Machu Picchu Restaurant - Pineville — Restaurant in Pineville

I am peruvian, I live in South Carolina and I traveled more than 2 hours to NC this afternoon to eat some peruvian food at this restaurant to celebrate the new year, remembering my days in Perú. The place and decoration were very pretty, service was great.. but FOOD was not good at all. I ordered POLLO A LA BRASA plate, LECHE DE TIGRE and CHICHARRÓN DE CALAMAR appetizers. The pollo a la brasa was very plain, it seemed like if it had been frozen for too many days and did not taste like pollo a la brasa, which has a particular flavor different than the ways chicken is cooked here in the US. Then, my LECHE DE TIGRE was very salty and the lemon or lime juice on it had so much ginger that it changed the taste completely!! I couldn't keep eating it and I LOVE LIME JUICE! Peruvian Cebiche and leche de tigre are made basically with lime juice and NEVER with ginger, they did not let me know they made it with it in this restaurant. So I asked them to make it without ginger and not too salty and they said it was going to change the taste (why? Do not know), so I asked them just to squeeze some limes on it. When they brought it back to me with no salt IT WAS SO SOUR that it was very hard for me to eat it, and I repeat I LOVE SOUR FOOD and lime juice, but this was too much! I put salt on it but it was still too sour, I couldn't finish it, so of course it seemed to me that they did not put real lime juice on it, I think they put CITRIC ACID instead and that's why it had no taste and was too sour. Finally, chicharrón de calamar was not bad and it is very common in peruvian restaurants to eat it with a special sauce called TÁRTARA, which is made with mayonaise, chopped scallions and onions, a little bit of lime juice, salt and black pepper, I love to eat my fried calamari with this sauce, well the one they brought was SWEET and tasted very bad. My dad and his friend ordered SECO CON FREJOLES and PARIHUELA, we paid $100 for all the plates and none of them were worth it the money or the almost 3 hour driving. I am not trying to make this restaurant look bad, but I think this could be the best way for them to consider suggestions from a native peruvian. Maybe a lot of people love their food and the rest of the plates are good (I only tried 3 of the whole menu). I am definitely going to say it, I don't know if the chef was peruvian but what I ate today was not authentic peruvian food. I really hope you can review this and like I said, I'm not trying to be mean but if I'm not the first person who said this, maybe you will need to change some ingredients and the way you...

VERY DISHONEST PEOPLE WORKING HERE. MESSED MY ORDER UP TWICE AND TRIED TO CHARGE ME A HIGHER PRICE ON SOMETHING I DIDNT ORDER. THEN AFTER WAITER HEATED THE PAPER BILL TO BLACK OUT HER NAME AND DIDNT GIVE ME THE CUSTOMER RECEIPT COPY, TRIED TO BE FUNNY BY SAYING THANKS FOR THE REVIEW BECAUSE SHE SEEN ME TYPING ON MY PHONE. I WASNT LEAVING A REVIEW, BUT IM LEAVING ONE NOW.

🌑 Walked in restaurant a little before 9pm. No smile or welcome. Just looked at me as if i was in the wrong place. It seemed as if the waiter had a problem with me from the beginning. I came here just for the Whole Fish Red Snapper. Even showed the waiter the picture on their page. I asked what does it come with? She said rice even tho it doesn't say rice in the description. Then she offered beans instead of the salad.

My order came out, it was a Fried Fish Filet, not Red Snapper. They other waiter took it back to the kitchen and placed my order again. I even told her Red Snapper with the fried plantain and yellow rice and beans that the first waiter offered. I waited patiently for them just to bring me out a Mojarra Frita, Not a Red Snapper as I requested. I said this is not red snapper. I said forget it, i will just eat it. But it wasnt even good. I just boxed it up.

When the bill comes, Im being charged higher for the Pescado Filet in which i didnt order and giving all these excuses about yellow rice and beans.... when they messed my order up twice. Then the waiter had the nerve to get upset and get smart with me saying Thanks for the review, assuming i was typing a review at that time.

One thing i regret is actually tipping her when they wanted to charge me more even after the inconvenience. Why they couldn't get the order right twice when the place is empty and we both are speaking the same language?

And again, the Bill was heated to block...

This place was a disappointment. I visited with family for Mother's Day and the experience was definitely underwhelming and we really wished we had gone somewhere else.

First for food, the flavor was decent but it's so overpriced. I ordered a Jalea, and for $20+ I expected a great Jalea... instead got a few small pieces of fish and some pieces of Yuca. They gave me fried fish strips and called it Jalea. I could've gotten a MUCH better serving of fried fish at Showmars for $8

For service, this was plain terrible. They seated us and never brought over any menus, we kept waiting and no server was paying any attention. We had to get up and ask them for menus. Then we kept waiting and waiting for someone to come over and take our order... they didnt, we had to get up and ask them to come take our order.

For atmosphere, the location itself was a normal decent restaurant. However, they had a live singer singing to music tracks. The music was SO loud we couldn't have a conversation because we had to keep screaming over the music. It was so loud, we had to wait in between songs to get a word in. I know live music is great, but it can be great without be ridiculously loud. Also,the singer would go to each table and sang an entiiiire song. It felt like he wouldn't leave unless you gave him a tip, if felt so uncomfortable, like when someone comes up to you on the road asking for money and they're just looking at you in your car... same experience. We even said thank you and gestured with a smile during the first couple of verses to acknowledge him... but then he just stayed singing. About midway through the song we gave him a tip, hoping that would cue him to go to the next table but he stayed there singing the whole thing....