El Viejón Seafood & Brunch — Restaurant in San Diego

Unlike the Convoy location, this location has plenty of parking and indoor seating. Your order is taken after you are seated not at the counter. Same club music. Large tv’s for sports and a nice bar. They’re just missing a dance floor to go along with the music!

Came on a Tuesday and there weren’t any Tuesday taco deals. Just happy hour Monday - Thursday 3-5pm.

We ordered:

Octopus taco - amazing. The crispy onions gave it an added crunch and generous on the octopus. Choice of spicy salsa macha or pesto. We got salsa macha, it’s like chili oil.

Queso Birria taco w consome - I like the birria taco here over Mike’s Red Taco! It’s fully loaded and flavorful! The broth was not overly salty.

Ceviche de cameron - shrimp, red onions, cilantro, tomato. This one is traditional and basic out of all with refreshing herb flavors. I prefer this ceviche over the other one.

La coqueta - cooked shrimp, octopus, red onions, cucumber, roasted pepper, cilantro. This one had all the nice assortment but it was too wet. The tostado got soggy. It also had cream cheese base that I didn’t like.

Garlic shrimp plate - came with salad, rice and beans. We substituted the beans for more salad. The salad had a hint of jalapeño dressing that gave it a kick of spicy peppers. 10 shrimps! The rice was too wet for me, I prefer dryer. It also came with a side of tortillas.

We each got the guava margarita. The guava purée tasted like the guava juice from Costco! Regardless, it was delicious. Originally, I wanted the tamarindo margarita but...

I was excited to try their brunch menu. I had a group of five. It seems like they were understaffed. There was only one waitress taking orders. We were not offered water so we had to ask for it.

I ordered a Chef’s Special Chilaquiles with red sauce. It’s a little salty but very tasty. It’s loaded with carnitas and seafood. I ordered a tiramisu latte but it’s sweet and it could have a bit more espresso. The tres de leche pancakes were ok, nothing special. One person ordered pancakes with bacon and scramble eggs on the side. They brought her eggs out first and it’s cold and dry by the time the rest of her food came out. They forgot about her bacon order. The waitress went in the kitchen and brought a side of bacon in a cup. They were dry and burned. She told the waitress about it and was offered another order. We were done eating by the time bacon came. Another person ordered black coffee and again it took a long time. When it came out, it was cold and didn’t taste fresh.

I really wanted to like this restaurant but i was disappointed. It seems like the staff needs to be trained more. I’d like to give them amount try for happy hour...

Pretty easy review to write. When a restaurant completely forgets one of your parties food and drink, even after serving the other people at the table, you have to wonder how they are still in business.

Long story short, we arrived and were seated. After ordering food drinks, drinks showed up, but mine was completely missing. No problem…it took 5 minutes to get our servers attention, but they went to get it. Food started coming out, and again, mine was missing. No one bothered to stop by to check on us, nor noticed that 2/3 of the party had food, but not me. After waiting 10 minutes, I made sure everyone else ate. Another 10 minutes passed, no contact from a server, and I got up to tell them to cancel my order. Such an embarrassment for them.

Their solution…20% off my check. Basically it paid for my very late drink. As we started walking out, they tried to say they were making my plate for me to take on the house. As if I’d want to wait around any longer for them.

We won’t be going back, and I’d recommend everyone avoid them to prevent your own...