D'Carbon River — Restaurant in Paterson

The choros a la chalaca pictured here - very good!

Disappointed to say that the quality has gone WAY down, visiting from Canada for years now I was always excited to visit this place. Two weeks ago I went twice and was disappointed in some way:

Cons Anticuchos: flavour was good but meat was tough.

Tallarines verdes: tasted like the sauce had been either burnt or cooked in a burnt pan, tasted charred, like something you'd eat off a fire grill.

Yuca a la huancaina: HUGE disappointment, twice. They are definitely skimping on the sauce ingredients. First sign, it's way too yellow. My first thought was this is going to be way too salty because if you know, hauncaina sauce requires aji amarillo, which in paste form is both spicy and salty. While unusually colourful, this sauce was BLAND and flavourless... plain white rice cooked in water with no salt would have had more flavour than this. I continue eating because I'm trying to disect this sauce. Did they use american cheese? Maybe but still no flavourful. Velveeta? Possibly, but how does it have NO FLAVOUR? I still don't know, and i went with 4 Peruvians that couldn't figure it out either. Save your money. The fried yuca alone would be just fine.

Lomo saltado exclusivo: the whole dish was doused with soy sauce to make the au jus. You don't add soy sauce to create a juicy sauce for this dish, the "au jus" is created by frying the meat in soy sauce. I guess if you like soy sauce it's cool, but this is not a true lomo saltado.

Pros Pollo a la brasa con papas: can't go wrong with fire grilled chicken and fries. this uniquely flavoured chicked is a Peruvian staple.

Aji: always tasty, always spicy

Salad: this is not a fancy extraordinary salad. it's basic BUT the salad dressing is the star here. Tangy, fresh, tart, savoury. I'd put this s**! on anything

Choros a la chalaca: mussel ceviche. Delicious! Drink the juice left on your plate at the end. This "lech de tigre" is a shame to waste. No one will judge you for slurping your plate.

Maracuya: passion fruit...

I am going to begin by saying that as a small business owner, I feel for restaurants and would support the restaurant industry when possible, especially during these trying times. I have also been a patron of this specific location for a while now and have eaten and ordered from here countless times. Now... Idk what happened to their bar, but their drinks were straight out disgusting. Which was a surprise to me, since I’ve never had that experience with their drinks before. My friend and I had gone there for dinner and drinks and we were both disappointed (straight up sweet syrup/mix and alcohol) she ordered a frozen one (it was melted and just as nasty). I didn’t touch my drink after the initial sip and stuck to water. My friend politely let our waitress know that the drink wasn’t good and that she’d like a replacement drink (waitress agreed and confirmed that it was indeed melted). Well, needless to say, that drink was just as bad! She also didn’t drink it. Service was also bad. I understand busy hours, but she barely came by our table. We had to go to the register to pay because she took too long to come to our table and when she did, she’d immediately run off before we could ask for anything else. We get out check at the register and see she charged us for all 3 drinks that we literally took one sip of. She even charged us for the replacement drink. Instead of them being apologetic or understanding, they were catty. We had to go back and forth for way too long on something that should not have been an issue. And the manager? Could care less. Very unprofessional over 3 disgusting drinks. We’ll take our business to the other very delicious and professional Peruvian restaurants...

The food is amazing but the service is very detrimental to this place. The owner of this restaurant should really reconsider hiring a new staff. Most of the time I call for pick, I am always put on hold, the waitresses are rude and depending on how answers you get different restriction as to what you can order. I was told that I wasn't able to choose the piece of chicken that I wanted. So it's basically a lottery as to what you are PURCHASING. I have dined in multiple times before and had a decent experience, except for the lack of attention from the hostess, we had to basically beg them to sit us as they do not attempt to assist you when walking in, like every other restaurant. Today was the last straw, I have been going here for a few years and have been trying to deal with the horrendous customer service because the food is great. However, today they have reached a new low. Is mind boggling to me that you call a place to order food and they blatantly tell you that you can choose what you would like to eat. Basically eat what we have as if...