El Poquito — Restaurant in Philadelphia

So.This was our second time.We went back because we liked it,even though it's a bit overpriced in our opinion. Either way, it all started when we came in.When asked for seating preference we mentioned outside, but inside is ok if there's a wait.While my husband took our 2boys to the bathroom i was seated in the very back of the restaurant (there were other tables available, i didnt complain as i figured being away from all the noise from the bar is probably a good thing).And so it begins, no waitress, no rest of my family.After about 10mins the waitress comes apologizing for her late arrival, she didnt see me.there in the back because it's so dark.Ok, while i appreciate the apology, why in the world wouldnt the hostess let you know!? Still waiting for my family, where are they you might wonder. Well, so did i. Unfortunately, i left my.phone home so i couldnt call my husband. While i was waiting, my husband was asking the hostess where i was seated. She said she has no clue, suggesting i hadnt arrived yet.Seriously!?From what ive seen we were the only ones with 2 kids. I mentioned to her, she asked as well, that there are 2 kids in the party, not 4 adults. So putting 1&1 together didnt seem to be her strength. Maybe she was thrown off by him being black and me.being white.Who knows. Not even the worst part. The worst part, and from a.service standpoint completely unacceptable, my husband and 2 kids had to circle.the restaurant (inside and outside area)themselves to find me! Which they didnt at first, since i was all the way in the back. Once they arrived he asked me.why we are not sitting outside. I explained that the above-and-beyond waitress told me there are no tables.for 4 available.at this point (my son was happy when we walked by because he saw a free table.outside) AND there was a waitlist. Another lady confirmed that. I must add that the hostess did go outside to check. Well, not sure what she checked because my husband pointed out that when he was searching for me.he saw.a table.or 2 unoccupied. I reminded him that there IS a waitlist afterall (there were no people in front of us when we walked in, but they might.ve been randomly standing outside,who knows), he showed me a table that has been unoccupied since we came in. Ok, not sure what is going on at this point, but i was determined not to let that put a damper on our dinner experience. Well, the guac came out superfast. That was a plus, after we were done with the guac a party of 2 was seated at one of the 3 unoccupied tables outside, a table for 2 was available. Not the smartest Or most economical way to fill your restaurant, but thats not my concern. My concern was that after another 20mins has passed still no food. We asked the waitress, that btw happily served and checked on every other table but ours, where our food is. She offered to check in the kitchen. Another 8mins pass, no update, nothing. Food was brought out, my son is asleep by now. We ask for the manager. After another 8mins we ask someone else for the manager...after about 12mins total he comes to our table. 12Mins! I explain everything and while he was very nice about it and didnt charge us for anything i was a bit taken back by the excuses for the outside table situation. It was because we were at the tailend of their busiest hr...so, making up a waitlist, unoccupied tables and seating 2 people at a 4 people table is the tailend of your busiest hr!? Ok, whatever. Who am i to argue. He wraps up our food, the waitress brings the bag to our table, puts it on the table the most passive aggressive way one could do without getting in trouble, and says nothing.NOTHING.NADA.maybe a bullshit "im sorry this was an unpleasant experience for you" or just a simple bullshit "im sorry", but nope. She didnt find it necessary.needless to say we wont eat that food,for all i know.she messed with it,the way she acted.i cant express what a painfully unprofessional service we experienced. If store-bought chips&an ok guac along with $22 enchiladas(3) is what you're looking for, look no further.This...

I went to dinner at El Poquito on May 5th with a group of friends from out of town. Yes, of course, on cinco de mayo we wanted Mexican food and made reservations well in advance. We took an Uber ride 20 minutes to Chestnut Hill and quickly were told our reservation had been made for a party of 2 vs. the party of 5 that we were. This easily could have been an oversight on my boyfriends end, who made the reservation a few days before; but no attempt was made on the hostess end to accommodate us. They told us it would be atleast a 2 hour wait for a table inside, or we could put our name on a list for outside which was still a bit of a wait. We grabbed drinks at the bar and passed the time until an outside table became available. That's when the real issue began.

