Restaurante Raíces — Restaurant in San Juan

I wish I could give them zero stars! We went to this restaurant twice on our trip. The first time it was a wonderful experience! Our waitress was lovely and the food was great. I ordered the fried cheese as an appetizer and I wasn’t a big fan. I ordered the ajillo chicken and mofongo and it was so delicious! And to top it off I ordered their brownie dessert that came with a brownie, Oreo cookie chunks, ice cream and the works! It was so delicious! Our experience was so good we decided to come back again. Our waitress was distracted and very rude. We asked for water like we did the previous night and this time we got bottles of water which we thought was neat different than last time. We ordered the brownie dessert for there and a meal to go. The brownie came out just the brownie and ice cream no Oreos nothing else like it did previously. Excited we took a bite only to be surprised with the taste of soapy brownies. It was so disgusting at first the waitress agreed said she tried a piece of the brownie and it was soapy then later said no one else complained of soapy brownies all day. Which then felt as though she was implying we were lying. We asked for a refund as we ordered 2 orders of the brownie and both were soapy. When the check came we we charged for water and when we asked why she said they have tap water and bottled. If you don’t specify to her she will assume you want bottled and charge you. Which is wrong as a waitress if you have these two options they should be presented to customers and them chose accordingly not the waiter making an assumption without communicating or clarifying. She then snapped and said we drank the water so she wasn’t going to do anything about that. Like mam you did not communicate well and then SERVED us soapy brownies and want to have an attitude?! We had no idea there were different water options the previous night we asked for water and there was no charge. The manager removed the brownies and the waters and rudely slapped the new receipt down. It went from a great experience to an awful one. The photos I have are of the first experience. I would not recommend this restaurant and should you choose to go be mindful of what I...

I went to Raíces in 2015 and it was delicious. I was excited to take my family and I was a bit disappointed.

Let’s start with the food: we got two mofongos and neither looked or tasted like what I got in 2015. The one in 2015 looked more like the picture in the menu with a plantain chip sticking out, had meat mixed in with the plantain and had great flavor. The ones we got this time did not have the meat mixed in, instead it was mashed plantain at the bottom and meat sitting on top, okay flavor. That’s not real mofongo. We mostly went for their mofongo, so this was disappointing. The other dishes we got were the garlic chicken (pollo Al ajillo) and the the steak with onions (bistec encebollado) we’re both incredibly delicious and flavorful. We also got the flan and the tres leche. The flan was creamy and perfectly baked, however the tres leche was a little too sweet. We ordered the alcapurrias as an appetizer and asked the waitress if they had meat (we just had ordered these at another restaurant and they had nothing inside), she assured us there’s had meat inside but they did not. It was just fried dough with a tiny shade of something brown, but honestly the taste was not distinguishable. The cold drinks, especially the piña colada was delicious. We also ordered coffee and they literally brought us half filled cups. Very strange.

On to the service. The plus, they seated us right away and came to take our order pretty quickly. However they didn’t bring us enough utensils for everyone, even after we asked, we ended up sharing, some people in our group ate with forks and others with spoons. When we ordered desserts they brought us a mix up dessert spoons and soup spoons, but again not enough for everyone in our group. When we got the coffee, we had to ask (and ask again) for spoons, sugar, and milk for the coffee. I get that we went on a day when multiple cruises had docked so maybe that’s why the service was off.

The ambience is quite lively and festive. They have great music, which was fun. I love their Christmas tree, decorated with traditional Puerto Rican food & drink items like a mini caldero and...

Terrible service. We got recommended this place by our uber driver but it was the worst place we ate at in San Juan. It was about a 30 min wait for the table. Once we got seated, we didn’t get greeted by anyone and the waiter didn’t come for around 20 minutes. Once we finally put in the order, it took an hour for the appetizer to even come out. We ordered the Kan Kan pork chop, and the waitress clearly stated it would come with two sides multiple times, and it even shows two sides on the image in the menu (see image). When the pork chop came out, it was dry, overcooked, and inedible. We had to leave most of it behind even though it was quite expensive. Plus, no one came up to us to warn us that the food would take very long, even though I noticed tables around us who ordered after us ordered the same thing and it came out much earlier than ours. Ours tasted like it was left out for a long time and it got cold. The waitress never checked up on us asking how the food was. When the bill came out, we were charged $26 for the pork chop even though the menu stated it was $24 and an extra $7 for one of the sides of even though the waitress clearly stated that two sides were free! They ended up taking off changing it to $24 but did not take off the charge for the side. It clearly showed in the menu two sides! The waitress was not understanding at all and tried to gaslight us into thinking she said only one side was free. She also said after the fact she knew it would be a long wait so she had added extra cheese to our appetizer which came off as very manipulative as she was not communicative about the wait at all while we were waiting. Overall, this place made our night terrible as our time here took up so many hours due to the...