La Dulce Vida — Restaurant in San Juan

Be Careful going here! Check your receipts before walking out. First off, the waiter was hella rude and never even came by to offer us a 2nd drink. We had to ask for the bill which was fine, until my Husband tried to pay. He hit “no tip” on the screen (planning to leave a cash tip of course) when the rude waiter SNATCHED the machine out of his hands, cancelled the transaction then redid it giving himself a $17.00 tip. He walked away quick without giving us a receipt. So I went up to him and demanded a receipt and he refused at first. Then once he gave it to me I asked why did he cancel the transaction and do it again himself with a tip? He denied it and said No your husband gave me that tip. We both laughed and said not true because we had just discussed giving him a cash tip a few minutes before. He got extremely nervous and took $6 out of his fanny pack and gave that to us without saying a word. I asked for the rest of the money to be returned and he said ohhh no by law its a $10 minimum tip here in puerto rico. We decided to let it go because he obviously needed the money more than us but either way its WRONG!!! Mind you, we are puerto rican so to be scammed there was appalling!

I cant even imagine how many people he’s probably...

I ordered the Mahi Mahi ceviche, and pork belly mofongo.

The ceviche was chewy, and had no "leche de tigre"... it was tasty, but well below the quality at its price point. Could use some salt, lemon, include lemon or lime wedges, and more of anything else... it just had long strips of fish and the dish felt lazy. The platano chips were good.

The mofongo was picture perfect 👌🏾 The pork belly looked perfectly fried, and the cream drizzle looked and smelled tasty... alas, there wasn't a pinch of salt in my food, and no garlic was harmed in preparing this dish. It tasted like milk because all you can taste is the cream... which tasted mostly like milk... no salt or other ingredients. The mofongo had no salt, garlic, or olive oil... it was a complete waste, but rather than comping my meal I was offered a take home box.

Listen, it's not that people shouldn't go here. What I want is for this chef to stop catering to Karen with the dentures, and cook Puerto Rican food like a Puerto Rican. Have some pride, use salt, use garlic, stop this nonsense deterioration of culture by making everything palatable to bland French bougie "ketchup is spicy" non-cultured...

Unfortunately the food was very bad. We had ordered ceviche that came in a small bowl with literally 4 pieces of shrimp and filled to top with oil. No flavor. No lemon/lime. Not cold. Came with chips from a bag. For $18. Also ordered calamari, it was extremely chewy and deep fried in a sweet pancake like batter. Not crispy at all. Also got guacamole and chips which came with the same nasty chips and a TINY bowl of guacamole that didn’t even seem fresh (it was warm). The only thing that WAS good is the passion fruit bulldog drink 22oz for $22. We spent $100 on tiny appetizers that didn’t taste good. When the waitress asked if the food was good we explained to her that we didn’t like it. All she said was “oh well we are open late so maybe come back later”. Didn’t offer a discount or to Replace our “meal”. Vibe is overall ok but I do not recommend this place. Go 2 blocks down to find...