El Cazador Cameron — Restaurant in North Carolina

We have been to El Cazador many times since it opened in Cameron. It was our go-to choice for Mexican cuisine near our home. We have noticed the last several visits that the food quality wasn't what we expected from previous visits. Tonight was the last visit we will be making to El Cazador. The service: So I ordered what my son gets every visit. 3 steak tacos with only cheese. The server tells me they don't do steak tacos a la carte. So I say well, he wants steak tacos, however he can get them. We order this routinely and never have had an issue. She states she will ask about it. Fast forward to the manager coming to tell me they only serve steak tacos as a combo meal. I did not understand why this was such an issue because I had already stated we would take the steak tacos however they can serve them to us. I ordered the fajita Texanas asking to replace the rice with avocado because I do not eat rice. My food comes with rice and beans and instead of quacamole salad, just had lettuce and avocado. This was frustrating but not a huge deal, I just asked her to bring guacamole. The steak was absolutely inedible. So tough you couldn't even bite into it. I expressed this to our server but said I would just eat around it.My son's tacos were made with that same steak and he was only able to eat 1.5 of the 3. He doesnt like anything but steak so it was a lose lose for him. My husband ordered the enchilada burrito with grilled chicken. His food came about 7 minutes after we had our food and it had shredded chicken, which he will not eat. The server took it back to remake it. We got it back and it wasn't rolled into a a burrito. It kind of looked like a huge taco. It appeared that they had removed the shredded chicken and replaced it with grilled chicken. At this point my husband was super upset and asked for the manager to show her the disheveled half empty burrito he was served. Her response was "it's because they didn't fold it on the ends" well we could see that lol. My husband said he didn't want it and asked for the bill. They took 50% off of our bill and when we tried to express how frustrating it was that we still had to pay 42.00 for food that wasn't prepared correctly and was hard to eat, she simply walked away from the table. I understand that everyone has a bad night but the level of service we received was really upsetting. The restaurant was not busy. There were three other tables and what appeared to be employees hanging out at the bar. I will say that my 4 year old really enjoyed his chicken...

We were excited to try this place, but we’re sadly disappointed. We chose this place as none of us had ever been and we had 5 vegetarians in our party and the menu has many vegetarian options.

The pros: the place is clean and has a friendly atmosphere. The server was friendly.

The rest: We came in as a party of 10. This can overwhelm a server but it was 2 pm on a weekday and there were very few other customers in the restaurant. I ordered the shredded chicken chile rellenos. It was just very dry shredded, unseasoned chicken breast stuffed in a Chile that was sliced down the middle, sprinkled with cheese, not battered , not fried. I had to continually poor salsa all over it to give it some moisture and flavor. It came with two sides. I chose the guacamole salad which was brownish as if oxidation was occurring, which happens within seconds to fresh avocados, so it wasn’t a surprise, I figured it would be green under the top layer, nope, all the way through. I also ordered pico de gallo salad which was just a huge pile of lettuce with about 2 tsp of pico on top. My sister order the “Vegetarian Combo RS#5 Two chiles rellenos, rice and beans” (this is from their menu”. She was served 3 chiles stuffed with beef. They took it back to remake, at which point, a woman I can only assume was the manager came by and asked what she wanted them stuffed with. (You don’t know your menu?) They brought her 3 chiles again just stuffed with spinach and sprinkled with cheese, not battered, not fried, no rice, no beans, which they then explained since they gave her the 3 that’s why they didn’t bring the sides but offered to bring them out anyway which she declined. We had to ask several times for tortillas for those that ordered fajitas.

I understand this is a new location and there are bumps that still need to be worked out. Words of advice for the owners. Google chile rellenos and either make them the correct way or eliminate them from the menu completely. Braise and season your chicken to keep it tender and flavorful. I would suggest braising whole chickens, it’s more cost effective, authentic and would help with the dryness issue. Make sure your guacamole is always fresh. Be a little more generous with the pico, seriously it’s just vegetables that are in season, not truffles. Step up your food game. You have no business charging $12 a plate for what we...

So the food here Is decent. Hi frequently order to go orders from here and while the food is good the service has continue to go downhill which seems pretty crazy I’m sure considering I’m not actually dining in, but hear me out. I called the phone number provided on their website I think five times over a 30 minute time period. No answer. I have worked in food service before so I assume they must be slammed and unable to answer the phone so I go up there to make my order. I walk in to see 1 table of two and one guy at the bar. At least for waitresses cross through made eye contact with me and never said a word while I stood at the counter. Eventually after standing there for several minutes and watching the waitresses staying in the back corner near the booth close to the kitchen talking to each other and looking at their phones, joking around and laughing. I walked up to them and said I’m trying to place a to go order, the waitress rudely responded that “the lady would be up here in a minute” so after 5 more minutes I left and I called to tell them of my experience. I wasn’t kind about how I felt. Her excuse was they are short staffed but the staff were just standing around and there was only one table so they were literally just lazy. They need to get it together.

Update: tried to give this place another try. Has anyone ever seen black al pastor? I haven’t. This was charred to a crisp and...