and that there were no fakes like in the Chinese restaurants"....but when I started to eat..the only good thing I found was the four clams three shrimp and the calamari..the rest was awful....the sauce taste like the one you buy from knorr or magui...and the rest was almost half a pound of fake crab meat. I cannot eat this concoction due to that, I my self I'm a chef and I felt very bad...so I ordered chicken instead....but then this one (the chicken) tasted very flat...only charcoal flavor..not even garlic in the marinate of the chicken...then my son ask me to eat from his plate..he had ordered (sobrebarriga en salsa) that is flank steak in creole sauce....the sauce taste good but the meat itself was tasteless...maybe because in some places is common to cook the meat in plain water and then reheat in the sauce when ordered....I would like to advice my colleague..the chef from that place that it would be better if he brine the meat at least 8 hours before cooking that will help a lot... and for the seafood stew please buy some lobster bodies and save all the shrimp shells and then once a week make a good lobster stock with good mirepoix and tomato paste and some good brandy....you will be surprised what you gonna get from this. I almost forgot to mention that we ordered one side dish of "guacamole" and this one also was a disappointment it taste exactly like the one you buy frozen. wit a lot o water and little taste...no flavor to jalapenos, or red onion or at least some cilantro and tabasco. and the beans....I do not understand....because my son is a good eater and I know he would never invite me if he doesn't think is great....maybe the chef was on day off or maybe we came at the wrong time when the shift is changing....anyway....I will never come back to this place. also I want to tell you that I know about the quality oriented the owners are... because I my self was working in the opening of the first "pollos Mario" some 20...

I really wanted to love this place and make it my regular. The food was good but the service ….. I was so disappointed. I ordered a pechuga a la plancha which comes with rice/beans and fries. I asked the server if it was possible to substitute the fries with yucca fries. My server said that wasn’t an issue but there would be an up charge which I was happy to pay to get the perfect meal. Now here’s where things went south, when the order comes out there’s literally TWO yucca fries on the plate. I thought it was a garnish of sorts so I asked the first server I saw if that was the yucca fries… to which another server informed me that yes this was the way they did the substitution for yucca fries which is why she advices customers against this substitution and insists customers order yucca fries as a side instead. Heartbroken, I flag my server to ask why they only sent out two fries and he explained the yuccas are more expensive. ( I laughed in caribeña but okay sure) I flagged him again and asked my server if there was a work around to this like paying for the side or like honestly why did they up charge me to give me LESS FOOD?! To which he smiled and said thats how the kitchen does it…. He leaves and the senior servers are coaching him about not letting customers substitute fries for yucca since they only get two…. I see the team huddle and flag him AGAIN! This time to ask if I could speak to manager or the chef who had to audacity to send out TWO yucca fries on my plate after up charging for the “extra cost”…. My server said the cooks could not speak to me and offered me coffee “on the house” instead?!? No solutions , no manager ….I declined the coffee , ate a bit and left…. Still confused as to why I was up charged because yuccas are more expensive yet given TWO SLIVERS OF YUCCA AS FRIES!!! So FYI DONT NOT SUB for YUCCA FRIES … the side order btw only brings 5 YUCCA FRIES just...