El Meson Restaurant — Restaurant in Perth Amboy

The restaurant is hard to miss with its grand sign that can be seen 2 blocks away. If you're lucky, there is a small parking lot next to the building. If not, street parking it is.

GENERAL INFO - The restaurant has 2 sides, dine-in and take-out. The take-out section is like a cafeteria. There is no set menu. What you see is what you get. There are also no prices posted anywhere. You have to know the menu to order combos.

FOOD - They have a variety of meats. Chicken, beef, and pork prepared and cooked at least two different ways. They also have oxtails (rabo) and pig feet (patitas). They pig feet are cooked heavily in red and green peppers and onions. White rice and beans, rice and gandules, yellow rice and vegetables and black rice are daily staples. If you order meats individually, the are priced by weight, so order cautiously. The food tastes authentic to Spanish and Caribbean roots.

SERVICE - There were 5...five...cinco...people working the counter for 2 customers and they took forever. They were disorganized. We waited 10 minutes to be noticed. Once a customer leaves, they talk about them (in Spanish). But they should be cautious because looks are deceiving.

COVID PRECAUTIONS - Limited seating spaced out. Waiting to order take-out had no enforcement. People were packed inside and the line was a blur. One gentleman even walked in without a face covering. Not great on COVID safety.

OVERALL - food was good,...

Service was TRASH! one night a friend and I went in to order 45 minutes before they closed. Once in there they had most of the food put away. With very little to no real options so we decided to not order anything from there. We walked across the street to order real quick from another restaurant. Once we completed our order at that restaurant we walked back to our car and it was being towed out of their parking lot. It was Literally only about 10 minutes we had been in the other restaurant. This was definitely uncalled for. We’ve been to this place many times, food was decent but service was always poor and there was a huge language barrier. However, the towing of the car was literally so unnecessary just because we didn’t order from them that night because they had no options left. The language barrier was convenient as NO ONE knew who called the tow truck that got there within a 10 minute time frame. Weird people, weird restaurant, super unprofessional and POOR...

I would avoid this place. The waitresses do not care when one makes a complaint about their food. The response I got was other people like the way the mondongo is being done now. If the place is busy, finding a parking spot will be very hard since they have only about six parking spots. The prices are not on display therefore you may get charged different prices every time you go and by whomever is ringing your order at that time. The food is average and overpriced. I will not go back to this restaurant in the future. I will look around for another Spanish restaurant in this town that cares about the response they get from their customers and provide great service, as well as, a standardized price for the...