Our server, whose name was Ruth, came out and asked us if we had any questions. When a friend asked how a meal was prepared and served, she sarcastically responded "on a plate." We laughed because we thought it was a cute joke, little did we know this is the attitude we would be met with the entire night.

We put our food order in, and that's when the waiting game began. Our guacamole came our surprisingly fast, but when we ran out of chips it took forever to flag our waitress down. 50 minutes passed before the one couple we were with got the salad they ordered. When we asked the waitress about our other meals, she stated this round (AKA just the salad) was considered an appetizer and they just fired off round 2 in the kitchen. Mind you, this was an hour of sitting outside and it was starting to rain. After an hour and a half went by, I got up and went to the host stand to tell the man who sat us we still hadn't gotten our meal. He said he would look into it. Our waitress at this point was legitimately ignoring us, and all of our water glasses were empty. We noticed all the tables around us had gotten their food, and they had been sat after us. We asked our waitress again where our food was, and she told us it would be coming out shortly. Finally our food arrived, without any apology from anyone about the delay. At this point, it was raining pretty hard and the meal was rather unenjoyable because of the terrible customer service experience.

I asked to speak with the manger, named Dee, who came over and did apologize (the first one we got all night) and just explained it was just very busy and they were unprepared for the amount of people that came in that night. She took our check and removed $16 from our bill (note that our bill was over $150 dollars), and said she hoped to see us again.

Our waitress came by to collect our payment for the cards, still not apologizing. She said she hoped we "enjoyed the fake holiday" and that was the last we saw of her.

To say the least, we will certainly not be going back and will share this story with our friends and family and discourage them from going to this restaurant. In all honesty, we understand it was a very busy night for a Mexican restaurant but we felt the situation could have been handled much differently. Sometimes a simple apology does...

I think the chef or owner needs this:

Salt is a white crystalline substance that gives seawater its characteristic taste and is used for seasoning or preserving food.

My experience at El Poquito can only be described as an exercise in deceit. You won't find decent Mexican food here.

Let's start with the positives: The waitress was excellent. Polite, funny and generally a great server.

The desert was also fantastic. We had a tres leches which honestly beats most of the tres leches we've had in the city. I would return to this restaurant just for the tres leches. This was honestly surprising considering the state of the rest of the food served to us in this restaurant.

The ambiance was nice. Looked decent and comfortable. It has this generic rustic vibe that's common in chic wannabe contemporary restaurants. It's not a bad look and I enjoy it but it's nothing that I would call Mexican inspired or unique in any shape or form.

Now the cons: Literally everything else.

The food was bland; like devoid of all taste bland. We needed to basically season everything ourselves to approach something that resembled real Mexican food, although to be honest with you I doubt we ever actually got there. We asked for salt and additional things to add do our dishes to be able to season it to appropriate levels. Oh and when we asked for hot sauce we got an abominable sauce that wasn't hot or anything any person who enjoys hot or sauce would ever use on their dishes; that was shameful. It doesn't seem like anything here was authentic or reached a flavor profile that would satisfy any Latinos or Mexicans. After I ate and was exiting I scanned the restaurant and I didn't scope out anyone that seemed of Latin decent. That explains a lot.. This seems to be a restaurant by people who haven't even tasted Mexican food, but read about it in travel blogs.

The service aside from the main waitress was annoying. They kept looking over at our table pressuring us to leave when we were at our table for less than an hour. There's a difference between being attentive and being pushy and those people crossed it. Literally every 2 to 5 minutes someone would pop into the room to look at our table or ask us if we were done when we clearly had half our food still on our plates. We all looked visibly annoyed and they continued to do it. Take a hint, read the room, check in sure but don't act like they're unwelcome.

Final verdict: just go to a place with authentic Mexican food cooked by Mexican people. There are dozens of restaurants like that. Machetes is excellent, to name one. Anywhere but here, honestly.

On the bright side, you will never get indigestion at El Poquito since they don't season their food... Something to...